RAGE

[Executor32]

Well, I've found a fix that reduces the pop-in so that it's no worse than the average UE3 game, and makes the textures look somewhat better, to the point of being tolerable:

1) Create a new text file in your Rage install folder, called rageConfig.cfg (file extensions must be visible, obviously)
2) Open rageConfig.cfg and add the following lines to it, then save it:

Code: Select all

seta vt_pageimagesizeuniquediffuseonly2 "8192"
seta vt_pageimagesizeuniquediffuseonly "8192"
seta vt_pageimagesizeunique "8192"
seta vt_pageimagesizevmtr "8192"
vt_restart

3) Add "+image_usecompression 0" to the command line for the game's shortcut, or to the game's launch options in Steam
4) Finally, force both vsync and triple buffering in your NVIDIA or Catalyst control panel.

You can also add "+com_skipIntroVideo 1" to the command line to kill the annoying unskippable intro video, and "+cvaradd g_fov 16 +cvaradd hands_fovscale 0.6" if you have a 16:9 display and want to increase your FOV like most games do for widescreen displays.

[Tolya]

Hmm, can anyone comment on the quality of the actual gameplay? I'm not convinced whether to get the game or not and none of my friends has it as of yet so apart from gameplay videos I just have no way of making up my mind.

[Executor32]

The game is good for the most part, it's pretty standard shooter fare. You should wait until it comes down in price, though.

[Zixinus]

(Hoping this isn't necroing too much)

I played the game mostly trough. The technical issues still haven't been quite properly solved. I read on the forums that amusingly, the developers blame ATI.

The game itself is... well, nothing really new. There is nothing specifically wrong with it, everything is finely polished and done. There is marks of some interesting art direction, although sometimes it can leave your head scratching (there is a lady who wears a driver's hat, gas-mask, only a vest and a bra for her upper body and a skirt, which I am confused is how it is supposed to work).

The story is... well, meh. It tries to be Mad Max in the fashion on HL2. It fails on multiple points.
The big-bad meanie for example, the Authority, is never shown to be actually bad. Some of the locals complain about them, but so far, I haven't saw a single sign of them actually doing something immoral.

The protagonist is... grab ahold of yourself for the shock... a US marine. That's it. We never hear him speak, although when interacting with characters they act as if he did speak. Characters don't really react to him much, other than exploit him in their own way.

You don't see much of the world doing anything though. The enemy tribes have more culture trough their occassional self-made decorations than anyone else. There are airships and tons of junkmetal-made items, but you never really get a sense that there is a living world outside the scope of the story. At least, that was my impression.

What threw me off and still throws me a bit off occassionaly, is the bizarre mix of accents. You would think that being in one area or location would mean that everyone speaks more or less the same way with the occassional obvious foreign exception. No, accents can change on the fly for no clear reason. One enemy tribe has British accents for some reason, while another has German-ish ones. Same with NPCs too, they mix and match them weirdly.
It would make sense if they were some big metropolitan area that are an obvious melting pot of various foreign cultures, but everyone is still wearing rags and scrap metal. The towns are little more then giant messes, the second being a scavanged metro station. The most advanced form of transportation (aside what the Authority has) appear to be balloon-airships.

Also, if you have played a good deal of FPS before, play on Hard. Even with that, the game can be a bit unchallenging at times. Especially with mutants, who practically line themselves up for you.

What you should know, is that the game is a pseudo-sandbox game: it means that there is an open world, but you can't really interact with the landscape itself. The most you get is in towns (there are only two of them) with side-quests and races. There are also three mini-games, one requiring you to gather cards from the game environment.
But beyond those, there isn't much to do in the actual sandbox: at most, you can do some jumps (killing bandits on the way) or find sewers where you you can kill the same type of mutants all over again. Compare to say, Far Cry 2, it offers less freedom.

Races pretty much make the butter of the game, even though they aren't that strictly necessary. They can be fun (except the point rallies, due to the AI and how small the racecourses are). You don't really modify your vehicles much though: you just upgrade them.

Shooting and driving don't overlap much, far from as much as in say, Beyond Good and Evil. You just use it to get between town and your current enemy base.

The game is very happy to overload you with advantages. Not only do you have regenerating health, but you can have instant-heal items as well as craft them yourself. You can craft various items.

Overall, the gameplay and story isn't nothing new or that you haven't seen elsewhere, even done better. There is nothing really wrong with the gameplay though.
So, it's a Christmas-time budget FPS with your usual overblown hype from ID.