I’ve seen previews in magazines, and screenshots, and I’ve only thought of Rage as a Fallout 3 clone. Well, thankfully my preconceptions have been proved wrong, as I was lucky enough to enter Bethesda’s appointment-only booth.
From what I’ve seen, there are similarities between Rage and Fallout 3, as they both have an expansive desert over-world. In Rage, you will enter towns that are full of NPCs with which to interact, and sometimes play mini-games. We were told that towns may even change the NPCs, quests, and mini-games that are available, as opposed to Fallout 3’s town areas which mostly stayed the same throughout your journey.
Rage seems to have a wide variety of weapons that you’d expect, but one interesting item was some type of flying blade that was great at decapitating enemies. The game has item-crafting just like Fallout 3, but you won’t need a work bench, so you can create items anytime you want as long as you have the right items. Some of the items included a turret, a controllable rc car with a bomb attached, a small spider-robot with a mounted gun, and there seemed to be hints of small flying crafts as well. Vehicles and racing missions will also be available.
What I was most impressed about though, was that ID is crafting the levels of the game; the levels didn’t seem like they were put together “lego block” style, like Elder Scrolls IV; instead, there are plenty of scripted events, and each piece of the game feels like it has been hand-crafted. For example, there was a group of crazy mutants that had their own underground tunnel system that they had taken over, and as we went further in, gradually there was more blood and bodies, until finally there was a larger room with a well filled to the brim with bodies; and the levels all really seemed to tell their own story; and were almost characters themselves. In addition to this, great attention to detail has been applied to the characters, as you will see them with armor and weapons that look like they were scrapped together with available resources; one mutant used part of a tire as armor for his forearm, and the weapons mostly looked like they had gone through multiple repairs.
The demo ended with a humongous (we’re talking around four stories tall here) mutant boss, but faded to black before we were able to see the fight. Look forward to Rage, because it definitely is not what you’re expecting if you think it’s simply a Fallout 3 clone.
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