Rage HD: The first truly enjoyable shooter for the iPad


id Software is known for making some of the best first person shooters. They’re the folks behind Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein — beloved classics. Well, they’ve been hard at work on a new game called Rage, and they’ve done a spectacular job bringing a version of it to iOS.


Instead of trying to jam full PC-style controls onto the iPhone and iPad, they have made a rail shooter with very intuitive controls. You don’t need to worry about where you’re going — just keep on the look out for extremely violent mutants. Aiming is very smooth, and the other controls are tucked away nicely in the bottom right corner.


The goal of the game is to make it through each level by killing all of the mutants and grabbing as much money as you can. Let me tell you, this can get intense very quickly. Some of the scariest moments in the game are when I’m trying to load my shotgun and three mutants ambush my face. Ouch.

This clever shooter is only $1.99, and it is a universal binary. For less than two bucks, you get hours of play, game center integration, and very impressive graphics. I sincerely hope that this game does well for id Software. I’d love to see what else they could accomplish on the platform.

I want to hear what you folks think about rail shooters as the go-to method of bringing FPS games to touch-based devices. Do you miss having full control? Have a better way to tackle the problem? Drop me a message in the comment section below. I think you’ll agree that Rage HD is a winner.

Grant is a writer from Delaware. In his spare time, Grant maintains a personal blog, hosts The Weekly Roar, hosts Quadcast, and writes for video games.