Animations

There’s a lot going on in RAGE and let me say right now, these are some of the best animations in a game. From when you get a new weapon and the character checks it, showing it off and seeing how the heft is, to the places you visit packed with people and objects, most of them animated in some way/shape or form. RAGE truly delivers solid animation. But there’s one place where RAGE shines above all and that’s the combat animations, those are tied into the AI and basically when the bad guys are hit, they know it, they know where and they react to it. So there are no canned death animations that repeat time and time again.

If a bad guy dies in RAGE, they can do so with physics, animation and AI all bound into one euphoric moment. It’s not Euphoria Animation, but it works just as well. To see a bandit clutch their shoulder and then stagger off in retreat, or come stumbling at you only to drop at your feet is something else.

Physics

There are some great explosive physics in the game, there is weight to the weapons...the shotun causes weaker enemies to fly backwards if you get a nice shot on their midriff, or it can literally knock someone off their feet. Then you have the vehicle physics which are all different depending on what you drive, what you have upgraded and what the surface you’re driving on is composed of. So the physics are pretty solid and the combat physics doubly so.

AI

It’s rare to see AI that knows it’s injured, has mental states and various personalities. RAGE has all that and more, RAGE’s AI often knows how to get around the environment and it can duck, roll, dodge and use cover really well. It can coordinate tactics and flank you, it can use grenades with precision and depending on armaments it can really make for some absolutely exhilarating shooting action. There are a few times where the vehicle AI went a little awry and the bandits just crashed into a wall or something, but I like to think of that as the fact they were awed by the two rockets that just smoked their best buddy and they panicked.

Sound

A game like RAGE is defined by its atmosphere, and audio is just as important as graphics to the creation of an environment like this. RAGE’s sound palette is a truly impressive thing – from the Wasteland sounds, to the sounds of the settlements and the various weapons, vehicles and everything else in the game, it never puts a foot wrong and there are subtle cues to your vehicles health that you can pick up on when the music fades back and you can listen to that v10 engine roar, with a slow sputter and a sound of an axle grinding.

Music

RAGE’s music is excellent, it’s evocative and composer Rod Abernethy has done a bang up job with the soundscape of the whole thing. It is deeply sad in the opening cut-scene and then through the game it becomes more and more militant as locations change. When you’re in a place like Wellspring, it has a very Wild West twang to it and it reminds me of Firefly, Starcraft 2 and of course Red Dead Redemption. So, yeah, the music is excellent.

Voice Work

A game like RAGE lives or dies with the voice cast and id Software has assembled quite a cast for this one. There are the likes of Nolan North (of course), Claudia Black seems to have taken a role or two here as well. Then you have John Goodman as Dan Hagar. Everyone puts in 100% and the voice work is sterling...it’s solid and it is extremely well recorded.