Day 2

I settled into my couch with controller in hand ready for another exciting day of Rage. Today I was determined to get my buggy! Last night I finished up getting the quest to go see the mechanic who will hook me up with my buggy. Today I get their and instead of getting my buggy I was given another mission! Apparently, the bandits had raided the garage and stolen the parts needed to get the buggy running! The bastards! I was told that if I want the buggy I need to go to their hideout, and recover the stolen items. Great……..not only do I not get my buggy, but I have to go into a bandits hideout with my trusty sidearm, and my newly acquired shotgun. I spoke to someone who gave me some ‘special’ bullets for my pistol called ‘big boys’. They do more damage then normal…that sounds good to me. I only got 12 bullets, so hopefully I can aim straight.

I head to the bandits hideout, but I had to stop on the way. I was awe-struck at how awesome the landscape looks. I haven’t experienced the issues that I’ve read about on the PC side of the world. To me it looks beautiful. Baked textures and no anti aliasing has never looked so awesome! I finish up taking the short drive to the hideout. This is the point where I can actually complain about something. The distance to the hideout was short, and there was a line drawn on my mini-map to just take me right there. No exploration. No wrong turns. I can see this game going in a linear direction at this point. Not a bad thing to keep the game moving, but not a big open exploration area….unless you want it to be.

Apparently, there are subway tunnel entrances that a wrencher told me about. He said there were untold treasure to be found, but I have to be extremely careful because of how dangerous it is. This is something I’ll definitely have to do. For now back to the bandits on hand. I need my buggy, and they need to taste my newly acquired big boys.

So the game loads small instances when going into a mission. You basically drive/walk up to a door. Then a load screen happens while the game loads the hideout mission I’m entering. Once I’m in I find the usual bad ass graphics. I sneak into the hideout and see a couple of bandits hanging out. I pull out my pistol and take aim on the first one. BOOM Headshot! The funniest thing is I only managed to pop his helmet off of his head. This caused him and his buddy to take cover quickly. They started shooting at me from a hardened position. The AI is great like I said. They would pop-out from cover to shoot. They would raise an arm over a barrier while keeping their heads down. I tossed a grenade that I had happened to find. I hear them yelling at each other and running! They actually moved out of range of the grenade and re-positioned themselves behind some columns. I shot one in the leg. He started limping. I started laughing as I loaded up the big boys in the pistol. I took aim and shot the first guy that I had shot in the head. This time I shot center mass. Holy Hell! These big boys are alright! He flew back, hit a wall, and slumped to the ground. This was pretty much what happened the rest of the mission. At the end I had my first ‘boss’ fight of sorts. I made short work of him, and recovered all the loot that they had stolen from buggy man back at the main post. Once I left the mission I saw 2 more bandits. I capped them and stole their 4 wheeler (it was cooler than mine with mounted horns and spikes on the rims!

I’ll post more for those who care. So far I’m still loving the game for what it is. A kick ass shooter that gives me a break from this real world we live in.