You have three mutants slicing at you with razor sharp knives and only four bullets left in your machine gun. You’ve just entered the world of Rage, the newest application from the developers of Doom. Rage pushes the limits on using your iPad and iPhone for gaming. The game features amazing graphics with detail and speed you would expect from a PS3 or Xbox.
Rage is a point and shoot game, with your main objective to mame and kill as many mutants as possible. It takes all the same graphics and power you’ve come to expect on a gaming console and brings it to your mobile device. Play through three challenging and detailed levels, the Bunker, Tenements, and the Asylum. You have a choice of three weapons as you progress through the levels and fight off swarms of mutants, choose from a shotgun, a machine gun, or a pistol. Take aim at the horde of mutants and unload your clip before they reach you.
Meet Rage
The game starts in a post-apocalyptic world where mutants now run amuck. You start the game as a mutant fighter, shooting and killing other mutants for the crowd’s enjoyment. As you progress through the game, the levels get harder and harder with more mutants attacking at once. You’re given three weapons, a pistol, a machine gun, and a shotgun, and you must fight your way through each arena. Earn cash by killing mutants, shooting targets, and collecting cash bags.
While this might sound like an easy task, the game adds a twist with an invisible roller coaster style track that you follow. The track pulls you around, twisting around corners and turning you to face the newest pack of attacking mutants. You have only a few seconds in each room to collect ammo, health, cash, and to shoot targets before your pulled out into another battle.
The mutants become faster and use new weapons, which adds a bigger challenge to the game. Some mutants will jump forward with knives in hand, while others will stand atop the rafters and throw rocks at you. You’ve got to think fast and shoot even quicker.
Rage brings you right into the action packed mutant world
High Definition Gaming
Rage comes in two versions for the iOS platform: Rage and Rage HD. Rage will run on the iPhone 3G, iPod Touch 2G, the iPad and everything that comes after. Rage runs beautifully even on the iPhone 3G, which is surprising for a game with such intense graphics.
Rage HD offers higher quality textures and graphics, which will look amazing on your iPhone 4, iPod Touch, and iPad. The HD version makes the levels looks more detailed and really give it that console gaming feel. Each level is like a world of art, with detail put into things that may only be seen for a few seconds. Despite all these heavy graphics, it manages to run smoothly on the iPad and iPhone. In fact, when demonstrated at QuakeCon, the lead developer boasted it’s extremely high framerate, 60 frames per second, resulting in higher quality graphics and gameplay.
Rage HD's super high quality textures and graphics make it look amazing on the Retina Display.
The Company Behind It All
The developers, id Software, have always been trendsetters in terms of graphic quality. In 1993, they released Doom, which soon became a cultural phenomenon that has been ported to several platforms (including the iPhone). They also developed Quake, which has won several awards and became a huge hit among gamers and geeks.
Rage will go down in history as another amazing series from id, and you can help make it even better. Right now John Carmack, the lead developer and one of the original founders, is taking suggestions on how to make the game even better. Voice your opinion and help make this game even more amazing.
They just released an update which fixes some crashing issues for non-English iPhone users. This is available as an update in the app store now.
Conclusion
Rage is a step in the right directions for next-generation gaming on mobile devices. It shows that games don’t have to be simple variations of tick-tack-toe or yahtzee, they can be immersive and highly detailed while still working well on a mobile platform. Mobile devices can handle games with more beef and large amounts of detail. That being said, Rage HD weighs in at almost 1.2GB and with more levels and detail, it could grow even bigger. Until we see flash memory increase to where 128GB storage is common, you’re going to want to manage your storage carefully.
Id Software has another trendsetting application on their hands, leading the way for more console quality games making their way onto the iPhone and iPad. Even though Rage HD is quite short, I’m confident that they will add more in the next few months. I’m looking forward to even more releases and updates from id software.