@feenwager Probably the most polarising game of 2011. Red and myself loved it. Not sure what a console experience would be like, but on PC, it’s the closest thing to a generational iteration on FEAR, but Red can articulate on the finer details with more clarity than myself at this point. Pure gameplay game, as silly as that sounds, but everything bar guntime is window dressing…and I suppose I appreciated the flavour more as the id Software art department did a fantastic job on character and locale designs.

However, as a man who loved his Bulletstorm – and I still bow down to you for that – maybe RAGE will be a little…flavourless in comparison? I know you’re a fellow who doesn’t care much for difficulty, but I think RAGE has a slight calibration issue in that area. Normal is super easy and you don’t seem to get much reason to inhabit the mechanics/feel of the game in such respect. Try switching up the difficulty and see what sticks. I’m not saying this will directly correspond with enjoyment levels, more a case of seeing a reinterpretation of the simpler days where you were given a gun and sent against the horde.

I dunno, it’s not a perfect game by any means, but it’s near-perfect where it counts.

@bowlisimo I require more War Stories. And to pad your excursion into World War II once more, Three Moves Ahead dedicated an entire podcast to Assault Squad and the rest of the series.

Jim Rossignol of RPS is probably the franchise’s biggest advocate, so here’s a reassuring little Wot I Think snatch from the aforementioned site.

Playing Assault Squad has led – via the complexity of managing our little men – to some of the most inventive and heroic game events I have ever seen. Using a stolen pak gun to hold off an enemy advance while soldiers patched up a series of fallen tanks was just one in a million little victories, while instructing a soldier to throw a Molotov cocktail (looted from the inventories of the dead) only to have it smashed on broken scenery and set him on fire, one of a million tiny disasters. Men Of War is so rich as an experience because the details are so many, and so diverse. Yes, the default comment made in reference to the game’s eccentricities of design is that hats can be shot off the heads of all the characters (why aren’t they wearing them with chin straps!) but the truth is that the hats thing is simply a measure of all the other details in there, from being able to enter any building, to looting every fallen soldier on the field.

Many of you will not have played Men Of War, fearing this talk of micro-management, difficulty, and fiddliness, and that is a tragedy, because it will – for some of you – be precisely the game you are looking for.

So true.

@feenwager The thing you need to realize is that RAGE is not an RPG. It definitely borrows is’s overall structure from RPGs, but the core gameplay there is what I honestly consider to be an excellent straight-up shooter.

If you’re playing it on console it’s almost the only one that runs at 60fps and thus has a very tight feel to the controls. Combat itself I found to be a really good middle-ground between the PC shooters of old and today’s cover system affairs. I think you’ll enjoy RAGE if you just focus on that part of the game.

@feenwager Yes, I know exactly what you are feeling. I was totally down on the game. It does get alot better though about 2 hours in. Just get out of what I would designate the ‘tutorial area’. I tell you Rage gave me the worst first impressions ever. My first problem was buying the retail disk so I didn’t have to take up 25 gigs of bandwidth…. little did I know it tried to load all the parts not from the disk, but from steam. For some reason.
I didn’t notice till 18 gigs were used. A lot for someone on a cap. Second … the crazy technical issues on the pc for some ATI cards. Pop ins, objects/characters flickering in and out of existence. And finally the game just struck me as a borderlands clone. I couldn’t even trade in the PC version if I hated it. Luckily the issues were fixed, and the game ended up getting much much better as you play.

Played Syndicate co-op demo. I initially began a rant in my head about all the things wrong with this being called a Syndicate game. I then decided to drop the argument entirely. This is not *my* Syndicate, this is Starbreeze’ Syndicate. So it still rubs me as rather linear and shootey, but I am just going to save myself all the suffering of comparison when I rent it.

The demo showcased a pretty solid co-op shooter, though the only original aspect on display in the demo is the ability to dink with other peoples brain chips to varying effect. Its nice that you can customize your implant loadout to create a custom class type character to round out your squad, though I found the opportunities to use some of the abilities I had were very few. It certainly edges toward the shooting aspect more than anything else and enemies can take many bullets. There are also boss-like characters that are stronger and might require a bit of teamwork.

There was a feeling throughout of what I would call ‘bullet fatigue’ where the shooting starts to feel repetitive. This was alleviated when I used guns like the sniper, revolver, or shotgun which all felt great and required more strategy for use. Automatic weapons just gave me a headache in this game for some reason.
The demo showcased no real story, or motivation for the mission you were on. I didn’t feel any real sense of place in a grander scheme of events or anything. It was a straight forward mission to shoot some guys so that we could shoot a bigger tougher guy.

The appeal of the game for me will probably come in the campaign, if anywhere. This co-op really seems like its here to sell the game as a feature, but I don’t see it standing out enough from other games with co-op.
One thing I sincerely hope is that the campaign will be less linear than what is displayed in the demo, and actually takes time to show off the world a bit before I put holes in it.

I played the first 30 minutes of Rage and was not impressed. Squaddies who have played it, should I continue? My issue was that I feel like between Borderlands and Fallout, I’ve already played this.

RAGE, 15 dolla, Steam, go, now.

Holy shit, my description of Subway Town in RAGE and that game’s vehicle combat just gave me a vision of some kind of NeoTokyo Grand Theft-esque game with motorcycle combat. Somebody needs to fund that.

@bowlisimo The storylines of the Crysis games area really just Predator/The Rock crap. The one thing that always got to me was how the main character is literally no more than a cypher or conduit. Nomad in Crysis at least had a few lines of dialogue, but they go out of their way to make Alcatraz a non-person. What really got to me though? How Alcatraz can never just open a door. He has to kick it down. I think there’s one part here he simply opens a door with his hands in order to sneak in, but I think he broke the handle or something at that part. Gears 3 had the same problem.

Anyway, visually and thematically I kind of appreciate how Crysis 2 managed to look like a successful merger of Robocop, Terminator, and Predator. I hope you were able to play it in DirectX 11.

What I Been Playin’ Happy Funtimes!

Bastion, done (until the DLC drops next week). Excellent combat, art, and what I hope becomes a textbook method of video game narrative. It actually seems to follow in the footsteps of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time in that regard – how the narrator feels like he’s with you every step of the way, adding just the right context to each situation and even having limited reactions to what you do. More games need to do this. Y’know what? As I played Skyward Sword, for some reason I imagined Link narrating the entire adventure in a sort of laid-back, Nathan Drake tone of voice, simultaneously joking and lamenting at his position.

This is another game that I would gladly restart for plus content if I weren’t dealing with other games. This has happened with Zelda and probably RAGE too when I finish that.

RAGE continues to be great as I get through the final “area” of the game – Subway Town. This place is the deep, narrow, neon-lit “city” that reminds me of the first 15 minutes of Akira. If it weren’t post-apocalyptic (which Akira is I guess) I would even call it Bladerunner-esque with things like the narrow subway-converted-to-bar and the electronic beep that alerts the store owner when I arrive. I haven’t even driven out into this part of the wasteland yet.

Afterwards, Deus Ex “Missing Link” DLC, THEN Skyrim.

Anyway, AMD finally put out some drivers that’ll let RAGE actually goddam run on my system they way it’s supposed to. Actually thinking about starting over now, and I’d actually enjoy it a second time around. It’s that good. I started it on hard as well and am seriously considering Nightmare.

I still got the following in my house and untouched/unfinished however:
Zelda
Skyrim
Rayman
Halo Anniversary
Mario 3D
Gemini Rue
Deus Ex Missing Link

That’s just the main stuff. Still need to do some dungeon defending, and somehow Modern Wardare 3 manages to keep pullin’ me back in. I actually did the campaign for a second time and am more enthralled with survival than multiplayer.

Oh, and one of the Steam Achievements for Gemini Rue… I’m not gonna tell you, but if you haven’t played it yet, at the very beginning walk back to the starting area after having talked to the hotel clerk. I still need to find the other three…

@Redswirl Yup. Thats what my game looks like too. I have played a fair amount despite the annoying visual glitches. I really want that patch.

@redswir1 Yikes, I see what you mean with that glitching. Probably for the best to wait it out until a further patch or a new AMD fix. A shame, especially when I’m running a laptop with only a gig more RAM than yourself and the same 1GB GPU. Still, once it runs like butter without graphical hitches, it’s bliss.

@unmanneddrone I was able to minimize the problem with a combination of maxPPF 16, forcing the textures to 4k (the lowest quality since my VRAM is only 1GB), and setting the texture cache to “large” in-game to, thus forcing more memory usage for smaller textures. Texture pop-in is almost gone but I’m still getting really bad artifacts. This video shows exactly what I’m getting (same GPU too).

Almost considering focusing on Rayman until the next fixes from AMD and id come out.

@redswir1 Good to hear you’re a step closer to Rage being as it should be. Have you experimented with the Rage launch options in the right-click > properties > general menu? In the highly unlikely event you haven’t, paste this into the command line and see if it helps with texture streaming:

+cvaradd g_fov 22 +vt_maxPPF 8

The custom config files from the pre-ATI patch days were real winners. People were getting rock solid framerates and no hint of texture streaming outside of the initial loading. The subsequent patches messed it up for some folks.

And yeah, gunplay of the year, if not the generation.

@unmanneddrone Eventually I was able to get the texture streaming and framerate to… acceptable levels. I’m having to bargain between the two. I still notice pop-in at about the same level as the console version. My only problem now is just glitches with the HUD, which id/AMD haven’t figured out yet. I’ve read about supercomputer-level systems that have had to settle for 30-40fps.

How much RAM are you running? Because that seems to be the main part of the issue. I’m running 1GB of VRAM just like you (on an HD6850), but my main RAM is only 3GB. Personally I think John Carmack should have waited until next gen to try this megatextures thing. The hardware just isn’t ready for it, that goes for both consoles and most gaming PCs.

…really fun game though. Overall probably the best gunplay of any 2011 fps.

RAGE is an absolute bitch to get running on an AMD card. That is all.

@redswir1 Yeah, a Christmas/Steam end o’ year sale for Rage sounds about right. I’d recommend it to other folks in the squad who don’t need their shooter to be OSCARMIKELANCERACTUALTHISISTHUNDERHAWK and simply want a rollicking bit o’ bang-bang.

—

Did you know that a tremendous sequel is dropping this week? Anyone else keen?

Goddamn my shit is packed here – with games I gotta have and games I’m gonna rent either to try them out or to make sure they don’t get forgotten.

GameFly wants $44 for my PS3 copy of Rage, but I think I’ll wait on a deal for the retail PC version one ever comes. It’s gonna be hard resisting those Steam deals come Christmas.

The Battlefield 3 launch trailer has convinced me to rent that game next week. Even after I said I’d sworn off corridor war shooters, they bring out a storyline that might actually be alright with Glenn Morshower in the mix, and DAT BATTLEFIELD THEME. Then Uncharted 3 while at the same time checking to see if Sonic Generations is “the one”. Then I’ve decided to rent Skyrim to see what the hell everyone’s talking about because this is the first time I’ve ever been interested in Elder Scrolls.

Gotta make sure Rayman Origins and King of Fighters XIII don’t get lost in the shuffle though. Praying to God we get the kinds of Black Friday deals we got last year. Back then I was able to snag two big November releases for basically half-price.

@redswir1 Good to hear. I’m agree on the Crysis 2 front, as well. Two very well crafted shooters that perhaps won’t get their dues come GOTY Gala event time. Which is funny, considering the cultural cache id still hold and the tech clout Crytek have garnered.

Rage is more than the sum of its parts. Yep, errand boy mission design through and through, but there are never any moments when I’ve felt “Not THIS again…” Each level/dungeon is expertly crafted, the flow of combat progression never feels uneven. The tools at your disposal are not great in number, but they’re versatile and incredibly well-conceived. Just a simple switching of ammo types dramatically changes encounters…pistol with fatboy rounds, shotgun with pop rockets, crossbow with dynamite bolts…all so good.

And, once again, WINGSTICKS!

Once you’ve nabbed another copy or you keep ploughing through the PS3 version, we’ll compare notes. I’ve a lot of musings on Rage I’d like to share with a fellow who’s plugged through the goodness.

@unmanneddrone Like I said guys, I have almost zero history with id.

From just a few hours of Rage, the story and setting are “eh”. Probably not any more interesting than the stock sci-fi of DOOM or a lot of id and Epic shooters of that era. You don’t really care though because the game is fun.

So maybe I see Rage similarly to how I see Mario Galaxy – you’re only supposed to care about how well-crafted the gameplay is. I don’t know what, but id has managed to make something “click” with the weapons, controls, and even the game’s sense of progression.

I know I’m just doing errand boy filler, but I still want to do it so I can get to the next “quest” and do that. I think it’s because the actual doing of them is the fun part here, not the destination.

This is definitely not your corridor war shooter. I might put it up with Crysis 2 in the “only FPS in 2011 with some actual god damned variety in its gameplay” club.

@shingro Brother, hold off for the moment. We’ll get a theme going, do another “go for broke” submit your favs and whatnot, but I’ll just need to get a few things sorted. If you want to upload to a file host or something and include the link within the form, that’d be a help – in the case of obscure tunes – otherwise just the names will be fine and I’ll track them down myself.

Theme forthcoming and we’ll kick it off in a week or two.

@redswir1 Red, I’d still go with the PC version. I’m on an AMD card, a measly Mobility Radeon 5650 1GB, and it runs smooth as silk and no graphical issues whatsoever – the ATI driver patch fixed most of what was ailing people and the subsequent Rage patch cleaned up everything else. There are still some issues, I hear. You should be able to pick up a retail version for cheaper than some console release. IIRC you’ve got a decent rig, unlike my little laptop, so if this is the kind of vista I’m able to render at 60FPS with no texture pop outside of an initial few seconds upon loading…

…then it’ll be reassuring to fellows like yourself and a testament to how deliciously scalable and rig-friendly idtech 5 is. I read that GAF thread and wholeheartedly disagree that you should skip the PC “port” as it were. Next to nobody rocking ATI cards has had issues since the ATI hotfix and the official patch.

On a different but related note, as a fellow who doesn’t have the history with id software and their titles, how are you feeling about Rage? For all the faults people are laying on the game, there’s an unashamed purity to it.

@redswir1 I heard of another megapatch in the works from id, something to do with the megatextures and adding in all the normal vsynch-type options. I think they were shamed a bit by the whole “Wait, shoddy PC port from *id?!* and I’d expect their tail to be much longer on PC, but that’s a PC Primary gamer gambling with someone else’s money (yours =D) so take as much of that advice as strikes you

Son of a bitch. I’m going to have to buy Rage.

After a few hours with a PS3 rental copy, in short, it’s one of those games that’s good because it’s just fun to play.60fps on consoles makes a huge difference and the sense of progression is really driving despite being straight-up errand boy dynamics.

The dilemma here however is which version, as I understand Rage has been somewhat of a technical mess all around. I think the problem is that this “megatextures” feature is probably a bit ahead of its time.

First it was the first consumer screenshots I’d been seeing of the PC version and it’s muddy textures. On PS3 the texture pop-in is just atrocious. It’s even worse than Unreal Engine 3. Instead of having to watch textures load each time an area is loaded, you have to watch them reload every time you turn to look at something. Megatextures really seems to let Rage’s art design shine but at too high a cost in my opinion. I can’t buy any digital version of this game (that puts me off of Steam deals and what have you) because of the 32GB bite it would take out of my data cap, and making room for the full install on my 360 drive would be tough.

Lastly of course are reports I’ve heard of how badly Rage runs on AMD graphics cards, which I happen to be running right now. I know about patches and wahtnot but I’ve heard performance even since then has been sporadic, not to mention the reception I’ve heard regarding the PC port overall.

Advice?

@beige That looks like a nice place! I mean, outside of what those bastards did to it by removing any Whiting/Terrill flavour. You’ll have to spawn into their world unbeknownst to them and grief them, Souls style.

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Little Rage update for anyone who cares…there’s a little co-op mode in the game called Wasteland Legends. It’s essentially a series of selectable stand-alone missions that are invoked as the name suggests – stories from the earlier years/times. It’s just a neat touch to give a little flavour and place to each mission. One mission is essentially the pilot episode of Rage’s Mutant Bash TV show, an arena spectacular that is exactly what it sounds like, and a show that you visit in the single player campaign at a later stage.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, Wasteland Legends, outside of being the cleanest and slickest co-op of the generation, is really a showcase of what Rage is when it’s firing on all cylinders. Two guys, Nightmare setting (and they mean nightmare in WL, it’s savage compared to the single player), going for broke. Honed, condensed morsels of an ultra-tight shooter with terrific pace. For all the issues people have with the single player, I think they’d find everything rectified if a spotlight was shone on the co-op. It strips everything down further to a blistering two-man showcase of light combo mechanics atop the purest gunplay we’ve seen in a long time.

Interestingly, I think Crysis 2 and ol’ Rage will be the unsung heroes of the genre this year. I do hope they get a nod at GOTY Gala events.

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Oh, and a gentle re-request if this address/link can get put into the sidebar for further Squad Mix submissions. A form is definitely the easier thing to fill in and refer to.

@feenwager Well, I dunno…Rage is going to be a hard sell when up against things like Uncharted 3, but in saying that, I’d say it’ll rival anything out this year for atmosphere. I know that’s nebulous terminology, especially given what, at its core, Rage is…but there’s something beguiling within. And it’s downright gorgeous. Those two HUD-less shots aren’t my own, but my rig renders Rage on the same level, which is marvellous.

I’d say keep it close to the top of the stack, but get the blockbusters out of the way first.

I’ll leave the final paragraph from Alec Meer’s RPS Rage musings here. Rather fitting.

It’d be easy to lament that this brilliant technology…is wasted on a mere shooter. True, I’d love to see id Tech 5 also put to use on something more wild and free, but I’m also very happy that it’s powering this shooter. Rage is often guilty of ordinariness and blandness in its main missions, but it definitely pulls off being more than just a journey of unthinking destruction. The lengths it goes to for world and character design, and its refreshing lack of interference or handicapping in terms of its large and satisfying arsenal, results in something far and above most anything out or due out this year that’s predominantly based around moving a reticule over a man/mutant’s face. It has flow, it has character, it has life and it has stair-climbing friendly spider-bots.

id have learned a lot, and without abandoning why we used to love them in the first place.

It is time, my friends, to talk a little of things Rage.

There are no pretensions with Rage. People are bringing to the game ideas forged in a post-Fallout and Borderlands era and with such preconceptions, Rage will disappoint. The misnomer of id’s new title being some sort of wasteland wandering of huge scope is detrimental to expectations and ultimately a shame for anyone who feels like they’ve bought into an FPS-RPG.

Because it’s not. It’s simply the best FPS of the year. (cue sound effect: Baying of hounds/horse whinny)

I’ve had a lot of fun with Rage thus far. Classic id-level shooty-shoot quality folded in with light foraging aspects and crafting (n.b., light is the word here, it’s simply a case of rolling through a level, scavenging junk from enemies and finding components for deployables and items, which you can then craft in the field), brilliant driving and a strange and wonderful world. Oh, and some of the best enemy combat animations known to the genre.

I dunno…it reminds me of a line from one of the old, old Squad Missions of yore, where you fellows were talking about a scene in Gears. A collapsed embankment or something…and I believe it was @beige who stated that few people would stop and take the time to just simply enjoy the world. Disregarding the gunplay and driving antics, Rage has a terrific world that just begs you to stop and enjoy the splendid vistas. I’ve spent many a play session churning about in the vehicles just to go and look at things.

Have a goosey at this Sound & Art Trailer.

However, the game is not without its caveats, but they’re subjective. The wasteland is merely a pace throttling device. I love going out and grinding enemy vehicles, but the lack of variety in said areas may offend or bore some gamers. The wasteland is primarily an extended traversal mechanic that we’ve seen to great effect in Zelda titles – and that’s what Rage has, structurally, been compared to. Hub areas + overland + dungeons, they being primarily the mission areas. This works wonderfully, as far as I’m concerned. Playing on Nightmare, it gives a fellow time to breathe and enjoy the view before delving into a world of pain, Donny.

I’m hesitant to say much more on the world itself, or the non-mission parts, because it’s very much a YMMV issue.

But the guns and feel of Rage? Good LORD, best in show. I dunno, I doubt many outside of @feenwager will bother checking it out, but if you’re looking for an FPS that is halfway between a story-driven affair and things like Serious Sam/Will Rock, this is it. Carves the fluff away, goes back to basics without feeling empty, great characters within (although they’re essentially quest icons at heart) and wingsticks.

Yes. Wingsticks.

Love those wingsticks.

On Rage, Dead End Thrills just did a 100-strong wallpaper collection for it:

http://deadendthrills.com/collections/rage/

@angryjedi An interesting thing to ruminate upon. I’d say there’s an element of abstraction that comes with rendering something in the way Isaac does, thus you can get away with more. If you rendered Isaac in a realistic, anatomically-correct way with all the trappings of high resolution polygons (or sprites, whatever takes your fancy), there’d probably be less of a gulf.

I don’t think Duke’s alleged tastelessness was what garnered such middling critical reception. From what I’ve read, it just sounded like a bit of a nothing at the end of the day. It might have been a good game five years ago, but the genre is possibly the most cutthroat of them all, and unless you’ve got something more than tired quips and muddled fan service, you may as well hang up your hat.

Of course, we both agreed on the toothless ripple the Hive scene had, and indeed, NOBODY is talking about the game at all these days and the scene in question was nothing more than a spike in a relative zeitgeist flatline.

I do think the indie circuit can get away with a lot more, though, but it’s more a case of having a slightly more open audience in relatively smaller numbers.

And YES, the new WordPress mobile site is terrific!

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@impynickers Rage got a patch! I hear it’s actually worse for some people! Was fearful after it installed, but booted up the game and it’s the same smooth and gorgeous experience as what I’d gotten from the custom config and forcing a few options through Catalyst. I’m still in shock how fantastic the game looks on such hardware. Such as this sewer, where I just battled some of the fastest mutants in the business.

idTech5 makes a pretty convincing argument when all runs smoothly. Doom 4 should be a right hoot. As it stands though, Rage could very well make GOTY for me on sheer artistic merit, but I’m still giddy to be playing a new id title. Nightmare, wingsticks and classic id Shotty = good times.

Apologies for the screenies I’ve been throwing down, though I cannot promise a halt in my FRAPS usage with this title.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Squadron of Shame Soulsbox!

@impyknickers It’s very strange, because all the Rage glitching and errors seem to happen to the people who simply shouldn’t have an issue OR could brute-force their way through bad rendering pipelines. In any case, I’m glad someone else is playing it. Phenomenal atmosphere.

Still cannot go past any incidental wasteland structure without hopping off my vehicle and just having a look at the designs, the nooks and the crannies. id’s artistic department really deserve some props for what they’ve created here. Character models look terrific, too.

Alec Meer from RPS did a great Wot I Think on the game.

Man I am starting to get an appetite for some Dark Souls. Damn you all.

@Feenwager You lucky man! I would like nothing more than to visit another country right now. I havent travelled outside Canada since I was 16. I blame University for taking my money. I don’t care if it is business or pleasure, it just fascinates me to be exposed to another culture.

@unmanneddrone Glad Rage has treated you right. I am actually digging many parts of it, but alas I am an ATI user … and I guess something just isn’t jiving. I have installed Rage specific drivers that have helped, but have not completely solved the plethora of issues I was experiencing on launch. I have a pretty damn good video card that I just bought recently, and the situation just really frustrates me. I feel as if this issue could have been dealt with, it is fairly widespread among many ATI users. Even a number of nVidia users have problems. Oh well. It will be fixed I have no doubt.
I definitely love the weapons in rage. Lots of good ones. The buggy is also a ton of fun to drive. I was less a fan of the ATV, it felt wierd driving it.. and bumping into a rock would send you comically flying off into the distance with really strange ragdoll physics. The buggies are where the focus lies though once the game starts going. I actually enjoyed upgrading and going into death races. I always liked the game ‘Death Rally’ from the mid 1990’s, and its kinda like that without the shady sabotage aspects.
I am trying not to let Rage enrage me. It is a pretty good game. The scarcity of autosaves though… not so good.

@impynickers Man, I was very worried after reading all the horror stories on Rage. Nabbed my code this morning, plugged it into Steam and – amazingly, with my new fat pipe – it took a little over thirty minutes to download the entire thing! Maybe my download region had me and me alone leeching away.

I am the first to admit I have a mid-range rig now, as time flies by, and a laptop at that…so my little ATI Radeon 5650 Mobility HD gets a fair work-out. In any case, after applying the ATI Rage fix last night, I tentatively hit the play button and prepared for the worst.

But then, wonderful things happened.

Not an issue in sight, outside of a tiny bit of texture pop when doing the whip around, something that can be fixed by a custom config. I’m personally loving it. The soundtrack is terrific, the gunplay/movement is sublime and I dig the incredibly furnishing of the levels. And John “Walter Sobchak” Goodman. It’s nothing bar a damn fine shooter. I just hope everyone else gets all patched up soon, because I understand the grating disappointment a game such as this can invoke when its capped by technical hitches of so many differing varieties.

I think, for whatever luck of the Gods, my humble little lappy just loves idTech games. Brink was a mess for many folks, especially ATI owners, but I’ve run that since day one as smooth as butter and continue to play to this day without ever seeing a graphical hiccup or glitch.

It’s good to be playing an id Software title again.

Took a few screenies of just what is blowing my mind in the short space I’ve played. It’s the visual design, that classic id chunky industrial rendering. The intentionality of it all. Everything feels hand-crafted and purposefully positioned. From structures and their architectural accoutrements to detritus, there’s a real physicality to the world.

Floats my boat as much as the gunplay and feel, if not more.

So, being completely oblivious I bought the PC version of RAGE assuming ID gave it the tender love it usually does on the platform. Good god do I feel like an idiot. The PC version is a port, and not a good one. I have had crazy graphical glitches all over the place, and no way to tweak the graphical settings…. save for resolution and anti aliasing. I am not alone either. The destructoid PC review is full of this stuff, and the forums are littered with people complaining. I are dissapoint.
The first hour of the game was very derivative. It was exactly as though I was playing Borderlands. After that though things started getting a little more interesting. The glitches were not helping me feel a sense of contentment, even when the game felt good.
Maybe I will just wait for the patch. What else am I going to do? I can’t trade in the PC version because it has a 1 use code. So I am stuck with it, love it or hate it.

@feenwager I am definitely interested in some horde. Gears 3 feels like the absolute delivery on the series potential at long last. Its got that feel, it just feels right. I still have more to go on the campaign, I have pact with some buddies not to play without them. Other than that … I am open. I have had great times with Horde and Beast. If you or anyone sees me on, feel free to hit me up.

New releases are picking up. It looks like am probably going for Rage on Tuesday. Looks like my kind of thing. I was never sold on Borderlands truth be told. It was a fun game, had co-op, was an FPS/RPG … but it was a grind. I got over the MMO grind years ago. Rage looks like my kind of pacing. Its got a bit of RPG/exploration to keep things from being shallow, and enough mayhem ensure I won’t get bored. Win Win. Doesn’t hurt that it is pretty.

Also been playing.. the Battlefield 3 beta. I have earned my badge in shootery lately let me say.
So … here I am preaching that FPS’s will destroy everything I hold dear… and then I find myself unsuccesfully trying to hate Battlefield 3. The game is smooth. It controls really well. The animations really sell this connection you have with your first person avatar. The sound design is perhaps the slickest ive seen in a long time. The visuals … yes they are good. The environments are pretty non-linear. The guns are buttery smooth. I like that it doesn’t feel as cheap as Call of Duty in terms of perks. Yes you seem to unlock gun attachements … but it seems mostly fair.
I already have an investment in Red Orchestra, but whenever I am done with that … Battlefield could be the next epic online experience I gravitate to. It seems like a good investment.

@feenwager I reckon that’s a wise decision. There’s enough shooty-shoot around not to overlap with the Duke. Dungeon Siege III seems like quite the underrated title…not without flaws, but a solid overhead hack and slash in the vein of the old Champions of Norrath games.

Unrelated…or semi-related, is anyone keen for RAGE?

@bluesforbuddha @impynickers Oh, and by the way, RAGE will require 25GB of your hard drive. Thank god the retail version is Steamworks (if I was buying it).