I picked up Rage on launch day. And for the first couple of hours I was having a great time. It is a gorgeous looking game. The shooting feels great as does the driving. I’ve enjoyed traversing the wasteland and killing mutants. And I loved every moment I get to listen to John Goodman tell me what to do. But I’m starting to become frustrated with the game more and more. Play sessions are often punctuated by me screaming obscenities and fighting the urge to throw my controller though the screen. The reason for all this anger is a combination of the combat scenarios and the save system.
At this point in the game I have acquired a pretty large arsenal along with multiple ammo types for each weapon. This creates a puzzle-like gameplay experience when facing multiple types of enemies at the same time. For a while it’s been manageable matching each weapon and ammo combination for the various mutants and bandits I’ve encountered. But it has become more frustrating as more enemy types are introduced. I am now finding myself overwhelmed when being attacked by assault rifle toting soldiers rolling between cover, club wielding mutants charging me from all sides, and snipers far off in the distance all at once.
Fortunately the game has a defibrillator mechanic that allows me to come back from being downed during combat. but, it has a limited number of uses before it needs to recharge. After that I have to restart if I get dropped again. This happens a lot. Most of the time I’m being killed instantly by an enemy I can’t even see. And I wouldn’t mind so much if Rage had a normal check point system, but it doesn’t. It has no checkpoints.
The only time Rage saves is when I transition from the wasteland to another area or vice versa. I have to manually save from the start menu any other time. I’ve been playing games since the early 90s. I’m not new to this concept. But, I’ve been playing console games for over ten years now and that mentality has been forced out of me. I just assume that the game I’m playing is going to periodically save throughout the level. And Rage is going to fuck with that assumption until I learn my lesson and save every 2 minutes.
I lost 90 Minutes of progress today and ended up rage quitting (pun intended) and taking a walk around the neighborhood to calm down. I think I may need to take a break from this game before I have a heart attack.
