By Matt Shatos
Despite its role-playing elements and beautiful visuals, Id Software’s highly anticipated, post-apocalyptic game “Rage” failed to become a must-buy for local gamers.
Id has always been known for its high-quality games, such as “Doom” and “Quake”; however, “Rage” is not exactly following in its predecessors’ footsteps. Local gamers are complaining that the eight hours it takes to complete the game is simply not worth the $60 price.
“I don’t know, it is a beautiful game, but there just doesn’t seem to be enough content for me to blow $60 on when there are so many other great games coming out I would rather be playing,” says a local Best Buy shopper.
Despite attempts to add replay value through online deathmatch and co-op modes, Id Software seems to have left something to be desired in respect to the longevity of “Rage.”
The creators also picked a very risky time period to release their game, since October 2011 brought it close to the release dates of huge games such as “Batman Arkham City,” “Battlefield3,”“Uncharted3,”and “Skyrim.”
“I just don’t have the money to buy all the games that are coming out and ‘Rage’ would have to really be something special for me to pick it up,” says a local gamer.
“Rage” has gotten decent reviews from the critics, including impressive scores such as: 7.0 from Gamespot.com and 8.5 from IGN.com, which says, “While many gamers are speaking out about the lacking longevity of the game, not one gamer has complained about the graphics.” In fact, IGN reported “Rage” to be “one of the best looking games ever made.”
Still, gamers don’t seem ready to choose form without function. As one gaming enthusiast says, “It plays too similar to ‘Borderlands, ‘and it’s really not what I expected.  Don’t get me wrong, it is a beautiful game and the environments look gorgeous; however, the game play just cannot make up for it.  I’ll be trading it in to get the new ‘Batman’ game.”
The Xbox 360 version of “Rage” comes on three discs compared to PlayStation’s one Blu-ray disc.  Because of this, the gamer is required to either switch discs at different points in the game, or burn the game onto their hard drive – sacrificing a generous eight gigabytes of data storage.
Rage is available for Xbox 360 and PS3 for $59.99 and PC for $49.99.