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id Software Releases RAGE 192

Posted by Soulskill from the back-in-the-post-apocalyptic-saddle dept.
Today marks the launch of RAGE, id Software's post-apocalyptic first-person shooter that's been in development for at least four years. Early response to the game is mixed, but mostly positive. Eurogamer wrote, "This certainly isn't a video game like the ones we're used to playing in 2011, smothered in celebrity voice actors and shoulder-grabbingly intense expository cut-scenes, and varnished by psychologists so we never look in the wrong direction when we're sprinting away from a set-piece. Instead it's something simpler and more old-fashioned. Judged on game design and content, then, it's slightly anachronistic, but as a toy box full of things you can only do in games, RAGE is warm-hearted and refreshing." The review at Opposable Thumbs was much more critical, saying, "None of the game's ideas are thought out or fully explored, so the game feels like a series of dead ends in a world that is hard to care about, in which you play a bland character doing boring things against stock enemies using weak guns." If you'd like to see a look at the actual gameplay, Giant Bomb has a lengthy video with commentary.
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id Software Releases RAGE More

id Software Releases RAGE

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  • Id releases Engine, tech demo... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2011 @05:24AM (#37597094) Journal
    Gaming press interprets tech demo as game, responds accordingly.

    • Pretty damn expensive tech demo :p I get your point though. Some people are happy playing awful games with pretty graphics of course. Me, I bought Farcry when it was at budget price to see what all the fuss was about, and even then I thought it was a waste of money.

      • You didn't like the original Far Cry?

        I also bought it very cheap and thought it was pretty good. Was kind of surprised that there weren't a lot more games using that engine.

        Come to think of it, the engine was the most interesting part of the game.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by arth1 ( 260657 )

          Unless you had the "right" equipment, it played like a powerpoint presentation. But what killed it was the linearity -- a first person dungeon siege in the jungle. Nice scenery isn't half as nice if you can't go to that scenery.

          • I'd forgotten that you couldn't reach it. I hate games with invisible boundaries. I was sure it was linear too, but people reply to me were saying how it was a sandbox style game. Just having 2 or 3 paths to the same location is not sandbox gameplay..

            Uncharted manages to do the same kind of linear path thing, but still making it fun though. So it's not just down to whether it's linear or not. It's about the actual gameplay.

            • The original Far Cry was at least more sandbox'y then most others of the time. You could mix-up your approach, sneak around enemies, set traps, get hunted, stay quiet and let them wander off. Whereas traditional FPS of the time were extremely linear with only a single path to follow and nothing you could skip or flank.

              The later missions got a bit linear and overkill, but the first few islands were fun and there were numerous ways to deal with the situations.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by SpryGuy ( 206254 )

          I liked Far Cry 2 better. And it can be had for cheap on Steam. In fact, I got Far Cry, Far Cry 2, and the Far Cry 2 expansion for $14 I think. At most. Wait, maybe it was just $7 on "sale". Anyway, great value for the dollar. I put 50 hours into FarCry 2 alone.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • I agree, Just Cause II is a lot of fun just for exploring and using the grappling hook/chute combo.

          If you haven't played Saints Row 2, it's like the spiritual successor to the GTA 3 series IMO. It keeps the fun in the gameplay and humour that GTA IV seemed to lose somehow. I'm really looking forward to SR3 :) I didn't even buy the first because people seemed to act like the fact it had swearing in it was the best point of the game, but I can say that SR2 definitely has fun gameplay. Some missions have you d

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Reapy ( 688651 )

            Yeah I was surprised how many people hated AC and complained about it. Those are actually some of the few games that I got ALMOST most of the achievements (minus the flag hunting) because quite frankly the cities are amazing, and the feel of climbing around is easy and challenging all at the same time. The difficulty is small, but you have so many choices of HOW you want to take out a target that it is just a sheer pleasure to drive that guy around. Brotherhood did a good thing having levels of challenge...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Pope ( 17780 )

          Why is it these game designers constantly seem to forget that what you are playing is a game and is therefor supposed to be fun?

          Because your definition of "fun" isn't always the same as mine.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Errtu76 ( 776778 )

        Yep. And the reverse is also true. Why, i can still enjoy Diablo 2 with the low resolution gameplay.

        • I had a lot of fun with it, but moving to a twin screen setup forced me to play it in windowed mode, and I couldn't really read the text anymore after that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jhoegl ( 638955 )
      The AI actually attempts to dodge my bullets, I dont know what Opposable Thumbs is crying about. Bland? It is tough to shoot the freakin enemy, and I have only gone up against standard grunts so far.

      Now if ID releases the source code like they always have... OMG mods!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Andy Dodd ( 701 )

        Plus keep in mind that the focus on iD games is typically multiplayer and not single player. (Doom 3 being a bit of an exception.)

        Look at Quake 3 - it was pretty much 100% a multiplayer game, where the SP storyline was just multiplayer games against bots. It still did VERY well.

        If the SP storyline sucks, I don't really care, if the MP is good.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cgenman ( 325138 )

          Doom 3 was a shiny let down. Quake 4 had a few great sequences, but was behind the times. Return to Castle Wolfenstein was bland and lacking a special something. All were by and large single player games with some tacked-on multiplayer component.

          I'd like to see id return to their pure multiplayer ways too. But in general, I'd like to see them put LESS effort into each release, releasing more frequently, with a purer feature set, and something creatively risky in each release. As it stands, when you rel

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jandrese ( 485 )
        From what I've seen, people who are playing this on the console seem to hate the gunplay, and people who play on the PC love it. I think Id may not have put as much autoaim as most console shooters, making it exceptionally difficult/frustrating there. This is pure conjecture though, I have not played either.

      • I'm still puzzling over the weak weapons bit... As the footage on You-tube shows scenario after scenario where the player makes multiple successful kills with various sniper weapons - one shot, one kill. I saw weapons that blew enemies into ittie bitties that came falling down out of the sky seconds later just to knock down other enemies, insta-gib kills galore, grenade like explosions with realistically lethal ranges, a spinning blade thingee that lopped off heads or cleaved torsos in half on a single toss

    • Re:Id releases Engine, tech demo... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by beef3k ( 551086 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2011 @05:42AM (#37597152)
      more like "iD releases tech demo in guise of a game, marketed and sold to consumers for 60 bucks"

      In that context harsh critics are righly deserved

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by TheRaven64 ( 641858 )
        Is it sold to consumers as a game? I always got the impression that Id games from Quake onwards were sold as engines with a demo game attached. If you want to create a game for their engine, you have two options. You either pay them a huge pile of money and get access to everything including redistribution rights, or you make your game require the end user to buy the engine and call it a mod. For Quake 1, the initial install was about 50MB, and my quake directory ended up being about 500MB from all of t

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by ccguy ( 1116865 )

          Is it sold to consumers as a game?

          Yes. [amazon.com]

        • Since Bethesda bought id, they are no longer licensing their engines...

          http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08/12/id-not-licensing-id-tech-5/ [rockpapershotgun.com]

          Bethesda is starting to depress me between this, the state of Brink and Rage, and they aren't really targeting pc anymore either.

          http://www.computerandvideogames.com/298610/skyrim-looks-the-same-when-playing-on-pc-and-console-bethesda/ [computeran...ogames.com]

          No extra love for the people that made them what they are. (And with them buying id, well you can put it all together...) Thou

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Shillo ( 64681 )

            Losing touch with its roots? What roots? Morrowind was released for PC and Xbox. That was one of its important selling points. All subsequent Bethesda RPGs followed suit.

            • You know that Bethesda is older than the XBox and Morrowind was not the first Elder Scrolls game, right?

              • And here I thought they were just trying to start a fad by starting numbering at 3. Next you'll tell me there was a Fallout 1 and 2...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by afidel ( 530433 )
          Team Fortress was the absolute bomb. The other great Q1 mod was Painkeep

          • There were lots of fun ones. The Killer Quake Patch was fun for deathmatch - insanely overpowered guns, from the chaingun that could kill anyone almost instantly (and use 100 shotgun shells in the process) up to the guided nuke. Made a nice change from the tactical thinking required by TF. AirQuake and Quake Rally were also fun. Quake Horrorshow was very atmospheric - everyone starts as a civilian and after a minute one person becomes a chainsaw murderer and has to get 25 kills before a timer expires.

    • Uhmmm, ok, call it a full-price tech demo then? (Score:5, Informative)

      by SplatMan_DK ( 1035528 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2011 @06:20AM (#37597242) Homepage Journal

      Gaming press interprets tech demo as game, responds accordingly.

      Are you serious?

      May I politely point out they're charging full price for it? In fact it is the exact same price as Battlefield 3 which is due in 4 weeks...

      The US price for RAGE is 59,99 USD (sity bucks)
      The EU price for RAGE is 49,99 EUR (approx 66,62 USD)

      Can we call it a full-price tech demo then? Or perhaps a "full-price-cross-platform-tech-demo"?

      You know ... just to make sure nobody gets confused about the situation?

      - Jesper

      • Reminds me of Doom 3. I was looking forward to trying it out just for the stunning visuals, but after reading the reviews, I think I'll wait 6 mo and see if the price goes down. Id is good at making engines, but they aren't the only ones who can. I don't think a lot of people used id tech 4. I wonder, have we reached a point where the graphics are just "good enough", and people care more about gameplay than rendering improvements?

        • I was wondering whether people outside of gamers might be interested in the engine, such as medical people using the first-person POV to wander around a patient's internal organs. Use the railgun to pulverize that blood clot that could lead to his aneurysm, get the gold key. But then they'd ask for more clot...

    • Re:Id releases Engine, tech demo... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MrZilla ( 682337 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2011 @06:42AM (#37597332) Homepage

      Well, I've always preferred id's 'tech demos' to most games. For some strange reason the tech demos seems to give you more actual play time and less movie watching.

      • Sadly true. There's nothing more annoying than playing a game and having to sit through the cut-scenes then doing it more than once.

    • It's worth it if the modding community embraces it, but not remotely if they don't. Unfortunately, there's no good way to know ahead of time.

      • You know they aren't going to stop selling it, right? So you can wait and see how the modding community goes and then buy it (likely after it has been discounted too).

        • Sigh. The problem there is that if too many people wait, there won't be enough users to support the modding community.

          • Yes, but you won't make a difference (unless you happen to be doing the modding of course) by buying it or not buying it now.

    • Because the shouldn't treat something that is marketed as a game and sold as game to the public as a game? Just give it a free pass and provide no information to their readers/viewers on whether they might like to buy it?

      It's $60 on steam. That seems very much like a game up for sale to me. It has Bethesda written on it as well, very much a game maker.

      So you seriously think that because it also serves as a tech demo the gaming press should just ignore that it is presented and marketed as a game, and a AAA p

    • Have you even played it or are you just being facetious? I can't tell sometimes especially when this isn't modded funny. Some people on this site are just miserable bastards and nothing is ever good or fun for them. It annoys me...like you have to suck the joy out of every single thing that exists. Nothing personal it just annoys me to see people constantly shitting on everyone's parade.

  • I've been having fun with it, even though I only got to play for about 45minutes before work.

    My only complaint so far is that the enemies seem to pop in from nowhere, unlike other FPS/RPGs that have enemies that are always on the map. This might just be a bad impression from the first mission, but that's how it seems so far.

  • Texture popping (Score:4, Informative)

    by Phasmatis ( 2474684 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2011 @05:48AM (#37597170)
    Be aware that the PC version has a serious texture popping issue. I've yet to read someone state they DON'T have this problem, no matter the hardware: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5oEdfT4OWY [youtube.com] BTW, and here's the extent of your in-game graphics options: http://i.imgur.com/Rlvr6.jpg [imgur.com] The game is designed to set its quality settings automatically relative to your hardware capabilities, but this very rarely works well in practice and also doesn't account for people like me who prefers a lower, but still playable frame rate in exchange for higher quality graphics. Anyways, sounds like the game was designed for consoles first anyway (at time of writing the FOV can't even be changed despite someone finding out how to enable the console). Way to go Carmack.

    • Anyways, sounds like the game was designed for consoles first anyway

      Motorstorm [wikipedia.org] was the inspiration for the game.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Aladrin ( 926209 )

      I don't have this issue. Someone else (with an nvidia 560ti, which I think is what I have) said they experience it with higher levels of AA, but not lower levels. I think I had mine set at none.

    • Funny. If it was designed for consoles, then where is the PS3 release?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Syberz ( 1170343 )
      Another AAA title developed for consoles and then ported to PC... I'm shocked...

    • That's fine, consoles are a big market, but that does mean it isn't something to get on a PC.

      Looking at that video, I'm guessing part of the problem is the guy has an ATi card. ATi's OpenGL support has never been as good as its DirectX support. You can argue that maybe they should improve it, but it is what it is. Not a problem, games use DirectX on Windows.... But not iD games. Despite Carmack saying that he likes DirectX better, they have not moved their engine over. As such, it wouldn't surprise me to se

      • Looking at that video, I'm guessing part of the problem is the guy has an ATi card

        Yeah. Given how long the game has been in development, we can't really expect it to work with current hardware and drivers, can we?

        • It is just what you get using OpenGL. They'd have to move to DirectX to have good ATi performance. That's what they should have done in my opinion, particularly since they had to make a DriectX version for the Xbox 360, but they don't want to. You can also argue ATi should fix their GL drivers but they've been like this for many years, so safe to say that isn't happening.

          My guess is iD doesn't really care since they seem to have become console and mobile heads. My solution and the one I recommend to others

  • I'm in the UK, so I don't get this game until Friday. However, I've had my Steam pre-order in for a month or so now. The big question in my mind this morning revolves around whether the PC version is a flawed, inferior port. I had thought this to be highly unlikely, given id's pedigree.

    However, I notice that various forums relating to the game are this morning jammed with reports of stability issues, graphical issues, and a severe lack of configuration options. It's hard to draw any firm conclusions for thi

    • In the same boat as you and it'll be a big letdown for me if it does have problems.

    • I notice that various forums relating to the game are this morning jammed with reports of stability issues, graphical issues

      Sounds like they're staying true to PC game design to me. Patch early, patch often.

    • Buddy of mine here in Canada is having major issues on the PC. Stare at a wall... then turn 90 degrees to see texture popping everywhere.. then turn to the wall and see texture popping again?..

      In addition, he mentioned that the controls for the mouse don't act like a mouse control; they feel constrained, like moving your mouse is actually like angling an analog stick (in that there is a max speed you can turn, irrespective of how much you move the mouse).

      I'm no major PC gamer, but it sounds like a disappoin

  • Watching the review just made me sick, reminds me too much of quake 3. Somehow IDs games always trigger this problem (unreal tournament was the worst). I think it has to do with the way the gun points in first person shooter mode. ID always makes the gun point to the right side of your body, but enemies come either straight at your or the left. To shoot properly one has to strafe or turn slightly, which feels weird. Looks like a good game but there's no way I will be able to play this for 20hours.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tgd ( 2822 )

      There are a number of FPS games I've always had that problem with -- almost all of Id's after Quake 2, for example. Borderlands was another.

      I think its some sort of combination of the field of view not being quite natural, and the framerate or something.

      Its weird, I have absolutely no tendency for motion sickness in the real world, but there are a few games that give me raging headaches and make me want to hurl after a half hour of play.

    • You know Unreal Tournament wasn't an id game, right?

      That said, I very rarely get motion sickness with games, but the last game that did provoke it was the Wolfenstein reboot - which was based on an id engine. That one had truly atrocious head-bob. I think I managed to fix it in the end via a console command or something (I finished the game, so I guess I must have), but under default settings, walking forward gave the distinct impression that my character was rapidly growing and shrinking in height, between

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ildon ( 413912 )

      Somehow IDs games always trigger this problem (unreal tournament was the worst).

      ID always makes the gun point to the right side of your body, but enemies come either straight at your or the left. To shoot properly one has to strafe or turn slightly, which feels weird.

      Son, you must be trolling. Id didn't make Unreal Tournament. In all Id shooters so far, despite how it looks graphically, bullets always end up exactly where your crosshair is placed (or in a random pattern centered on the crosshair if that's

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mikael ( 484 )

      Games which allow you to throw grenades, but don't factor in which arm is blocked by a wall drive me nuts. More than once, I'd throw a grenade only for it to bounce against a wall and straight under my feet

      In the real world, when playing snowball fights, I'd use either arm to throw. (had rural country friends who lived in a isolated farmhouse who liked to play war games in the surrounding wild fields).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hatta ( 162192 )

      Where they draw the gun is irrelevant. It doesn't affect aiming in any way. Use the crosshairs in the center of the screen to aim, and ignore the gun.

      Also, enemies come at you from whatever side happens to be facing them at the time. This depends as much on your position as on theirs. I'd be really really surprised if you could show statistically that they favor one side.

  • Does anyone know if the usual Id Linux port will make it out of the labs? Chalk me down as a Linux sale if it does

  • ...I'll need 26,000 floppies to get a copy of Rage for my current existing Windows version :-(

    • ...I'll need 26,000 floppies to get a copy of Rage for my current existing Windows version :-(

      Ah, yes, you upgraded to high Density discs recently, right?

      Good thing you moved on. That saves you a ton of disks! If you were still on the normal 5.25" /360K format you would need more than 72.000 discs...

      - Jesper

  • Will there be a Linux version, as there were for the last few ID games?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by arth1 ( 260657 )

      My guess is no, there will not be a Linux version this time.
      Too few Linux users buy their games, and when they do, they tend to buy them for Windows, which they have anyhow, if nothing else just to play games on.

      And this is a console game anyhow, and the controller support in Linux isn't exactly stellar - partly because of no support from the manufacturers.

      • Well, I, for one, make a point of buying native Linux games, even if I won't play them or actually like them. I have all id games (bought the windows version, but since they offer the Linux binaries...), and the Penumbra trilogy. Neverwinter Nights, I bought its three editions (the first one, which was standalone, the Gold and Diamond editions), and I enjoyed it hugely. Unfortunately, NWN II isn't offered on Linux anymore. I know it's difficult for game companies to support Linux, but I try to support them

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jandrese ( 485 )
        I think chances are good for a Linux version, but you will have to buy the windows version to get the asset files to use it. Id has generally been good about supplying a Linux version a few weeks/months after the initial release.

  • Anything with the word "post-apocalyptic" in it seems dated, shopworn and boring and reeks of Mel Gibson.

  • "None of the game's ideas are thought out or fully explored, so the game feels like a series of dead ends in a world that is hard to care about, in which you play a bland character doing boring things against stock enemies using weak guns."

    Pretty much sums up my experience of every game from id.

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