Stepping into the gamescom demo room for RAGE, I didn’t expect to see id Software’s Tim Willits greeting journalists at the door, and I certainly didn’t expect to discuss anything to do with South Africa, either.

Introducing myself as ‘Oliver from South Africa,’ Willits quickly revealed his knowledge of the country’s annual rAge technology and gaming expo, additionally musing over the option of going to the event himself to promote RAGE, the latest first-person shooter he and id Software have been working on for close to seven years.

“The people in South Africa want me to go to rAge this year,” Willits quipped.

“You should definitely go!” I said, perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

“We’ll see,” Willits returned with a knowing smile.

After a (very, very exceedingly) brief exchange in Afrikaans with another gentlemen (whom I unfortunately didn’t catch the name of, but presumed to be from the Netherlands), and surprising Willits with the knowledge that an off-shoot form of Dutch is spoken in South Africa, I eagerly sat down to play RAGE at one of the PlayStation 3 demo stations.

RAGE opens with a super slick CG cinematic explaining the backstory to the game: An enormous meteorite by the name of Apophis has crashed into Earth, but not before preparations were made to help humanity survive the collision. An ‘Ark’ system was constructed to house important inhabitants and safeguard them from any potential hazardous fallout from Apophis.

The game proper begins as you, one of the sole survivors of the Ark, stumble from the metallic chamber that has protected you for so many years and into the blinding light of The Wasteland, a harsh and desolate world that has borne the full brunt of the meteorite’s destruction. A world that would remind one of the most barren, desolate and forsaken desert imaginable. A world that is now your new home.

Emerging from the chamber into the Wasteland above, it’s clear to see why everyone is so complimentary about the graphics of RAGE. Looking out at an expansive man-made dam in the distance, the visual detail of the game is astounding, set against a perfect blue sky swept with beautifully luminescent clouds. Looking closer at your feet, things get a little less detailed as textures are decidedly low resolution, but the environments are filled with so much sheer density and craft that it’ll become very easy to overlook any graphical shortcomings further in.

Finding yourself in such inhospitable surroundings, with structures bleached white from the sun and sand invading every available crevice, you wouldn’t expect this world to play host to any single living thing, but this assumption is very quickly challenged as you’re ambushed and thrown to the ground by a hostile, almost tribal creature, who is subsequently put down by a shot from a distant rifle – a shot that almost certainly saves your short-lived existence here in the wastes.

As it’s soon explained to you by your rescuer, Dan Hagar, most of those left outside of the Ark were able to survive the destruction of Apophis, but there have been some side-effects on the local populace, which has manifested as mutations in certain areas of the Wasteland. It’s further explained that as an Ark survivor, there’s something special about you and there are some people in this world that would pay a pretty penny to get their hands on you… for some devious, unexplained reason.

Driving through the Wastes to Hagar’s settlement in his makeshift patched up buggy, the graphical richness of RAGE becomes more apparent – even in such a bleak environment, id Software’s artists have worked their magic and created an incredible (and incredibly believable) virtual world. Towering desert rock formations and the severely harsh light of this wilderness are wonderfully represented.

Once we reach Hagar’s settlement, he immediately asks for a favour in return for saving your life: Clear out a nearby camp of bandits by killing its inhabitants.

It’s a request that catches me a little off-guard. Here I am, an Ark survivor who not five minutes ago has woken up to discover that my world has been turned upside down, now being asked to kill? And not just kill, but slaughter an entire camp of people who may or may not be my enemies!

I consider the proposition for a moment, but having no other option I accept the mission.

When missions are given to you in RAGE, a text box appears on the right of the screen summarising what’s required of you and what your reward might be. You can choose to accept the mission right there as its being given to you, or you can choose to decline. Being so early in the game, and this being my only available mission, I chose to take the mission on, but it’ll be interesting to see the affects of a declined mission, and similarly what affect that action will have on your relationship with other characters. Most likely, you’ll simply be able to approach that character later to accept his or her task, but you can expect certain quest lines to close the further you get into the story of RAGE.

In order to complete Hagar’s quest, however, I took on some munitions (a pistol, bandages and grenades) and hopped on a small quad-bike (parked next-to Hagar’s buggy). The view automatically switched to a third-person view from the standard first-person and off I zoomed on the zippy four-wheeler.

Settlements (like Hagar’s) and other areas of RAGE are sectioned off from the main Wasteland and you’ll need to enter and exit these instanced parts of the world to continue exploring them. Entering an instanced area will require a fairly quick load screen, but exiting back into the Wasteland will take a little while longer – nothing too bad but you will want to think carefully about entering the Wastes too often.

In my little quad-bike, the world was seemingly my oyster as I rocketed over the cracked desert floor, and with an awesome ‘boost’ ability to temporarily increase my speed, I was able to close the distance between me and my destination very quickly as the world blurred around me. In case you get into trouble, the health of your vehicle pops up to show you how much damage you can take before blowing up.

Your destination in RAGE is clearly marked on you mini-map, with a handy line drawn from you to that next objective to help guide you. Opening up your menu (and when you have multiple objectives), you can find your current, active objective marked at the top of a list of missions in the ‘Jobs’ tab. You can activate another, different mission at any time, and the mini-map’s co-ordinates will helpfully change automatically to point you to your new objective (hurray for an easy-to-use mission guide and mini-map!).

One problem I did find with this mini-map system is that it won’t let you know if you’ve reached your destination or not – the line will simply end and you’ll need to scout around for an entrance (hidden or not) to your chosen mission’s instanced area. I expect this won’t be a problem later in the game as you’ll come to know what to look out for, but during my time with RAGE I had trouble locating the knee-high pylons and chevrons denoting an entrance.

After finding the entrance (and a quick load screen), I weaved my way into the settlement in Ghost Clan territory, armed only with those grenades and that pistol I picked up at Hagar’s. Hoping these measly armaments would be enough, I crept through tunnels carved into the very rock, with more visual detail as my reward. The effort that has gone into forming the world of RAGE continued to impress me and reminded me of id Software’s previous game, DOOM 3, or Irrational’s Bioshock, where the craft involved in every level resulted in play spaces that could be from the set of a movie.

But then, I encountered my first enemy, a wily foe who leapt, ran and dodged his way towards me in an effort to close the gap and inflict a bit of melee damage. I put him down with a few awkward shots from my pistol, both aiming down the sights and from the hip, but I was soon overwhelmed by more fiends, who moved with such fluidity I could have mistaken them for packs of wild animals. A few of them managed to hack at me with basic blades and tools, but I eventually triumphed, only a little worse for wear.

These enemies handily had a few items on their person, ripe for looting (done manually). Items lying around the world of RAGE will also need to be manually picked up with a button press – very Bioshock-like, and even RPG-like, in this regard. You’ll be able to find things like extra ammunition, bandages, dollars (used as the currency) and small items of junk. Slipping into the menu, you can find these items in your ‘Inventory’ tab, and what I found neat about this system is that unusable loot is grouped into a single inventory item, instead of individual clutter.

While your health will regenerate over time thanks to special Nanite technology (a perk of being an Ark survivor), during battle it’s wise to keep a few bandages on hand to heal yourself more instantly, accessed with a quick push of a d-pad button. Ah, much better! The choosing of grenade types is also done using the d-pad, and I expect further on in the game you’ll access other special items in this way.

After foolishly stepping into a trap and a quick cinematic sequence with my character strung upside down (viewed from the first-person), leading to a just-as-quick escape, I was introduced to the Defibrillator, a way of reviving yourself if your health is carved to zero and you’re left for dead – another perk of being an Ark survivor. In a separate screen, you’ll be tasked with playing a little mini-game using your controller’s sticks to connect a circuit, and once this circuit is completed, you’ll need to hit the triggers to match icons as they move back and forth on the screen. Successfully completing this task will bring you back to life, and if any enemies are around you at the time, they’ll get shocked to death.

If you’re not successful at the defibrillator mini-game, however… I shudder to think of the consequences!

Enemies will use their environment to their advantage, too, and while I don’t know how pre-determined some of this usage is, I did encounter at least a few foes who rapidly zip-lined down from higher ground to meet me at my level. A few crushing grenade explosions soon took care of this lot, sending them flying in bursts of viscera. Once I had cleared out this camp of enemies, I, too, zip-lined down to a lower level and quickly made my way back to Hagar to complete the mission.

I subsequently took on a few more tasks issued to me by Hagar and folks living in another friendly settlement up the way, populating my ‘Jobs’ tab with more quests to complete. Once completed, you’ll need to return to the quest-giver to officially finish off that task and check it off to claim your reward, but using the quad-bike (and other bigger, faster vehicles later) will make this back and forth travelling more of a pleasure than a chore.

Just from my small amount of time with RAGE, I saw the potential for many different kinds of quests, each of which could potentially cross one another and lead to linked missions in the future. If you find yourself wanting as far as quests are concerned, you could always try your hand at a few ‘Stanley Express’ driving missions, delivered to you by small mailboxes scattered around the Wasteland. There’s certainly no time to be bored in RAGE!

RAGE also features a classic shop system where you’re able to buy ammo and supplies, and also sell any accumulated junk for extra cash. You can also buy ingredients for use in the ‘Engineering’ tab of the menu. As a reward for completing a certain mission, I received a recipe for a special kind of bandage, but I would have needed to collect the required ingredients to create the bandage from this ‘blueprint.’ I expect you’ll be able to find blueprints for more destructive items, too, which in turn will require certain ‘ingredients’ to make… like explosives.

Unfortunately, as the hour struck, I got a tap on the shoulder to let me know my time with RAGE had come to an end - and I had just got the shotgun! I pretended to start packing my things away, but quickly picked up the controller again to squeeze off a few more shotgun blasts into a wall before packing up for real. That’s an awesome shotgun. I can’t wait to use it as it was intended (i.e. in The Wasteland, shooting mutants in the face).

This slice of RAGE managed to assuage a lot of my fears about the game and simultaneously made me (even more) excited for the final product, with clear RPG-lite elements, an addictive mission structure and excellent combat rolled into a massive, jaw-dropping world with interesting characters and a highly intriguing story.

Not all is as it seems in the world of RAGE, and I’m desperate to get to the bottom of it!

RAGE is due for release on October 4th in the US and October 7th in Europe and the UK, and you should definitely be excited about it.

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