Rage is a BIG Letdown.

I was really looking forward to this game and when I finally got it home and played it I was completely disappointed. Rage is a huge failure in my book.

Does it look good? Yes it does. It looks fantastic in fact. They did a superb job with the visuals. They also did a great job with the gun play dymanics in that the enemies in the game will react differently depending on where the bullet has struck them and once again they look great visually. Those are the only two positive things I can say about this game. Where ID failed was in the gameplay itself and they failed massively in my opinion.

When they billed this game they talked about the so called "wasteland" and that the game was essentially built on this wasteland. What wasteland? The wasteland is some dirt paths along a canyon that you use to travel from one mission to the next. That's it. If you want to to see what a real videogame wasteland should be like I would suggest you try Fallout 3. I know that Bethesda had a hand in the development of this game but the primary developer was ID. So being able to actually wander around the wasteland and discover stuff like Fallout is not going to happen in this game. Let me give an example of what I mean. When your character first emerges from the bunker at the start of the game he steps out onto a metal walkway that is overlooking this big concrete basin. At the bottom of the basin is this large orange dome that looks like some sort of power reactor and its submerged in a pool of water. It looks fantastic. Can you go down there and explore it and get a closer look? No. The game forces you to stay on the metal walkway. You can't hop over the rail or slip around an edge and actually explore the wasteland. In fact when you go on missions, the game is laid out so that there is only one way for you to proceed through a mission. You either go that way or you go back, there is no deviation. There is no doing whatever you want to do. The so called wasteland really isn't anyting but some dirt paths along a canyon floor.

When I saw that Bethesda had a hand in this game and that there were vendors and a wasteland I thought "Wow, this is going to be an improved sort of Fallout 3." Not even. In Fallout if you wanted to just wander around the wasteland and explore and discover stuff you could. In fact if you just followed the storyline in Fallout 3 and didn't do anything else, you would have missed out on about 90% of what that game had to offer. The wasteland was vast and full of things to discover. In Rage, you have to stick to their storyline or else there is nothing for you to do. There is no map for you to pull up so that you can see where you are in relation to the rest of the so called wasteland as you could in Fallout. When you accept a mission a small round map pops up in the corner of the screen with a dotted line that shows you which direction to travel to get to that mission. In Fallout when you took on a mission the location was simply highlighted on your overall map and how you got there was up to you. ID tried to call Rage "open ended but directed". BS. It's a storyline game and that's it and I personally don't want to play a story that someone else thought up. This is why open ended gaming is so popular and so much better than the directed storyline. Directed storyline is just a story that someone else thought up for you where as open ended is doing whatever you want to and making up your own story.

Much like Fallout there is a scavenge aspect to this game in that there are items you can pick up as you move through a mission. Things like gears or electrical items, food, drink, ammo, etc. etc. Unlike Fallout, you don't actually have to look for them because when you enter a room that has items of interest they are glowing and flashing as if to say "Hey, over here, I'm something you want to pick up." I hate that. Let me actually look for and find the items. You can search dead enemies but most often all you will get is some ammo. Any weapons that an enemy drops, you cannot pick up and use (WTF?).

There is no passage of time from day to night and your character does not have to find a place to stay or whole up where he can rest and store the stuff he has looted along the way. You can play the entire game and it will never get dark outside. Lame. There are vendors to buy and sell things at but the system is poorly done. For instance, if you picked up five bandages and you want to sell three of them for credit and use the credit to buy something else, you can't. You have to sell all five or none at all.

Like Fallout you can find schematics or plans in the game and with those plans you can combine certain items to make things. The lock grinder schematic is one of the first plans you will find and it enables you to combine a few items and make a device that destorys the lock on locked doors so you can gain entry. But do you need a workbench or a workstation to build these items? No. You can do it on the fly, right in the middle of a firefight if you want to. Lame.

Overall the game is an epic failure in my book. It's just a shooter that happens to look good and tried to incroprate some aspects of Fallout but didn't even manage to get those right. And because its a shooter in which you are playing against the computer you will know right where the badguys will be and what they will do if you get killed and have to start over on a mission. There is no random encounter like there is in Fallout with the Raiders and the big scorpions that wander around the wasteland. I am so disappointed in this game that its going back to Game Stop for credit before the end of the week. It's an epic failure. It looks fantastic, but it's a failure.

That is the summarized version. It's not like you're reading a whole book. If you don't want read it that's fine.

I think I'll leave it as is. If I'm going to go through all the trouble of either complimenting or complaining about a game I'd rather fully explain myself than make it too short and leave people with more questions than answers. It takes all of about two to three minutes to read that whole post so it's not too long.

Thanks Christopher, you have restored my faith that everything in our society does not have to be a buzz clip in order to get anyone to read it.

I also read the whole thing and like the guy above me, found it useful. I've been following the game for a long time and thought it looked promising, kind of like Fallout and Borderlands, games I enjoy immensely. I was on the fence about a day one purchase though because I was worried it might have been too similar to those games. Now what I'm hearing is that similarity isn't really anything to worry about, as opposed to linearity. I don't mind linear games by any means but it just sounds like Rage is a little confused as to what it wants to be, and suffers as a result. I don't know though as I haven't played it, just going on what I've read here and elsewhere.
I will probably pick it up somewhere down the line when it has dropped in price, but for now I will just save my money for something else.

I'll just say remember that it's supposed to be an FPS and not an RPG. You made a LOT of comparisons to Fallout. It's not supposed to be Fallout. If you want to go explore to your hearts content go play Oblivion. You have to judge the game on what it is, not what you kinda wish it was. Again, not supposed to be Fallout.

yeah im not reading that wall of text right there. You should take that whole thing and summarize it into say 1 or 2 paragraphs.

Gen007

I'll just say remember that it's supposed to be an FPS and not an RPG. You made a LOT of comparisons to Fallout. It's not supposed to be Fallout. If you want to go explore to your hearts content go play Oblivion. You have to judge the game on what it is, not what you kinda wish it was. Again, not supposed to be Fallout.

firefox59

I somewhat agree with what you're saying but let's keep in mind that ID did an awful lot to make this game seem a lot like Fallout. Wasteland? Vendors where you can sell and trade to buy ammo and weapons and items? Schematics that enable you to combine items to make things? Scavenging items along the way? Emerging from an undergound bunker after an apocalyptic event? All of that is straight out of Fallout and add to that the fact that they worked with Bethesda to develop the game. It's not at all difficult to see why people expected this to be more of an open world game. I certainly did.

[QUOTE="firefox59"]

I'll just say remember that it's supposed to be an FPS and not an RPG. You made a LOT of comparisons to Fallout. It's not supposed to be Fallout. If you want to go explore to your hearts content go play Oblivion. You have to judge the game on what it is, not what you kinda wish it was. Again, not supposed to be Fallout.

Palehorse2211

I somewhat agree with what you're saying but let's keep in mind that ID did an awful lot to make this game seem a lot like Fallout. Wasteland? Vendors where you can sell and trade to buy ammo and weapons and items? Schematics that enable you to combine items to make things? Emerging from an undergound bunker after an apocalyptic event? All of that is straight out of Fallout and add to that the fact that they worked with Bethesda to develop the game. It's not at all difficult to see why people expected this to be more of an open world game. I certainly did.

Bethesda had nothing to do with the developement of Rage, they are only the publisher. Rage is also part tech demo for what id tech 5 can do. id managed to make a game that incorporates awesome shooting mechanics, good driving mechanics with fun combat, RPG elements that can be expanded in other games. and stunning graphics. I'd love to see what Bethesda has in store for this engine in the future.

Bethesda had nothing to do with the developement of Rage, they are only the publisher. Rage is also part tech demo for what id tech 5 can do. They managed to make a game that incorporates awesome shooting mechanics, good driving mechanics with fun combat, and RPG elements that can be expanded in other games. I'd love to see what Bethesda has in store for this engine in the future.

Like the vast majority of people that will buy this game I did not know that. All I knew was that Bethesda had their hand in it and it looks very much like a Bethesda sort of game. I don't have the time to keep up with the intricacies of how involved or not involved Bethesda was in the development of this game. If their name is on it (and it is) they had a hand in it. Its not unreasonable at that point to think it would be more of an open world game espeically given the other attributes about it that I have already covered.

so i did actually read it all because im very interested in this game, but man that was a HUGE post, i would recommend shorter posts in the future

first thing i wanna say is that RAGE is a Shooter not an RPG

second thing is that Bethesda had absolutely nothing to do with developing this game, they simply publish it

[QUOTE="dahwnpapaya"]

Bethesda had nothing to do with the developement of Rage, they are only the publisher. Rage is also part tech demo for what id tech 5 can do. They managed to make a game that incorporates awesome shooting mechanics, good driving mechanics with fun combat, and RPG elements that can be expanded in other games. I'd love to see what Bethesda has in store for this engine in the future.

Palehorse2211

Like the vast majority of people that will buy this game I did not know that. All I knew was that Bethesda had their hand in it and it looks very much like a Bethesda sort of game. I don't have the time to keep up with the intricacies of how involved or not involved Bethesda was in the development of this game. If their name is on it (and it is) they had a hand in it. Its not unreasonable at that point to think it would be more of an open world game espeically given the other attributes about it that I have already covered.

Which is completely understandable for people who don't keep track of a games development. I have to ask if you've based all of your information on the wasteland trailer they released? Rereading your first post it certainly seems that way.

You keep saying Bethesda this, Bethesda that, but like I said they had nothing to do with the development. id was already working on Rage when Bethesda bought them. I'd also like to ask if you've ever played any id games before?

I don't have the time to keep track of all the games I'm interested in, but for $60 I'll make sure I know what I'm getting myself into when I buy a new game.

Which is completely understandable for people who don't keep track of a games development. I have to ask if you've based all of your information on the wasteland trailer they released? Rereading your first post it certainly seems that way.

You keep saying Bethesda this, Bethesda that, but like I said they had nothing to do with the development. id was already working on Rage when Bethesda bought them. I'd also like to ask if you've ever played any id games before?

I don't have the time to keep track of all the games I'm interested in, but for $60 I'll make sure I know what I'm getting myself into when I buy a new game.

dahwnpapaya

I suppose it could have been the wasteland trailer. I saw a couple of trailers on the net that featured both the ID logo and Bethesda and I visited the Bethesda website where I saw the Rage game advertised. I remember seeing one of the developers talking about a wasteland and the underground bunker and visting the vendors to trade stuff and all of that seemed very much like Fallout to me. In point of fact there are a number of features in the game that in my opinion seem like they were pulled right out of Fallout. So whether they ment to or not Rage was naturally going to get associated with Fallout and that is why I was looking for more of an open world sort of game. But its not as some have pointed out. It's a shooter with a linear storyline and personally I hate games like that because there is no real challenge in it and I much prefer making my own story to just shooting my way through a story that someone else cooked up. So I'm sure that to many this game is certainly not a failure and its probably everything they expected. But to me its just lame and not enjoyable at all. And I used to enjoy games like this. I've played Quake and Doom in fact in answer to your question and I enjoyed them at that time. But then I played Fallout 3 and after that games like Rage just can't compare, never will compare and they aren't even remotely enjoyable anymore. But that's me.

I'll just say remember that it's supposed to be an FPS and not an RPG. You made a LOT of comparisons to Fallout. It's not supposed to be Fallout. If you want to go explore to your hearts content go play Oblivion. You have to judge the game on what it is, not what you kinda wish it was. Again, not supposed to be Fallout.

firefox59

THIS=WIN

If u were going to comapre RAGE to any game it would have to be Borderlands, NOT fallout. Even still they DID do a few things to try and make it stand out more from the pack.

the only thing i see crap in this game is coop it was bad,wasteland you can find rundown citys sure there is dirt some deserts are called a wasteland. so yes it is a waste land. i only read about 1 paragraph or so but it's not good to nit pick at things it's a great game and indeed it is an amazing single player

You wanted this game to be fallout 3, which it isn't and now your crying about it...

i was thinking about getting rage but more i looked at it, it just looked like other FPS only SP. IDK, I pre order it Then tuseday i went in i told the guy i paid rage off but want to return it and get dark souls. HE started trying convince me rage is better game ect. I don't know why wasn't like they was losing business, dude wanted to be lasy to press couple buttons. in the end im glad i didn't get it.k2theswiss

Thanks Christopher, you have restored my faith that everything in our society does not have to be a buzz clip in order to get anyone to read it.

Palehorse2211

This. I actually enjoy the longer post a lot of the time because it's not simply "Uhh... I don't like the game because it's uhhhhh... stupid.... discuss."

TC thanks for the post. I myself am enjoying the game but I can see a lot of your points.

I read most of it. But it isn't at all like Fallout, you should of known that initially.

I was thinking of maybe picking this up during a slow month or the summer drought. I find no incentives to rush out and pick this up.

I got RAGE today from Gamefly and I have to say that it is a very fun and beatiful looking game. Now, I am not real far into it, but based on my play time, this game has much, much more in common with Borderlands than it does Fallout. In fact, while playing RAGE, I cant help but think how awesome Borderlands 2 will be!! I am glad that I got this game from Gamefly however. Even though I am having fun with it, I can see that it probably can get a little tedious if all the quests are like the ones in the beginning. 8 out of 10 for me!!

I didn't read it all but that's because I didn't need to. I completely agree with you. If they are going to make a game that is big enough to fit on 2 discs for single-player, why are we not able to roam as we wish?

[QUOTE="Gen007"]

yeah im not reading that wall of text right there. You should take that whole thing and summarize it into say 1 or 2 paragraphs.

AmnesiaHaze

I read enough bud and truly feel this would be better suited for a blog because its basically just one giant rant about how someone is disappointed with a game and it is needlessly long for a forum post. He could have simply said "Rage is a let down and im disappointed that it wasn't more like previous Bethesda games" Bam that whole thing in one sentence really.

On topic though it sounds like the TC went in with the wrong facts. Some research would have quickly showed him that this game wasn't going to be anything like he hoped. I agree that Rage is a letdown but for different reasons. Rage just isnt interesting or very fun as far as shooters go. I just feel that Rage is a disappointment in general without comparing to other games that it quite frankly isnt trying to be. By the way what's up with that lately? Every game has to be compared to something else. People should look at a game for what it is unless it blatantly rips off another game. Fallout and Borderlands don't have a monopoly on the wasteland environment and it has been used since before i was born.

If you did any research or read any reviews at all before purchasing the game you would have known that this was never supposed to be anything like Fallout or other Bethesda game. It's not id's fault that they didn't make another Fallout game just for you, and just because it's in a post apocalyptic world needs to be Fallout-like game. Also, that post was ridiculously long.

I don't know because I haven't played it. But I do know a few people who are enjoying it quite a bit.

I read enough bud and truly feel this would be better suited for a blog because its basically just one giant rant about how someone is disappointed with a game and it is needlessly long for a forum post. He could have simply said "Rage is a let down and im disappointed that it wasn't more like previous Bethesda games" Bam that whole thing in one sentence really.

On topic though it sounds like the TC went in with the wrong facts. Some research would have quickly showed him that this game wasn't going to be anything like he hoped. I agree that Rage is a letdown but for different reasons. Rage just isnt interesting or very fun as far as shooters go. I just feel that Rage is a disappointment in general without comparing to other games that it quite frankly isnt trying to be. By the way what's up with that lately? Every game has to be compared to something else. People should look at a game for what it is unless it blatantly rips off another game. Fallout and Borderlands don't have a monopoly on the wasteland environment and it has been used since before i was born.

Gen007

I don't do nearly enough review writting to warrant a blog and as to whether my original post is too long for a forum is just your opinion. It's not too long at all. I already explained that if I'm going to go through the trouble of saying that I either like or don't like a game than I'm going to be fair enough to lay out the reasons why. In the amount of time you've spent complaining on here about how the O P is too long you could have read it 50 times over.

I did do the research. They billed Rage as an open world game and its not. They specifically called it "open but directed." No, it's not open, its just directed. They used phrases like "the wasteland is the vast area on which the game sits." when in fact the wasteland is just some dirt roads in a canyon between locations in the game. I explained all of this in my original post.