Re: More Rage
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 7:34 pm
I think it's about time for me to face the music. It has almost been 3 weeks since the game was released and I've been trying to convince myself to really like it. As an Id fan boy I hoped it would return them to their former glory. Releasing the editor at launch [said Tim Willits in an interview] made me fantasize about creating content for the game and seeing what an community of designers would produce. I registered domains, setup a site and took a week off from work so I could immediately jump in.
However, the PC release was a disaster. I don't care if it were drivers or the game itself. The fact is you can't release something in that state and expect positive feedback. Unfortunately, we're slowly becoming the Q&A for the games we preorder or buy on day one. Also, no editor.
It took 5 days, a patch, and tons of reading on forums to get the game to run properly and when it did, I wasn't impressed. Tsakali said it best about why it got so much criticism. I think it’s great that people like Eraser enjoy it immensely, but I’m not, for a couple of very simple reasons.
The game offers you beautiful scenery, but there is nothing to explore. Everything is blocked, clipped of or has invisible walls surrounding it. The game is extremely linear and completely static. Nothing moves. Everything is super glued and made of indestructible material. There is no open world and you basically got two town maps, some indoor maps and some outdoor maps. No exploring. Which doesn’t matter, but the game pretends to be an open world and everything above just immediately kills any kind of immersion you have. The very blurry textures on all the assets doesn’t help either.
All the other ‘gimmicks’ are really shallow. The quest system feel clumsy and is at times downright awkward. The driving would have been fun, but I’m constantly backtracking the same routes of the same outdoor map, with the same respawning enemies at the exact same points. It’s cool in the beginning, but after a couple of times it gets annoying and you just drive through it as fast as you can to avoid it. The racing was fun for a bit, but without any real reward or a variety of tracks and limited upgrade options for you cars, there really is no reason to keep doing it.
Combat is great though and the variety of different ammo types gives you a lot of ways to kill your opponents. There are some impressive maps and even though every map conveniently ends at a closed door where you started the map in the first place, it still gives you the feeling of a real place. It’s been a while since I had the freedom to kill like I really wanted to. I miss that in games. I especially liked Dead City, that was drop dead gorgeous and some of the music they used in action sequences really pumps you up.
But these small bright lights can’t hide the fact that this is a very dumbed down and mediocre game at best. I see a lot of people complaining about the [lack of] story. All I got was that I survived in an arc, the authority is bad [since everybody is making a effort in saying so] and I’m an errand boy for all kinds of people including the resistance.
The verdict is that mega texture does look great but isn’t that useful if nothing in the world can move [asset wise] and everything up close is blurry as [censored] while still taking up 22 GB of space. Regarding the game, Id should have stayed where there good at [competitive shooters] but after Doom 3 [which was also a letdown] this is another step down the latter.
I’m not a hater, I’m not a PC fan boy, I just need to stop deluding myself and accept that this game disappoints and if the editor isn’t released very soon, they can shove it. The lack of any official communication about all the things that are going on is downright disrespectful.
However, the PC release was a disaster. I don't care if it were drivers or the game itself. The fact is you can't release something in that state and expect positive feedback. Unfortunately, we're slowly becoming the Q&A for the games we preorder or buy on day one. Also, no editor.
It took 5 days, a patch, and tons of reading on forums to get the game to run properly and when it did, I wasn't impressed. Tsakali said it best about why it got so much criticism. I think it’s great that people like Eraser enjoy it immensely, but I’m not, for a couple of very simple reasons.
The game offers you beautiful scenery, but there is nothing to explore. Everything is blocked, clipped of or has invisible walls surrounding it. The game is extremely linear and completely static. Nothing moves. Everything is super glued and made of indestructible material. There is no open world and you basically got two town maps, some indoor maps and some outdoor maps. No exploring. Which doesn’t matter, but the game pretends to be an open world and everything above just immediately kills any kind of immersion you have. The very blurry textures on all the assets doesn’t help either.
All the other ‘gimmicks’ are really shallow. The quest system feel clumsy and is at times downright awkward. The driving would have been fun, but I’m constantly backtracking the same routes of the same outdoor map, with the same respawning enemies at the exact same points. It’s cool in the beginning, but after a couple of times it gets annoying and you just drive through it as fast as you can to avoid it. The racing was fun for a bit, but without any real reward or a variety of tracks and limited upgrade options for you cars, there really is no reason to keep doing it.
Combat is great though and the variety of different ammo types gives you a lot of ways to kill your opponents. There are some impressive maps and even though every map conveniently ends at a closed door where you started the map in the first place, it still gives you the feeling of a real place. It’s been a while since I had the freedom to kill like I really wanted to. I miss that in games. I especially liked Dead City, that was drop dead gorgeous and some of the music they used in action sequences really pumps you up.
But these small bright lights can’t hide the fact that this is a very dumbed down and mediocre game at best. I see a lot of people complaining about the [lack of] story. All I got was that I survived in an arc, the authority is bad [since everybody is making a effort in saying so] and I’m an errand boy for all kinds of people including the resistance.
The verdict is that mega texture does look great but isn’t that useful if nothing in the world can move [asset wise] and everything up close is blurry as [censored] while still taking up 22 GB of space. Regarding the game, Id should have stayed where there good at [competitive shooters] but after Doom 3 [which was also a letdown] this is another step down the latter.
I’m not a hater, I’m not a PC fan boy, I just need to stop deluding myself and accept that this game disappoints and if the editor isn’t released very soon, they can shove it. The lack of any official communication about all the things that are going on is downright disrespectful.
