Now I haven't played Rage. My friend Chris raves on about it every time we go running, but the game never really got me going quite like it did for him. I remember seeing videos and thinking to myself, "Eh, looks like Borderlands and Fallout." Upon reading reviews for Rage after it's release, something did strike me about the game; the premise. In Rage you play as a young fellow who comes out of a vault and enters a post apocalyptic world with danger and wild characters. Naturally your character has little to say and you are sent on a bunch of quests, some important and some mindless. After reading this I was taken aback. My god, this is nothing like Fallout… It IS Fallout!
I'm all for games based in an end of the world setting, but seriously. Did these writers even try? Of course, I figured that this would never stand. A game can't straight up be ripped from another popular game and be praised by critics. But I was wrong. Rage has meta critic score of 83. 83!? Based on my frantic hours of reading and drinking coffee, the only thing I could find that really made the game distinct was that it had a cool driving mode. And even from watching videos of this mode, it looked like a Twisted Metal rip off.
I needed to reevaluate my life. I ditched the coffee, poured some scotch, and walked over to my video game collection. I began to list my recently played games. Dead Island; zombie clone, Red Dead Redemption; wild west grand theft auto, Dragon Age; Mass Effect with dragons, and not mention sequels upon sequels upon sequels. Good God, what have I done? Who am I? I knew original properties were rare, but I didn't realize it was this bad. Nothing I enjoyed was original anymore and for some reason I seem to praise and get excited for shit that was clearly recycled.
It's not a new concept. Every media has it's trends and remakes. Movies green light squeals all the time and books only make money on large volume series like Twilight and Harry Potter. I get it; it makes sense, people like familiarity. If a game is fun, then why give it a bad score for copying the exact set-up of something that came out three years ago?
I was a little up set over this situation. I was also a little drunk from sipping my scotch at 8:30 in the morning. But then something caught my eye. Catherine… oh what a fun game you were Catherine. Original, unique, and best of all sexy.
I gave a sigh of relief and went back to my computer. I can't just hate the industry for cloning itself every year with updated versions of games as if they were a Madden series. This is, after all, an industry. Without those large franchises making all the money, there wouldn't be any funds to drive those small new franchises. Story and creativity is still prominent in gaming. I'm sure Rage has some amazing original technical marvels that will make me look past its cookie cutter end of the world setting.
Recycling can be good. It helps keep the circle of video games going. After watching some more videos and pouring myself another drink, I began to smile. It may be the alcohol or just the realization there's nothing I can do about this issue, but I felt good about Rage and decided that maybe I'll borrow it from my friend Chris once he's done. After all, I did like Fallout 3 and why wouldn't I want to play it again? I need another drink…