id Reveals the Rage iOS game

A while back John Carmack demoed a level using id tech 5 on the iPhone. Now, Carmack has a full title ready to hit the market. Mutant Bash TV will be an iPhone game based around the Rage universe.

Carmack plans to release the game sometime later this year with two different versions. Gamers with an iPod 4th gen, iPhone 4, or iPad will get a $1.99 HD version and gamers with a previous generation iPod or iphone will receive a $.99 lower resolution variant. Furthermore, there will be another mobile game set for 2011, which will be released alongside the full game. Below is what John Carmack had to say about the new Rage iPhone game.

The little slice of RAGE that we decided to build the iPhone product around is “Mutant Bash TV”, a post apocalyptic combat game show in the RAGE wasteland. This is the perfect setup for a quintessential first person shooter game play experience – you pick your targets, aim your shots, time your reloads, dodge the bad guys, and try and make it through to the end of the level with a better score than last time. Beyond basic survival, there are pickups, head shots, and hit streak multipliers to add more options to the gameplay, and there is a broad range of skill levels available from keep-hitting-fire-and-you-should-make-it to almost-impossible.

While it would (amazingly!) actually be possible to compile the full-blown PC/console RAGE game for an iPhone4 with some effort, it would be a hopelessly bad idea. Even the latest and greatest mobile devices are still a fraction of the power of a 360 or PS3, let alone a high end gaming PC, so none of the carefully made performance tradeoffs would be appropriate for the platform, to say nothing of the vast differences in controls.

Unfortunately, Carmack does not want to port the full version of rage to the iPhone 4. He states that “it would be a hopelessly bad idea.” However, it is still very impressive that he managed to get such great visuals on a small device.

Source: shacknews.com