Gaming Rage Review

oh yes!!!! waiting for this one. am a bit puzzled if i should get for ps3 or for onlive (not sure if promo is still on but if you preordered new batman on onlive, you would get free onlive console system)

 

Disappointed as I'd hoped for a kind of STALKER meets Fallout kind of deal, the hard-nosed shooting of the STALKER games with the RPG wanderings of Fallout. But since it's just an end to end linear shooter then frankly it can sod off. Times have changed, and I like me a sandbox.

 

Interesting. Some points made in this review contrast greatly with some made in the Ars review. Some even being almost the same statement, but the opposite. For example, they say the checkpoints are more often terrible than not (with one example being a death half way through a mission resulted in being returned to the save from just before the end of the last), that the shooting, while functional, is uninspired, and that one mission literally involved going somewhere to push a button, and then returning to tell them you had pushed the button.

I appreciate that any review is going to be subjective, but things like a broken save system are pretty objective points. Is it just that you never experienced any issues?

 

I wasn't contradicting Ars' view on the checkpoints and nor did I say they were good. In fact that entire point says that the checkpoints are redundant as a concept, because you already have quicksaves and all these other mechanics in place to stop you from ever needing to load.

 

Sounds like 90% of all FPS missions to be honest. Surely it's more about how many heads you pop on the way, than what you do when you get there?

 

A friend is telling me he can't get Rage to run on a rig with ATI cards - any known issues?

 

@Landy_Ed: There were issues with ATi cards on Rage's release. ATi released a driver update to fix those issues but the update made them worse, so they pulled the initial release. Then a day later they released a working update. These updated drivers are available here:
http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/GPU121AMDCatRagePerfDriver.aspx

And here's some posts from Rock, Paper, Shotgun on the matter:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/10/04/raging-about-rage-pc/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/10/05/working-rage-ati-fix-now-out/

EDIT: ATi have just released a preview driver that fixes issues with Rage:
http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/GPU122AMDCat1110PreDriverV2.aspx

 

Cheers, I'll pass that on

 

Another rubbish consoles ported. They don’t even bother to add an advanced setting for PC, instead you had to resort to manually created/add your tweak to take advantage of your hardware.

 

That sounds like a contradiction to what Ars said to me. I'm not knocking your review or anything, in case you get the impression I am trying to be a dick; I am just trying to get an idea of the game, seeing as the reviews tend to be quite varied. In fact, take it as a compliment; the two I have given the most weight are yours and Ars', hence why I find it interesting that the two are so different, seeing as both sources tend to agree with what I think of games.

So what about the mission where you go to push a button, and return to sign off on it. Does that stand out at all in your memory?

 

[/QUOTE]

I think my sarcasm didn't quite come across there, by the sounds of it. Frankly, I can't recall if some of the checkpoints are rubbish or not - my issue was more that they exist at all on top of bandages, a minigame, regenerating health and quicksaves. Seems a heavy-handed approach to ensuring players don't die.

As for the mission, there are quite a few missions where it's simple fetch quests or 'Go here, kill X, come back' or 'Go here, talk to him, come back' - both of which are functionally similar to 'Go here, press the button, come back'. To single Rage out in this regard seems silly though, as it's no more guilty of this then any other recent game (See: http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2011/09/29/critical-hit-a-question-of-quests/1).

Besides, as Bauul says, when the journey is fun then it doesn't really matter where you're going.

 

ATi cards seems to have major issues... try updating the driver, if not tough luck. or buy a gts 450 since it runs fine in HD res.

the ars review does some up nicely, however I would like to counter argue that you can quick save by pressing F5 (its in the manual)

 

Absolutely the best game for ages in my view.

(nvidia)

fast simple shooty shooty

lovely

 

just waiting for the texture pack here.. ati needs to fix their opengl driver- but was kind of suprised to see you could still strafe jump.. some of the vets here probably have fun with this



forgive the frame loss.. all could get is 24-25 fps with a old catalyst driver.. the fix and disabling cat ai works but then you have some really funky texture issues- just not worth playing like that

 

Nice review! I've heard conflicting stuff about the auto-save feature though. Some saying it autosaves often enough, others saying that if you don't constantly manually save then you risk having to restart from a checkpoint you passed hours ago.

 

I think my sarcasm didn't quite come across there, by the sounds of it. Frankly, I can't recall if some of the checkpoints are rubbish or not - my issue was more that they exist at all on top of bandages, a minigame, regenerating health and quicksaves. Seems a heavy-handed approach to ensuring players don't die.

As for the mission, there are quite a few missions where it's simple fetch quests or 'Go here, kill X, come back' or 'Go here, talk to him, come back' - both of which are functionally similar to 'Go here, press the button, come back'. To single Rage out in this regard seems silly though, as it's no more guilty of this then any other recent game (See: http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2011/09/29/critical-hit-a-question-of-quests/1).

Besides, as Bauul says, when the journey is fun then it doesn't really matter where you're going.[/QUOTE]

Ok, thanks for the reply. That last sentence has helped me understand a lot better. I guess I will just have to find a friend that has it or hope for a demo, unless there is one?

 

some pics towards the beginning before I stopped playing- shows the good and the bad.. but it plays solid with no crashes using an old driver.. so it's definitely a driver thing =E a side effect of ati fixing rage should be brink gets fixed too (hopefully)



here's the texture corruption issue with the fixed driver.. weird it runs cherry- read it was compiled wrong but the v2 driver they released on the 7th has the same issues.. huang I heard got on a plane and flew into a hurricane- then called amds ceo and told him that's what playing rage on your current drivers feels like.. then he grabbed the controls and roid raged to the middle of the eye.. flew to the top and yelled I am huangalalingalingading!

 

A shame, I will pass on Rage.
Now if ID were to redo the original Quake and Q3A games in the new engine I'd definitely buy those. Will remind ID of what they should be focusing on IMO, a great shooter.
Gearbox should do the same with Duke Nukem 3d.

 

This is one of the most well-balanced reviews on Rage I've read. I, too, find it a jack-of-a-few-trades and mast of none. It's kinda like id flipped through the first few chapters of "RPG Mechanics For Dummies" and jammed a few in.

But once you get outside the missions, there's nothing here to hold your attention. Finish the races? No point in doing them again, save for beating your times. Wanna go do some shooting again? Meh, you might find a few bandits around one the old mission areas, but jack-all else. Need more items because you sold some important rocks that the game gave no indication of needing, and in fact encouraged you to hock off the a vendor via a big, fat dollar sign beneath its inventory icon? Well, sorry, all the scripted events and item drops are played out.

 

I read a couple of reviews that complain about auto-saves too.

I think a PC veteran won't notice them, as we quick save regularly anyway. However many console gamers rely on auto-saves: as there's no easy Quick Save button, the presumption is that the game will Quick Save for you at sensible moments. When it doesn't, they complain they aren't regular enough.

Personally, I grew up on games that had never heard of auto-saves, so I Quick Save all the time anyway, so it wouldn't bother me.