I had read Game Informer, and a post-up of new screens of Rage had caused me to finally voice out my opinions on Rage.

Of course, there's going to be people who sheerly hate on my opinion simply due to the fact that I am saying an id game is uninnovative - even if it's in terms of attempting to focus on Story. Some people will dislike that commentary, and feel free to voice your opinions - but just know that we're destined to disagree until I see something that is actually new ground.

That being said. My initial impression of Rage was back when we all first saw the video trailer, before we had any sheer attempt to understand what it was. I was confused. I thought "It looks nice, but I have no idea what i'm looking at". There were dune buggies and shacks. People looking weary. I thought it was going to be some story of a far away planet akin to tatooine, taking place in a desert locale.

Then in the recent months, as information has continued to be given. I can honestly say that the game looks great, but what's beyond that? I saw a lot of similarities to games that existed in the past. And I don't mean similarities in just gameplay. That's a given with anything released nowadays - it's almost impossible to release a game that's wholely unique in gameplay.

What I mean is similarities in story. And those similarities come from the entire Fallout universe, which itself has borrowed concepts from other areas for specific details. But the magnitude to which Rage borrows concepts is.. Megaton.

To break it down incase people are unaware. Rage is a game about a character, for sake of similarity we'll call him Stasis-Boy. Stasis-Boy was locked into a bit of technology called an Ark, which were buried as a part of an "Eden Project". Hundreds of them were buried with specific staff, each individual meant - once the Arks were opened, staff brought out of cryo sleep - to use the tools in the Ark and their expertise to rebuild society. This was a necessary act that the government saw coming due to the forthcoming global disaster of an asteroid impact. An Earthquake prematurely opens your characters Ark, everyone in it dead except for you.

Now, that's the jist of it. I immediately saw similarities.

Global Nuclear War was changed to Asteroid Impact. They both resulted in a similar after-effect as far as the environment is concerned, minus the radiation.

The Fallout Universe had the government enacting Project Safehouse, which was intended to not necessarily preserve all of humanity, but to provide the tools for isolation testing and, yes, rebuilding society upon the opening of the Vaults. Rage removes the idea of isolation testing and moves straight to rebuilding society. The Ark in this case, acts not only as a Vault - but also a G.E.C.K.

The rest of the world degenerated as expected, with Raiders and shambled towns. And, for some reason, mutants existing in Rage despite no explanation thus far for their existance save for.. Yes.. For some reason, once your character emerges in Rage, he comes upon a shack next to a swamp which, as explained, "a radioactive green swamp looks to be the only water source for miles around". Why is the water radioactive, I haven't a clue. I wasn't aware dust from a meteor impact could result in turning waters radioactive. I would suppose that it would depend on what the asteroid was constructed of, but it just seems suspicious.

What i'm getting at is that the game is quite plainly borrowing its material. As much as Carmack and Willits are trying to claim they're attempting to "do something different", I remain skeptical and unfooled. It's pretty, i'll give them that. But I do not feel it is unique by any means whatsoever.

Some argue that the games are completely different because id is claiming the game to be a straight and flat "First Person Shooter", while some insist that the fallout universe, including the most recent, is strictly an RPG. I personally could not disagree more. Thus far, id has heavilly suggest a gameplay style that is practically identical to Fallout 3 minus the VATS system, as i'm sure many of you who have played FO3 are well aware that you can play the game like any other traditional FPS. By no means am I saying that FO3 is the origin of what they're doing here. I am merely pointing out that the two games can and likely will play almost entirely similarly.

The only thing thus far that truly sets the two universes apart is the fact that Rage has decided to include vehicular gameplay. While that is different from the two, is it enough to excuse the obvious borrows? Who knows. I personally hope that they don't introduce an asteroid-fragment worshiping cult named Children of the Fallen Star in a city built around said fragment and make the story about Stasis-Boy trying to track down his father's now opened Ark.

I think at this point, the best idea is for id to focus the story completely off of the origin or base of the game. And to completely avoid any possibility of calling Stasis-Boy the "Ark Dweller".