Just about thirty minutes into Rage, the new genre bending shooter for id and Bethesda, you'll gain access to the Wingstick. A typical boomerang style distance weapon, the Wingstick hits its mark more often than not, and when it does, it's extremely satisfying, but when it misses, it does so crashing quickly to the ground with a loud thud. The Wingstick then, is symbolic of the entire Rage experience -- when it works, it's a quality satisfying shooter, but when it doesn't, it's clear just how disappointing the experience really is.

Rage picks up from a rather familiar feeling place, you emerge from an underground vault years after an asteroid strike has wiped out life as we now know it. As you exit the vault, you take a few seconds to adjust your eyes to the blaring sun, but then you're blindsided by an unknown attacker. Your life is saved by a local sharpshooter, who explains that survivors like you are a rare find, and thus asks you a favor. Much like other Bethesda projects, you'll spend the majority of your time traveling from town to town performing jobs and favors for locals in exchange for weapons, items and of course, to progress the story.

As a shooter, Rage is more than competent, it's downright great; but would you expect anything less from id software, the developers of Doom and Quake? The weapons are deeply satisfying (if not conventional), especially later in the game. Each weapon has a valid sense of weight to it, and things get even more interesting when you start to experiment with different ammo types, like those that add extra damage, or include an exploding electrical shock to them. Perhaps most satisfying is the way you'll deal your damage in Rage. Enemies animate incredibly well, and will crawl to you unless you put them out of their misery.

"...it's by no means an open world environment."

The true allure of Rage though wasn't that it was a competent shooter, it was that it was a competent open world shooter, and this aspect, Rage fails to deliver. Yes, the wasteland of Rage is an expansive one, but it's by no means an open world environment. The debris of the wasteland creates a clear pathway that turns the game into an almost corridor like shooter, similar to Quake or Doom. Does this take away from the experience? It's debatable, but it's definitely disappointing. Rage was supposed to bend the rules of the shooter genre, but it merely masks them in an effort to seem fresh.

Similar games. Obviously, the first game anyone will draw comparisons to is Bethesda's own Fallout series. While both feature similar themes, Fallout is easily the deeper of the two games. Rage lets you collect weapons, different ammo, and armor to change your character, but it doesn't allow you to customize your character's gender, build, appearance or skills; it's merely a paint by numbers shooter that seems to try to emulate those that came before it. Perhaps the most disappointing aspect is that there's no competitive first person shooter multiplayer mode, where id made its mark so many years ago.

"...features an impressively fun vehicular combat aspect..."

But shooting is only part of the Rage experience as the game also features an impressively fun vehicular combat aspect that truly makes up for some of the game's lesser aspects. It's here where the game seems to deliver on most of its promises as you'll drive in customized buggies throughout the wasteland. This mode becomes even more fun when taking it online against others and their customized buggies.

Truly the most impressive aspect of Rage is just how phenomenal it all looks. It's hard not to marvel at the game's seemingly ongoing environments, all rendered incredibly well. The entire game has an almost Borderlands style cartoonish look to it, and everything is well defined and looks great. Besides a few instances of grainy textures and fuzzy visuals, Rage truly pushes what modern machines can do.

Rage is a quality shooter that hits its mark most of the time, it's just disappointing that after all of the hype and all of the delays, it plays things so safe. Just when the game really starts to gain momentum, it starts to feel stale, and then abruptly ends. id has always been dependable for quality shooters -- they just can't all be that innovative.