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RAGE, INDEED
Raging Against The Narrative Machine With id Software’s Latest

By Marc N. Kleinhenz

Stop me when this sounds familiar.

You’re a space marine, tough-as-nails and all out of chewing gum. Or maybe you’re a lonely – if not lone – survivor of an apocalypse, natural or zombie in nature. No, I’ve got it – you may not be a soldier, but you do have supernatural powers due to some sort of accident. Or maybe it’s a super-powered suit of armor. Or both.


Point is, the amount of choices you have on store shelves is exceedingly vast, particularly in the fourth quarter of the year, but the narrative possibilities contained within all those myriad game boxes is surprisingly, tragically truncated.

Take Rage, id Software’s first non-sequel entry in 15 years (and which, not incidentally, kicks off this year’s Q4 lineup). It’s the near future, an asteroid has fallen on the Earth, and all that remains of the human population is a ragtag group of lawless enclaves peppered with vehicular combat and the occasional mutant. Just taken on pure storytelling merits, the premise is not what we would call original. Hackneyed, perhaps, or even vapid, if we were the filmmakers behind the Mad Max series. Hell, one could even make the argument that the game bears more than just a little influence from the recently resurrected Fallout franchise, and make it easily.

Of course, games have been ripping off their cousins in the Old Media (and each other) since the very beginning. Halo, particularly in its earliest incarnations, is nothing but Aliens: The Game, and that movie wasn’t even the most narratively inspired of productions – think of it as James Cameron’s warm-up to Avatar, 23 years earlier. Metal Gear Solid 4 features more than a passing resemblance to Black Hawk Down; Resident Evil is an unabashed “reimagining” of Night of the Living Dead, without the reimaging part.

Does this make any of those examples bad games? Absolutely not. Although a lackluster story can substantially mar an interactive experience, it’s the interactivity part of the equation that matters most. Halo’s much-ballyhooed “30 seconds of fun” gameplay structure has long ago entered Game Design 101, while Resident Evil has provided some of the most singularly immersive moments in the entire history of the medium, tank controls or no. And, indeed, there is little doubt Rage will be an engrossing, rewarding experience and a worthy addition to the pantheon of id FPSes.

But, still… imagine the possibilities. Back when The Next Generation was the flagship Star Trek series, Joe Michael Straczynski, the creator and showrunner of rival sci-fi show Babylon 5, compared its paint-by-numbers approach to overarching mythology to having the keys to a Ferrari and using it only to drive to the local supermarket and back. Who among us really thinks Rage will be a dud, given the track record of endless Doom and Quake releases and retreads? Why not, then, add some medicine along with the expected sugar? Why not tell a real, honest-to-goodness story, along with real, honest-to-goodness character arcs and plot twists and, yes, premises?

BioShock is one of the best examples here, still hitting the obligatory checkboxes of post-apocalyptic cityscapes, mutants, and superpowers, but doing so in a way that also incorporates – gasp! – thematic motifs into the process while also finding new ways to tell interactive stories. Or how ‘bout Batman: Arkham Asylum, which had, particularly for a Batman story, a rather mundane plot but which also dripped with characterization? Portal crackles with wit, while Uncharted exudes character in every line of dialogue and, even, every moment of gameplay. The best developers are finding ever newer and more subtle ways of conveying their stories in ever-more-immersive experiences. Why shouldn’t id, one of the best of the best?

I haven’t written Rage off yet, particularly since stories live and die by the deft touches and narrative flourishes that writers (and directors and actors and programmers) slip in-between the lines of the plot. I just wish that, when a non-gamer enters the room and asks what this fancy-lookin’ videogame I’ve devoted half of my life to that month is all about, I don’t have to cringe or add the caveat “…it’s actually not that bad of a story – for a game” while explaining the set-up.

Games are better than that. And, quite frankly, so are we.

Marc N. Kleinhenz has covered gaming for over a dozen sites, including Gamasutra and TotalPlayStation, where he was features editor. He co-hosts the Airship Travelogues podcast for Nintendojo and has had his creative writing published by Alterna Comics, Asylum Ink, and MicroHorror, among others.

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