Michal Ždanský It's been almost three months since we met you informed about the upcoming game for iPhone and iPad from John Carmack, the founder Id Software (Doom, Quake) in collaboration with Bethesda (Elder's Scroll, Fallout 3). At the time, Carmack stated that a demo of the upcoming game would be released by the end of the year. He kept his promise and Rage arrived on the App Store yesterday.
I have to disappoint those who expected a full-fledged game right from the start. The game itself is to be released next year, and the action you can see on the iPhone is just a kind of prequel to it. After all, a similar technological demo was also released some time ago Epic under the title Epic Citadel. Compared to the competitor's Technology Demo, the team led by John Carmack went about it a little differently and instead of a virtual walk created an interesting game in a less traditional concept.
Rage: Mutant Bash TV is a kind of television show for the inhabitants of a post-apocalyptic world, where they can watch you fight your way through hordes of mutants to an objective. Although Rage is supposed to be an FPS genre, one of the basic elements you won't find in it is free movement.
If you've ever played the series Time Crisis, your thoughts will be bogged down with this very series that resembles Rage the most. The script takes care of all the walking for you, all you have to do is aim, shoot and dodge.
In practice, it looks like the game will move you to a certain place where you can move the camera to a limited extent, and at the same moment that your "steps" stop, several enemies will rush at you. You won't find many of their types here, there are those who throw stones at you from afar, others will rush at you with two knives or some kind of stick. You could count the total number of enemies on the fingers of one hand.
The choice of weapons is even more modest. You have a choice of either a pistol, a shotgun, or a submachine gun. Outside of pistols, you have a limited number of ammo and will need to collect them around the area, as facing several enemies towering over you with a pistol with a not very large magazine will quickly result in your death. After all, it's hard to defend yourself with the dodge button from two attacking mutants with a pair of knives in their hands, while the other two are throwing whatever they have at hand at you from afar.
The goal, of course, is to reach the end of the level in good health and record the highest possible score. Its increase is probably the only motivation for repeated playing here, because you will probably repeat very soon. Rage contains only 3 levels.
As for the controls, many of you will find it very comfortable. You can aim both with a gyroscope, the behavior of which can be adjusted to your maximum comfort, and with a virtual joystick. The rest of the controls are just virtual buttons on the sides of the screen. The graphic side of the game fully met expectations, as you can see in the attached pictures.
I don't know if I should recommend Rage as a game in the end because it's not really a full game. On the other hand, you will enjoy more action and fun in it than in the competing graphic ode Epic Citadel. Rage: Mutant Bash TV is the vanguard of upcoming iOS games, and if you want to get a peek under the hood of mobile gaming's future, be sure to download it. Anyway, at this point I can tell you with certainty that we are in for a real gaming harvest next year.
The game is available in two versions on the App Store, with the cheaper one being for older devices and not including HD graphics. So if you've decided to buy Rage, prepare 0,79 MB (!) of space on your device in addition to the 1,59 euro/750 euro. And then size doesn't matter...
iTunes Link - 0,79 €/1.59€
Well, it depends on the size in each case ;) but I wouldn't see 700MB as a big problem. The new NFS has about 400MB or more, that's 4 tracks, about 8 police cars to unlock and the career is 4×5 level or something like that :) Otherwise The Settlers has around 600MB ;) We have to get used to the fact that 640kbytes really won't be enough everyone :)
In principle, the game is a Railshooter, so it's not an FPS game :)