14 DAY TRIAL // The big push at Bethesda seemed to be for the upcoming The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim but the company was also showing a lot of love for RAGE, the game that well known developer id Software has developed for a long while using their all new game engine.
I managed to take a look at the game last year at the Gamescom event in Germany and came away impressed by what I saw and this time around I was able to get my hands on a controller and actually play RAGE.
Again I was very much impressed by the graphics that it delivers and the way it tries to stick to the core values of the shooter.
The playable demo that was on show at the Bethesda stand at the E3 2011 event was set in the same space as the hands off demo I previously saw and allowed the player to experience a large number of weapons and accessories that RAGE delivers against a set of well designed enemies.
All the spaces I saw looked impressive, from the outside views of a big canyon and a post apocalyptic city to the corridors where I battled hordes of enemies, and the character models and the textures also looked very crisp and lively, with the development team at id Software actually managing to make the world colorful despite the post apocalypse setting.
The gunplay was also deeply satisfying and a lot of that is linked to the enemies, who are smart enough to move around, seek cover, backtrack when overwhelmed and try to flank the player, making battles a lot more than the shooting gallery that modern first person shooters have delivered lately.
It’s a very enjoyable and exciting first person shooter that has great visuals and a lot of style but it remains to be seen whether RAGE, which has been under development for quite some time, can steal the thunder of other shooters like Battlefield 3 from DICE and EA or the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.