Rage didn’t start out the way I thought it would. My idea of it was mostly based on its initial reveal some years ago: depicting a barren wasteland where people live, drive, and dress in whatever they can find. Just another Mad Max pastiche, right? So imagine my surprise when the game begins inside a cold, angled underground capsule (an “Ark”) from a forgotten time in the far-flung future. I guess post-apocalyptic worlds have to start somewhere.
It’s a harsh beginning, but Rage doesn’t let up from there. After emerging on the surface of the largely-destroyed Earth, you’re saved from certain death by a kind-hearted wasteland homesteader named Dan Hagar (voiced by John Goodman, who also played a “Dan” on Roseanne, which was more than enough to keep me from taking this character seriously). Hagar wastes no time in employing your “services” to wipe out a nearby influx of mutants, and perform a few odd jobs around his settlement and the neighbors’. You get the hang of shootin’, drivin’, and survivin’, and eventually learn more about your past as an enhanced human candidate of the “Eden” project, initiated by the oppressive powers of the Authority, who try to keep this crazy world in check… for their own gains, of course.
