A new clip from id Software’s upcoming post-apocalyptic shooter/racing game RAGE examines the game’s violent arsenal and the people responsible for the carnage.
This latest look at id Software’s RAGE should be of particular interest to fans of the firm’s first-person shooter heritage. It focuses entirely on the game’s weaponry, and details the design concept the company uses to craft each implement of destruction.
Specifically, that every time you pull the trigger, each weapon must do something incredibly cool.
Of particular note (and much to the delight of the game’s creators) is the “Wingstick.” Equal parts boomerang and razor blade, it serves as an off-hand weapon for those times when you just need to decapitate some dude from across a room. The concept itself isn’t entirely original — I’m pretty sure that feral kid from The Road Warrior was rocking something similar in 1981 — but in action it looks like a very satisfying way to punctuate a burst of automatic gunfire.
Likewise, the game’s inclusion of “gadgets” has been done before. Team Fortress has had autonomous sentry guns since the bygone days of the Voodoo 3 graphics card, yet their presence in RAGE furthers the game’s collection of viscerally destructive toys.
One point I’d like to address that I think many will miss is how actively kinetic the RAGE world seems to be. I’m not referring to the explosions or the game’s flailing corpses (though both of those are quite well-rendered), but instead I’m impressed by how the still living enemies move and interact with the world. All too often do we see shooters where enemy AI consists of “run in a straight line toward the guy with the gun,” but here your foes seem to leap around, dodge, and bounce off walls like speedfreak Capuchin monkeys after an hour of Parkour.
Yeah, that’s probably going to screw up your aim from time to time, but it makes things seem a touch more realistic. In my experience, mutants rarely stand still if you point a hand cannon at their heads, and it’s nice to see a game reflect that particular behavioral quirk.
Barring delays, RAGE should hit the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows gaming platforms on October 4, 2011.
