Rage Preview

Vehicles look great, but they're still a slight concern.

Enough with the showing off in the buggy - it was time to take a look at our first town. As our character approaches the guarded entrance to the town we're told that Wellspring has hints of Asian culture in its design, and this is apparent from the moment we walk through the front door. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what makes it look as it does, but the place looks like a more rundown version of a city from iconic 80s movie Blade Runner. We meet a few of the townspeople, each of whom will react to you in different ways depending on what you've done up to that point. We see the impressive facial technology again and talk to a woman serving drinks at a bar - there's really nothing that competes with Rage in the visual department. Sony's Killzone 2 has a similar overall level of quality but the sheer size of the environments in Rage dwarf everything seen in the PS3 exclusive. Hopefully the console versions will come close to matching the PC game.

The girl behind the bar is Sally. She seems just like any other NPC, but we're told that she has a problem with bandits and will pay cash to anyone that takes them out during races. Wellspring is just one of the many towns that will appear in the game, so presumably other NPCs will offer rewards for completing certain objectives too. Each town will feature a number of stores too, offering the player a selection of goods and paying cash for items that you don't need any more. You'll be able to buy new ammo, weapons, vehicles, upgrades and more. We haven't seen enough of the game to say for sure how alive each of the towns feel, but there's a definite sense that people live in Wellspring - one man stands on a podium shouting out details of upcoming races.

We're yet to see any real action, and this is an id Software game after all. Thankfully it's time to play through a mission to get inside a bandit hideout. The player has been tasked with destroying the RC bomb caches (bombs on wheels), but it's easier said than done. There's no question that the gun-play will be top class, but when you're trying to shoot enemies that are driving remote control bombs at you it's probably quite easy to panic. Thankfully our id rep dispatches of the bandits with ease. You'll be able to use a variety of gadget-like weapons too, with personal turrets deployable on the ground and walking sentry bots able to patrol a small area - being a world in disrepair you're going to need to salvage anything that remains of these and loot fallen enemies in order to make some cash through trading.

Time for a racing demo next, and hopefully confirmation that id hasn't made a terrible mistake. It's certainly a gamble on the mega developer's part, having made a name for itself by making pretty FPS focused titles for years, but it appears to be shaping up very well. The three-lap race in the wasteland looked like great fun, with each vehicle equipped with a weapon of some sort. There's even a TV channel that broadcasts events and sponsors vehicles, giving you a bit of extra cash should you survive.

Our demo ended abruptly during a score-based section called Chamber of Laughs. There will apparently be a number of different arenas to fight in, with scores handed out for accuracy and time taken. We'd have loved to see more but it seems the demo PC wasn't quite up to displaying the stunning game for the duration of the show. With what I saw of Rage I wouldn't be surprised if three solid days running the most graphically impressive game at the show caused a small microchip meltdown. As id's first new IP in over 10 years, waiting for 40 minutes in a queue doesn't seem so bad any more.

Rage will be released on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 when it's done.