So I just finished beating Rage on hard difficulty level, and I gotta say...
*spoilers ahead*
I'm compelled to write a lengthy review of this game and I hope others that have played it as well will feel me on some of this game's baffling shortcomings.
What's strange about Rage is that in the beginning it really gives you the impression that you've got some really huge things you'll have to deal with and some crazy ass boss fights all along the way. But somehow toward the end, it's like the developers got cold feet and just kind of rushed the rest of it along to get it all done. Allow me to explain.
Not too far in the game once you get settled, you're given a quest to go into an abandoned part of the city overrun with mutants to retrieve an item that increases your chances of survival. The look of this abandoned city was amazing much like the rest of the game's locations. And once you really got inside the heart of your objective the combat starting getting pretty challenging as I was gradually introduced to some new monsters-some acid spewing varieties, a giant with a huge fuck off flamethrower, and a berserker type with a whipping sort of melee attack. And I was encountering all these new monsters within close proximity of each other and everything was just getting more and more exciting and visceral throughout the level. All in the meantime there is a inexplicably huge mutant wandering around the city that I'm only catching glimpses of (an obvious hint at a major boss battle coming up).
So I'm making my way through these more challenging and interesting monsters and I finally reach the boss level that is indeed that gigantic mutant. A rocket launcher is necessary here and it's provided to you right before the encounter. And there I was cornered in a building while this huge mutant is hurling blocks of cinder at me and trying to grab me from inside my part of the building. I'm dodging this thing, returning rockets at its weak spots, using my defibrilator, it was all really, really great. And so I finally defeat this thing and I'm like, "Wow, great boss battle! And yet so early in the game!" I'm thinking I got a lot to look forward to.
To those of you who've played Doom 3, you probably also fondly remember the frequent, albeit somewhat typical boss encounters in that game. I mean typical just in the sense though that you could sense them coming. You could tell when you were about to reach a new location and move on to a new environment. But no way in hell were you moving on before one of id's crazy ass monsters got in your way. The boss battles in Doom were daunting experiences but they were incredibly fun and challenging and were classic reminders that you were playing an action intensive FPS.
Well, unfortunately for Rage, after this huge boss fight early in the game, the level of excitement mostly went downhill from there. And don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I didn't still enjoy the fighting. But all I really got for the rest of the game were run of the mill bad guys who all went down really easy. Some were of the heavier variety with huge guns that just walked slowly toward you, others the light agile kind like the acrobatic mutants and bandits, and then just regular dudes shooting at me and taking cover.
So I kept playing side quests and main quests and always thinking of that boss battle back the abandoned city. Well for the rest of the game there's not another battle like that even coming close to it. Each mission would just end with me grabbing something and often coming back the way I came with a chance of fighting more regular guys. I couldn't believe how anticlimatic so much of it was. For instance...
There's a moment where you go into the Jackal's territory (one of the many bandit clans throughout the game). Sort of a weird stereotypical bunch of futuristic Native Americans, these guys were fairly tough in battle. Jumping around and throwing shit at me with exploding balloons and rolling inflammable barrels, yet still nothing I couldn't handle. But the whole time all I could think was, man, there must be some stereotypical chieftan guy I'm gonna have to fight through to get to my objective, per classic id and FPS design. This was also about 3/4 of the way finished with the game and I still hadn't experienced another gnarly boss battle. Nothing like back in the abandoned city. So alas, I reach my objective, some technological plot device, I grab it, and then take a shortcut back to the entrance of the level. And that was it.
This is how most missions played out in this game and I just couldn't believe how boring it was getting. Or actually, I could believe it cause I was quickly realizing there was nothing to look forward to in terms of combat anymore. And you really keep hoping it's coming cause the weapons you start collecting are getting more powerful as you go along. There's this recipe for making explosive buckshot that seriously kicks ass and you can easily make hundreds of these things, but none of it really mattered cause I was never in a situation again where I needed that kind of firepower. Most the time I'd use my pistol cause I kept thinking, "Gotta save that special ammo for the big boss fights and super hard areas..." But none of it ever came.
Another example is when you're in the Gearhead (another clan) territory on your way to activate another now seemingly arbitrary plot device. Throughout journeying through their lair, the leader of these guys in his hackneyed German accent is taunting you, telling you how you're gonna die and all that cliched crap. So I'm thinking, wow, I bet I'm gonna be fighting this guy at some point and he's gonna have all these machines and robot sentries and turrets and guards and it's gonna be really satisfying when I shut him up once and for all. Well, I did fight him...but like...it was just him. By himself. In a room. And he had like a mini gun or a machine gun and he was a different color than the rest of the Gearheads, but that was all that distinguished him. No diabolical trappings, no theater or drama of any kind. Just him in a featureless room by himself.
Mission after mission was like this. And it actually just got worse as I got closer to the end of the game. Each mission where I was taking on the faceless oppressive Authority was shorter than and more anticlimactic than the last. No boss fights of any kind. Just more machine gun guys doing their same thing over and over which by now, despite how fun the combat is and the beautiful graphics of this game, really was quite stale. There was no variety at all. And all these moments that the game is supposed to be building up to had no tension in them whatsoever.
In Doom 3, there's really nothing sophisticated going on the its story. Demons from Hell invade, they want Earth, an you have to stop them. Despite this, however, even Doom 3 managed to create real tension and personal moments that made you care. Remember Sarge? The guy who was barking orders at you throughout the game and chastising you for taking your sweet time? And remember how you had a choice at one point to follow his orders and send the signal for help or to refuse to do it and side with Swann? Granted, your choice made no difference later on, but things were becoming personal now between you and Sarge. This guy who never really seemed to approve of you to begin with was royally pissed at you for disobeying him. And yeah, even that mattered little since he got turned into a monster and tried to kill you, but by the time you reach him in what was an awesome boss fight, you felt there was something more personal about it. You seemed to really want to kill this guy either to put him out of his misery or for just being a thankless jerk throughout the game. This tension, this conflict, all was managed throughout the game as a nice little personal story despite Doom 3 overall having little to no plot.
With this in mind I looked at Rage and asked myself how they managed to make me care as little as I did about anything and anyone. Even in Fallout 3 with it's boring main plotline managed to make you care a little bit about what was going on with the Enclave. Who was this President Eden, really? Were the Brotherhood of Steel any better than the Enclave? Who should I side with? Should I care about any of this at all? Granted, even Fallout 3 really had no alternate ending except for its lame canned cinematic ending based on your last minute decision. But for a game feeling so flat at the end, can anyone really say Rage felt any less flat and boring?
Even if the combat was really exciting way up to the end with some dramatically new monsters then it might have distracted me from the fact that I could care less about what I was doing there in their base. It was just the same run of the mill combat I had been experiencing all along with no new twists or gameplay mechanics. Just go from point A to point B, activate random piece of technology, and set an even in motion which the rest of the game did little to inform you about or give you a reason to care.
And what were the last things I was fighting up to the end? Robotically enhanced mutants. Sure, it was new once I got there. But there was nothing really interesting or new about it. They were just like mutants you fought before only now they fired energy weapons and still charged you. And all you had to do was hold out long enough (which even on Hard was super easy) until the machine you activated did its thing. And then that was it. No Cyberdemon-esque boss here to wrap things up. Just a bunch of light weight seemingly endless charging robot mutants.
You know how when you're playing a game that feels kind of short and you can sense the game coming to an end. This sense can bring about so many mixed feelings. If the game was too short, well, maybe it was an interesting journey to the end nonetheless. Well it wasn't really interesting at all. The story and total lack of antagonist simply made me not give a shit. Well if the journey wasn't that interesting, maybe at least the challenge of getting here made it all worth it. Not in this game. With all my overpowered weapons and vast amounts of ammo (both regular and special) it was as easy as buying a ton of grenades for cheap and just throwing them into the crowds over and over again.
Okay then, but the end cutscene was great, right? Right?? Well no. It was remarkably shrift and kind of boring. But it wouldn't have mattered if all those other things about making it to the end weren't so damn boring.
All this I'm saying has no bearing on the game's graphics and overall beautiful presentation. But it simply goes to show, yet again, graphics does not make the game, people. I'd even say I don't expect a sophisticated in depth story in a game like this. But since the combat go so repetitive and was never punctuated by a unique monster or any other kind of experience, I thought that maybe I could get something out of the narrative, but not really.
I did have some good times in the car though. Generally don't like racing games, but the vehicle combat reminded me of the good old days playing Twisted Metal. So I guess that was good.
I beg to differ. There is no vsync, making the game extremely choppy. Textures don't render nearly as fast and OVER 50% of all textures are low res. Models were skipping frames during animations or were simply swapping between 2 different animations every millisecond making my head hurt during a conversation. The interface is a console port.
If a developer hates ATI users then the ATI users will surely return the favour to the developer.
I felt like playing a retarded alpha version of the game.
As soon as I heard that the interface was a crappy console port, I lost every bit of respect for the game. Reading this just reassures me I'm not missing on anything special.
Glad I saw this, for a while this was one of the games I was considering buying just based upon the heaps of video content provided. However now I see it's definitely not worth it, even on the PS3, and I'll gladly pass it up for Arkham City, and a month down the road, AC: Revelations.
I beg to differ. There is no vsync, making the game extremely choppy. Textures don't render nearly as fast and OVER 50% of all textures are low res. Models were skipping frames during animations or were simply swapping between 2 different animations every millisecond making my head hurt during a conversation. The interface is a console port.
The only technical issue I noticed was a bit of tearing when you liked to either side too quickly but they seemed to patch this up pretty quick.
And yeah, I'm still right if I say graphics don't make the game. You are begging to differ with me because you are disagreeing that the graphics are any good. Well, if say, the model textures were low res, it's not something my vision was really noticing. It still looked good to me. And some of the other issues you're describing were due to the problems most ATI users experienced which id is pretty embarrassed over and have been trying to fix. But still, don't miss the point I'm making, which is: They believe anyway that their graphics for the game were awesome and because of this focused more on trying to make the game look pretty than creating what in my opinion anyway are the elements that make for a better game.
Like if they used low textures, I really don't give a crap because the game still looked really good to me. My issue with the game is far from how it looks though is what I'm saying.
@OP, at least you could play this huge pile of "lets piss on the customer" crap. I tried the game and it would simple freeze for 5 seconds every time I tried to move the mouse cursor. I'm not running the best rig on the world, but I still have two decent, high mid-end cards in my system. I could play any game so far at high details, in 1920x1080, without the frame rate ever going bellow 40-ish, but not Rage ... unless you count 0.2 FPS as "playing". Yeah, I know the game has issues with ATI cards, but I'll be damned if I install some beta driver to play a game.
Rant aside, how long did it take to beat the game? I heard it's quite short, somewhere around 15 hours, but I can't confirm that because the damn thing doesn't work. If it is correct ... why should I pay 60$ for a game that: doesn't work at all, is short and has very little replay value?
It's funny cause with my luck and limited knowledge of computers, I thought I'd definitely be experiencing those technical problems that people talked about. What can I say? It sucks that the PC release had so many of those technical problems. But those aside...
Yeah the campaign was really short. I think I beat the whole game in about 12 hours and that was counting all the time I was taking doing sidequests and racing in my car. The length of the game, however, could all have easily been forgivable if only the missions didn't leave you so goddamn disappointed. They did little to move the plot forward, and lacked any of the awesome boss fight punctuation that Doom 3 had. This...might even have also been forgivable if they did not throw a few really awesome boss fights at you early on in the game. Which they did. And it really made you think you had a lot more of that stuff coming your way. But the gameplay just got flatter and flatter as you made it toward the end. Seriously, I played on hard difficulty and missions were actually getting easier.
I bought it, and with all the driver updates and patches they push out for it I only had it work one night so I can't comment much on it.
I'm really pissed off with this game, graphics finally run okay but now I freeze after about 5 minutes and the game stops working.
Anyways good write up, that must have taken forever.
Well if you own it anyway, I certainly hope you get it working okay. As much as I regret having spent 60 bucks on such a disappointing game, that's not to say they weren't SOME redeeming qualities about it. I just can't even talk about them because I'm still that pissed off about too many other glaring issues with it.
And no, it didn't take me that long to write about. LOL
Just when I'm angry I type fast. I wish others would engage me with walls of text as well like they used to back in the day.
*READING*
Siaynoq has awesome reviews so this should be good
I posted the same review on Giantbomb and a few people were annoyed by how much I wrote about it. LOL
Ah well, at least in less than a month there will be another game coming out (you know the one) that should be keeping me busy for months.
I will also say that I've often had doubts about my video card and monitor combination, but Rage did help vindicate my decisions once and for all. It looks crisp as hell on my machine and the 60 FPS looks so good on my computer that my eyes actually hurt for awhile playing it cause I had to get used to how sharp everything was.
Finally got the game up and running! Have noticed quite a bit of repetitiveness and the story suddenly is no where to be found. Maybe I'm not far enough yet though, I just killed the huge mutant with the rocket launcher and got an extra defibrillator bar.
And yeah, I'm still right if I say graphics don't make the game.
You should shut up and think before you speak/write. Since you didn't experience the same problems as I did, and I have a high-end PC which eats every game out there on the highest settings, then you should not be able to assert that "you're still right".
No Vsync on a game that makes you turn your aim around too much is incredibly annoying. Now add to that the fact that textures are SLOWLY rendering when I turn towards them. What this means? I'll explain to someone to whom it obviously doesn't matter what the graphics do: the textures are in resolution 50x50, then in a _very_ obvious second they go to 100x100 and finally to their normal resolution.
Models were beyond annoying and I couldn't keep the camera at them while they were talking since it was disturbing to the eye, but if I move more then a few feet away they stop talking to me. Idiocy. When I find a video for that I'll post it as well.
Guess your computer then just couldn't "eat" this game.
And yeah, I'm still actually right when I say, graphics don't make the game. What we're seeing here, however, is the graphics actually breaking the enjoyment of the game for you. That's because you're experiencing technical problems. But what I'm trying to say which is what you keep failing to understand, is that I'm criticizing the game from the point of view of someone who didn't have those technical issues, thought the game looked really amazing graphically, and yet still thought it sucked because of all its overall gameplay issues and lack of depth.
Again, I'm not disputing these technical issues you've brought up. I'm saying that when everything is technically working in a game graphically (such as it did for me) and arguably looks really good (such as I'm arguing), then it's still not enough to make me forgive everything else that's wrong with the game (things that have nothing at all to do with the graphics).
Guess your computer then just couldn't "eat" this game.
And yeah, I'm still actually right when I say, graphics don't make the game. What we're seeing here, however, is the graphics actually breaking the enjoyment of the game for you. That's because you're experiencing technical problems. But what I'm trying to say which is what you keep failing to understand, is that I'm criticizing the game from the point of view of someone who didn't have those technical issues, thought the game looked really amazing graphically, and yet still thought it sucked because of all its overall gameplay issues and lack of depth.
Again, I'm not disputing these technical issues you've brought up. I'm saying that when everything is technically working in a game graphically (such as it did for me) and arguably looks really good (such as I'm arguing), then it's still not enough to make me forgive everything else that's wrong with the game (things that have nothing at all to do with the graphics).
So stop getting all defensive about it, fella.
I'm not defensive about it. You just don't seem to acknowledge that a game can, in reality, suck so bad that it's worthless, just because of technical difficulties, that are not, in any way, on the gamer's part.
And don't say "your computer just couldn't eat this game", because it did. I ran with 70+ FPS on highest settings. When a developer does an extremely poor job in creating an engine, that has been developed for 5+ years and that will be the MAIN thing the company is going to make profit from (cause the game is just a bad tech demo) THEN the graphics do in fact break the game. And not for "me", but for "us". The millions of people with ATI cards. That's not a technical difficulty, that's bad development.
I play Golden Axe, Heroes 3, Dune 2 and many others regularly. Apparently I play Blizzard games as well, which are not based on good graphics. But if you can't see my point of view then you are the one with a problem and are being defensive about it.
We're obviously having a huge misunderstanding here. I want to understand you and I'd like you to understand me as well. I'm agreeing with you more than you realize, I'm just making another point as well.
In the way I agree with you: Yes, the technical issues being what they are, of course I can totally understand how that would make or break a game for you. Cause if the game's not working right, then how good can it possibly be? I get that. And I agree.
What I'm saying about graphics not making the game did not apply to your situation but to the developers. What I mean by this is: The developers seemed to think the game's awesome graphics (not knowing at the time of the technical issues they'd have) would carry this game so far, that I believe this is why the game fell so short on everything else: story, pacing, gameplay....
So my point is, it was the developers of the game who felt the graphics would so make the game, the spent most of the time making them as best as possible, while shortchanging the other aspects of the game that to me make a game more worthwhile.
As for your situation, I'm completely agreeing that if a technical issue basically renders the game broken, or is even so noticeable that it may as well be, then of course that's a deal breaker. It would be for me too.
I'm saying the developers thought they could get away with making a game with a crappy generic plot, boring characters, repetitive gameplay (even for a FPS) and a completely anticlimactic ending (considering other id games), all because they thought their tech 5 engine was so awesome and you'd be so dazzled by the visual aesthetics of the game.
Now obviously this kind of failed for two reasons: one was because of the very technical issues you have described, and second, as I said, graphics aren't everything. They are enough to ruin the experience of the game as they have done for you here, but they are not enough to make the game great if everything else in the game is crappy as I have described.
So you see, I was not trying to tell you that graphics weren't everything. I was trying to tell the developers, id software, that graphics aren't everything and that they need to go back to the fundamentals. I mean, Rage is kind of a game with an identity crisis. It doesn't really know what it is. It's this weird mix of RPG elements and FPS action, both of which fall completely short apparently due to each other. It's not an interesting RPG cause it doesn't go all the way with character customization and there is no real consequences to your actions. And it falls short of being a good FPS because it doesn't increase in difficulty in any way and you can just spam grenades and custom ammo that makes you ridiculously overpowered. There is also a serious lack of boss fights (a staple of any good FPS in my opinion) after only being about 1/4 into the game.
And on top of all this, as you have described, they did a shitty job bringing the game to the PC. I was fortunate not to experience those technical issues which I guess left me the luxury of criticizing these other elements in the game. And since the game looked really good to me in the graphics sense, I was just trying to say that despite how great the graphics were (since I experienced none of those technical problems), it still managed to be a shitty game in so many other ways hence my plea to not you, but id, "Graphics don't make the game great!"
See Doom 3 for its time had amazing graphics. And it didn't even have a very interesting story. Demons invade Earth an you gotta stop them. That was it. But...BUT! It still managed to succeed in a few critical areas that made the game so enjoyable-specifically being a very well paced action game that increased in difficulty and tension as you went along, punctuated by challenging boss fights and ending in spectacular finale. Rage simply couldn't get one of these fundamentals right. Because it was an ambitious game, they just sort of meet you halfway on all these different elements but they try to distract you with these shortcomings by having a really great graphics engine which admittedly a lot of people had problems with on their PCs and of course I think that's enough justification for a deal breaker.
I am completely aware of what you meant. It's that you always used small phrases that trigger an unwelcome response, like when my PC couldn't "eat" the game or when you still argued about graphics not breaking the game when the fact of the matter is, as in this example, they do break them. Even if it's just for certain (millions of) individuals. All other things I've obviously agreed with since I have not countered them in any way.
I said graphics don't make the game. I never said they were incapable of breaking the game. It really didn't seem you understood the distinction between those two sentences so I wanted to make myself clear. And you coined the phrase "PC which eats every game out there" not me.
The game had a lot of optimization issues. Some people could run it no problem right away, others have had issues off and on the whole time. I've went from can't run it because it ran poorly similar to overneathe then would freeze, to tweaking the settings myself and it ran fine, then I got seams in everything where textures were , no big deal still ran fine, to freezing after 5 minutes of playing, to now I run it FINALLY okay but I still get a little bit of loading speed problems when I turn like that, which is still a game problem because I had it running perfectly at 60fps at one point.
Anyways gonna play a bit tonight, been trying not to play games so I can sleep, still failing so may as well play a little. I hope things get somewhat better.
That tearing issue I had on my nvidia card fixed itself pretty quick though. But yeah....people will be talking about this game for awhile. But they'll mostly talk about its shitty PC release.
*spoilers ahead*
I'm compelled to write a lengthy review of this game and I hope others that have played it as well will feel me on some of this game's baffling shortcomings.
What's strange about Rage is that in the beginning it really gives you the impression that you've got some really huge things you'll have to deal with and some crazy ass boss fights all along the way. But somehow toward the end, it's like the developers got cold feet and just kind of rushed the rest of it along to get it all done. Allow me to explain.
Not too far in the game once you get settled, you're given a quest to go into an abandoned part of the city overrun with mutants to retrieve an item that increases your chances of survival. The look of this abandoned city was amazing much like the rest of the game's locations. And once you really got inside the heart of your objective the combat starting getting pretty challenging as I was gradually introduced to some new monsters-some acid spewing varieties, a giant with a huge fuck off flamethrower, and a berserker type with a whipping sort of melee attack. And I was encountering all these new monsters within close proximity of each other and everything was just getting more and more exciting and visceral throughout the level. All in the meantime there is a inexplicably huge mutant wandering around the city that I'm only catching glimpses of (an obvious hint at a major boss battle coming up).
So I'm making my way through these more challenging and interesting monsters and I finally reach the boss level that is indeed that gigantic mutant. A rocket launcher is necessary here and it's provided to you right before the encounter. And there I was cornered in a building while this huge mutant is hurling blocks of cinder at me and trying to grab me from inside my part of the building. I'm dodging this thing, returning rockets at its weak spots, using my defibrilator, it was all really, really great. And so I finally defeat this thing and I'm like, "Wow, great boss battle! And yet so early in the game!" I'm thinking I got a lot to look forward to.
To those of you who've played Doom 3, you probably also fondly remember the frequent, albeit somewhat typical boss encounters in that game. I mean typical just in the sense though that you could sense them coming. You could tell when you were about to reach a new location and move on to a new environment. But no way in hell were you moving on before one of id's crazy ass monsters got in your way. The boss battles in Doom were daunting experiences but they were incredibly fun and challenging and were classic reminders that you were playing an action intensive FPS.
Well, unfortunately for Rage, after this huge boss fight early in the game, the level of excitement mostly went downhill from there. And don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I didn't still enjoy the fighting. But all I really got for the rest of the game were run of the mill bad guys who all went down really easy. Some were of the heavier variety with huge guns that just walked slowly toward you, others the light agile kind like the acrobatic mutants and bandits, and then just regular dudes shooting at me and taking cover.
So I kept playing side quests and main quests and always thinking of that boss battle back the abandoned city. Well for the rest of the game there's not another battle like that even coming close to it. Each mission would just end with me grabbing something and often coming back the way I came with a chance of fighting more regular guys. I couldn't believe how anticlimatic so much of it was. For instance...
There's a moment where you go into the Jackal's territory (one of the many bandit clans throughout the game). Sort of a weird stereotypical bunch of futuristic Native Americans, these guys were fairly tough in battle. Jumping around and throwing shit at me with exploding balloons and rolling inflammable barrels, yet still nothing I couldn't handle. But the whole time all I could think was, man, there must be some stereotypical chieftan guy I'm gonna have to fight through to get to my objective, per classic id and FPS design. This was also about 3/4 of the way finished with the game and I still hadn't experienced another gnarly boss battle. Nothing like back in the abandoned city. So alas, I reach my objective, some technological plot device, I grab it, and then take a shortcut back to the entrance of the level. And that was it.
This is how most missions played out in this game and I just couldn't believe how boring it was getting. Or actually, I could believe it cause I was quickly realizing there was nothing to look forward to in terms of combat anymore. And you really keep hoping it's coming cause the weapons you start collecting are getting more powerful as you go along. There's this recipe for making explosive buckshot that seriously kicks ass and you can easily make hundreds of these things, but none of it really mattered cause I was never in a situation again where I needed that kind of firepower. Most the time I'd use my pistol cause I kept thinking, "Gotta save that special ammo for the big boss fights and super hard areas..." But none of it ever came.
Another example is when you're in the Gearhead (another clan) territory on your way to activate another now seemingly arbitrary plot device. Throughout journeying through their lair, the leader of these guys in his hackneyed German accent is taunting you, telling you how you're gonna die and all that cliched crap. So I'm thinking, wow, I bet I'm gonna be fighting this guy at some point and he's gonna have all these machines and robot sentries and turrets and guards and it's gonna be really satisfying when I shut him up once and for all. Well, I did fight him...but like...it was just him. By himself. In a room. And he had like a mini gun or a machine gun and he was a different color than the rest of the Gearheads, but that was all that distinguished him. No diabolical trappings, no theater or drama of any kind. Just him in a featureless room by himself.
Mission after mission was like this. And it actually just got worse as I got closer to the end of the game. Each mission where I was taking on the faceless oppressive Authority was shorter than and more anticlimactic than the last. No boss fights of any kind. Just more machine gun guys doing their same thing over and over which by now, despite how fun the combat is and the beautiful graphics of this game, really was quite stale. There was no variety at all. And all these moments that the game is supposed to be building up to had no tension in them whatsoever.
In Doom 3, there's really nothing sophisticated going on the its story. Demons from Hell invade, they want Earth, an you have to stop them. Despite this, however, even Doom 3 managed to create real tension and personal moments that made you care. Remember Sarge? The guy who was barking orders at you throughout the game and chastising you for taking your sweet time? And remember how you had a choice at one point to follow his orders and send the signal for help or to refuse to do it and side with Swann? Granted, your choice made no difference later on, but things were becoming personal now between you and Sarge. This guy who never really seemed to approve of you to begin with was royally pissed at you for disobeying him. And yeah, even that mattered little since he got turned into a monster and tried to kill you, but by the time you reach him in what was an awesome boss fight, you felt there was something more personal about it. You seemed to really want to kill this guy either to put him out of his misery or for just being a thankless jerk throughout the game. This tension, this conflict, all was managed throughout the game as a nice little personal story despite Doom 3 overall having little to no plot.
With this in mind I looked at Rage and asked myself how they managed to make me care as little as I did about anything and anyone. Even in Fallout 3 with it's boring main plotline managed to make you care a little bit about what was going on with the Enclave. Who was this President Eden, really? Were the Brotherhood of Steel any better than the Enclave? Who should I side with? Should I care about any of this at all? Granted, even Fallout 3 really had no alternate ending except for its lame canned cinematic ending based on your last minute decision. But for a game feeling so flat at the end, can anyone really say Rage felt any less flat and boring?
Even if the combat was really exciting way up to the end with some dramatically new monsters then it might have distracted me from the fact that I could care less about what I was doing there in their base. It was just the same run of the mill combat I had been experiencing all along with no new twists or gameplay mechanics. Just go from point A to point B, activate random piece of technology, and set an even in motion which the rest of the game did little to inform you about or give you a reason to care.
And what were the last things I was fighting up to the end? Robotically enhanced mutants. Sure, it was new once I got there. But there was nothing really interesting or new about it. They were just like mutants you fought before only now they fired energy weapons and still charged you. And all you had to do was hold out long enough (which even on Hard was super easy) until the machine you activated did its thing. And then that was it. No Cyberdemon-esque boss here to wrap things up. Just a bunch of light weight seemingly endless charging robot mutants.
You know how when you're playing a game that feels kind of short and you can sense the game coming to an end. This sense can bring about so many mixed feelings. If the game was too short, well, maybe it was an interesting journey to the end nonetheless. Well it wasn't really interesting at all. The story and total lack of antagonist simply made me not give a shit. Well if the journey wasn't that interesting, maybe at least the challenge of getting here made it all worth it. Not in this game. With all my overpowered weapons and vast amounts of ammo (both regular and special) it was as easy as buying a ton of grenades for cheap and just throwing them into the crowds over and over again.
Okay then, but the end cutscene was great, right? Right?? Well no. It was remarkably shrift and kind of boring. But it wouldn't have mattered if all those other things about making it to the end weren't so damn boring.
All this I'm saying has no bearing on the game's graphics and overall beautiful presentation. But it simply goes to show, yet again, graphics does not make the game, people. I'd even say I don't expect a sophisticated in depth story in a game like this. But since the combat go so repetitive and was never punctuated by a unique monster or any other kind of experience, I thought that maybe I could get something out of the narrative, but not really.
I did have some good times in the car though. Generally don't like racing games, but the vehicle combat reminded me of the good old days playing Twisted Metal. So I guess that was good.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
I beg to differ. There is no vsync, making the game extremely choppy. Textures don't render nearly as fast and OVER 50% of all textures are low res. Models were skipping frames during animations or were simply swapping between 2 different animations every millisecond making my head hurt during a conversation. The interface is a console port.
If a developer hates ATI users then the ATI users will surely return the favour to the developer.
I felt like playing a retarded alpha version of the game.
Ha. Bagstone.
I'm really pissed off with this game, graphics finally run okay but now I freeze after about 5 minutes and the game stops working.
Anyways good write up, that must have taken forever.
Siaynoq has awesome reviews so this should be good
And yeah, I'm still right if I say graphics don't make the game. You are begging to differ with me because you are disagreeing that the graphics are any good. Well, if say, the model textures were low res, it's not something my vision was really noticing. It still looked good to me. And some of the other issues you're describing were due to the problems most ATI users experienced which id is pretty embarrassed over and have been trying to fix. But still, don't miss the point I'm making, which is: They believe anyway that their graphics for the game were awesome and because of this focused more on trying to make the game look pretty than creating what in my opinion anyway are the elements that make for a better game.
Like if they used low textures, I really don't give a crap because the game still looked really good to me. My issue with the game is far from how it looks though is what I'm saying.
It's funny cause with my luck and limited knowledge of computers, I thought I'd definitely be experiencing those technical problems that people talked about. What can I say? It sucks that the PC release had so many of those technical problems. But those aside...
Yeah the campaign was really short. I think I beat the whole game in about 12 hours and that was counting all the time I was taking doing sidequests and racing in my car. The length of the game, however, could all have easily been forgivable if only the missions didn't leave you so goddamn disappointed. They did little to move the plot forward, and lacked any of the awesome boss fight punctuation that Doom 3 had. This...might even have also been forgivable if they did not throw a few really awesome boss fights at you early on in the game. Which they did. And it really made you think you had a lot more of that stuff coming your way. But the gameplay just got flatter and flatter as you made it toward the end. Seriously, I played on hard difficulty and missions were actually getting easier.
Well if you own it anyway, I certainly hope you get it working okay. As much as I regret having spent 60 bucks on such a disappointing game, that's not to say they weren't SOME redeeming qualities about it. I just can't even talk about them because I'm still that pissed off about too many other glaring issues with it.
And no, it didn't take me that long to write about. LOL
Just when I'm angry I type fast. I wish others would engage me with walls of text as well like they used to back in the day.
I posted the same review on Giantbomb and a few people were annoyed by how much I wrote about it. LOL
Ah well, at least in less than a month there will be another game coming out (you know the one) that should be keeping me busy for months.
I will also say that I've often had doubts about my video card and monitor combination, but Rage did help vindicate my decisions once and for all. It looks crisp as hell on my machine and the 60 FPS looks so good on my computer that my eyes actually hurt for awhile playing it cause I had to get used to how sharp everything was.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
No Vsync on a game that makes you turn your aim around too much is incredibly annoying. Now add to that the fact that textures are SLOWLY rendering when I turn towards them. What this means? I'll explain to someone to whom it obviously doesn't matter what the graphics do: the textures are in resolution 50x50, then in a _very_ obvious second they go to 100x100 and finally to their normal resolution.
Here's a video of this very fun situation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Y8oz7Wbrw
Models were beyond annoying and I couldn't keep the camera at them while they were talking since it was disturbing to the eye, but if I move more then a few feet away they stop talking to me. Idiocy. When I find a video for that I'll post it as well.
Ha. Bagstone.
And yeah, I'm still actually right when I say, graphics don't make the game. What we're seeing here, however, is the graphics actually breaking the enjoyment of the game for you. That's because you're experiencing technical problems. But what I'm trying to say which is what you keep failing to understand, is that I'm criticizing the game from the point of view of someone who didn't have those technical issues, thought the game looked really amazing graphically, and yet still thought it sucked because of all its overall gameplay issues and lack of depth.
Again, I'm not disputing these technical issues you've brought up. I'm saying that when everything is technically working in a game graphically (such as it did for me) and arguably looks really good (such as I'm arguing), then it's still not enough to make me forgive everything else that's wrong with the game (things that have nothing at all to do with the graphics).
So stop getting all defensive about it, fella.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
And don't say "your computer just couldn't eat this game", because it did. I ran with 70+ FPS on highest settings. When a developer does an extremely poor job in creating an engine, that has been developed for 5+ years and that will be the MAIN thing the company is going to make profit from (cause the game is just a bad tech demo) THEN the graphics do in fact break the game. And not for "me", but for "us". The millions of people with ATI cards. That's not a technical difficulty, that's bad development.
I play Golden Axe, Heroes 3, Dune 2 and many others regularly. Apparently I play Blizzard games as well, which are not based on good graphics. But if you can't see my point of view then you are the one with a problem and are being defensive about it.
Ha. Bagstone.
In the way I agree with you: Yes, the technical issues being what they are, of course I can totally understand how that would make or break a game for you. Cause if the game's not working right, then how good can it possibly be? I get that. And I agree.
What I'm saying about graphics not making the game did not apply to your situation but to the developers. What I mean by this is: The developers seemed to think the game's awesome graphics (not knowing at the time of the technical issues they'd have) would carry this game so far, that I believe this is why the game fell so short on everything else: story, pacing, gameplay....
So my point is, it was the developers of the game who felt the graphics would so make the game, the spent most of the time making them as best as possible, while shortchanging the other aspects of the game that to me make a game more worthwhile.
As for your situation, I'm completely agreeing that if a technical issue basically renders the game broken, or is even so noticeable that it may as well be, then of course that's a deal breaker. It would be for me too.
I'm saying the developers thought they could get away with making a game with a crappy generic plot, boring characters, repetitive gameplay (even for a FPS) and a completely anticlimactic ending (considering other id games), all because they thought their tech 5 engine was so awesome and you'd be so dazzled by the visual aesthetics of the game.
Now obviously this kind of failed for two reasons: one was because of the very technical issues you have described, and second, as I said, graphics aren't everything. They are enough to ruin the experience of the game as they have done for you here, but they are not enough to make the game great if everything else in the game is crappy as I have described.
So you see, I was not trying to tell you that graphics weren't everything. I was trying to tell the developers, id software, that graphics aren't everything and that they need to go back to the fundamentals. I mean, Rage is kind of a game with an identity crisis. It doesn't really know what it is. It's this weird mix of RPG elements and FPS action, both of which fall completely short apparently due to each other. It's not an interesting RPG cause it doesn't go all the way with character customization and there is no real consequences to your actions. And it falls short of being a good FPS because it doesn't increase in difficulty in any way and you can just spam grenades and custom ammo that makes you ridiculously overpowered. There is also a serious lack of boss fights (a staple of any good FPS in my opinion) after only being about 1/4 into the game.
And on top of all this, as you have described, they did a shitty job bringing the game to the PC. I was fortunate not to experience those technical issues which I guess left me the luxury of criticizing these other elements in the game. And since the game looked really good to me in the graphics sense, I was just trying to say that despite how great the graphics were (since I experienced none of those technical problems), it still managed to be a shitty game in so many other ways hence my plea to not you, but id, "Graphics don't make the game great!"
See Doom 3 for its time had amazing graphics. And it didn't even have a very interesting story. Demons invade Earth an you gotta stop them. That was it. But...BUT! It still managed to succeed in a few critical areas that made the game so enjoyable-specifically being a very well paced action game that increased in difficulty and tension as you went along, punctuated by challenging boss fights and ending in spectacular finale. Rage simply couldn't get one of these fundamentals right. Because it was an ambitious game, they just sort of meet you halfway on all these different elements but they try to distract you with these shortcomings by having a really great graphics engine which admittedly a lot of people had problems with on their PCs and of course I think that's enough justification for a deal breaker.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
Ha. Bagstone.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
Ha. Bagstone.
Anyways gonna play a bit tonight, been trying not to play games so I can sleep, still failing so may as well play a little. I hope things get somewhat better.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
Siaynoq's Playthroughs