Rage's introductory cutscene shows us Apophis, the craggy, unsightly harbinger of destruction, hurtling gracefully across the cosmos on a collision course with Earth. Most people know that most life, and possibly all civilization, will end in a single moment. However, humanity is prepared enough to ensure less than total extinction. Enter the Eden Project. A number of Arks are programmed to burrow deep enough into the earth's crust to ensure survival for a privileged few. You are one of those privileged few. However, "privileged" doesn't seem the most apt of terms once you awaken as the only survivor of your malfunctioning Ark, a century after Apophis' impact.
Rage has all the cards lined up perfectly for a memorable story, but sadly fails to follow through on its promise. There's a villainous military dictatorship called The Authority that is given more depth in the short-lived comic series, but all you're given in the game is that they are bad and the Resistance fighters who recruit you into their ranks are good. Rage falls flat on its face at the very end of Disc Two (of three). One mission seems to be not only the prep work for a wide-scale operation, but the beginning of a war and a turning point for the story. Long story short, it turns out to be the last mission in the game. It's a cop-out, a cliffhanger, and an anti-climax. And it just plain sucks. To Rage's credit, however, the campaign is longer than most first-person shooters, and by a good five hours at that.
Some have called Rage an open-world shooter. Others have called it "Borderlands without the role-playing elements." They are right, but only to an extent. Rage is what it is: a guided but open first-person experience that features on-foot and vehicular gameplay. Most of your time with the game will be spent completing missions for your contacts (like in most open world games), which usually involve plumbing the depths of a bandit hideout or a once-thought-abandoned facility for some knick-knack. Yes, there are several fetch quests, but the shooting action is so polished, the level design is so clever, and the pacing is so spot-on that none of it ever grows tedious.
Legends of the Wasteland is a fun cooperative mode that lets you and a friend tear through instances together. Some parts of the single player experience, such as looting and engineering, are unfortunately culled out, but I get the sense that this mode is intended to play as a sort of meta-game.
Rage's sparse competitive multiplayer suite feels like a missed opportunity, especially considering the developer. If you're looking for on-foot shooting action, too bad. Road Rage is all you've got to work with. The three rally types are fun on their own, but they are never more than diversions. Carnage is a bit more fun, if only because it's closer to Rage's violent core. By limiting itself to the merely decent vehicular gameplay, Rage is never able to fully spread its wings online.