Rage - anyone else initially unimpressed?

OCdude · 30 Jan 2011 at 13:43

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p6nWzVonxk&feature=player_embedded

From all the preview videos i've seen so far, it essentially looks like a tarted up (barely) Doom 3 engine.

Now i'm sure it can do lots of whizz-bang stuff and no doubt "behind the scenes" it does all this fantastic stuff which makes life easier for programmers/developers... but visually.... i'm initially thoroughly unimpressed!

The walls/stones look very angular, the models look barely any different from Doom3 and the animations look kinda clunky.

Anyone else agree, or am I just harsh? lol

Alpherah · 30 Jan 2011 at 13:50

It looks much much better then the Doom 3 engine tbh, but you can tell its 'similar'.

Le_Petit_Lapin · 30 Jan 2011 at 13:51

Lol "ID Software presents A New Vision".

So if you take Borderlands and Fallout and make it an FPS, thats a new idea, yes?

arc@css · 30 Jan 2011 at 13:52

They've been working on this since the second half of 2005.

Strife212 · 30 Jan 2011 at 13:53

I felt the same way with Doom 3, the texturework was pretty naff even at the time.

arc@css · 30 Jan 2011 at 13:54

Strife212 said:
I felt the same way with Doom 3, the texturework was pretty naff even at the time.

I liked Doom 3 but the graphical style, although clearly interesting to my mind, had a 'chunky doorstep' feel / look to it. Sorry, best way I can decribe at the mo.

arknor · 30 Jan 2011 at 14:02

some of the rage screenshots havew awful textures which is probably a console limitation forced on pc users

Old Wino · 30 Jan 2011 at 14:04

arc@css · 30 Jan 2011 at 14:07

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flqk7sQeW_E&feature=related

Rroff · 30 Jan 2011 at 14:07

Le_Petit_Lapin said:
Lol "ID Software presents A New Vision".

So if you take Borderlands and Fallout and make it an FPS, thats a new idea, yes?

Theres some interesting things they've done gameplay wise that should elevate it over those games, especially in regards to the AI.

arknor said:
some of the rage screenshots havew awful textures which is probably a console limitation forced on pc users

Maybe screenshots from consoles or work in progress - one of the big things about the engine is at development time you can just go in and build it like you envision it - just let your artists go in and go nuts without having to worry about the limits of the engine and then thats all automatically adjusted on the fly for the target platform. One of the big contentions typically in developing a video game is the difference between artist's visions and whats technically capable, one of the driving forces with the development of idtech5 and 6 is letting the artists do their thing.

EDIT: That video in the OP is from a very very old build of the game (almost 4 years old) it looks a lot better in more recent builds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci1voltvnaU is a little newer tho it does still have quite strong doom 3 traits in inside locations (this is console footage unfortunatly).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAXgjsF895c&feature=related

SkeeterUK · 30 Jan 2011 at 14:19

Looks good and nothing like doom3 imo.

Animations look good with a lot of frames it seems. Textures look high res and the lighting looks decent.

Rroff · 30 Jan 2011 at 14:31

Unfortunatly I can't seem to find any videos or proper screenshots of it from the PC, almost everything seems to be 360 footage which is a shame as generally textures are twice the res on the PC (4x more pixels), often use more advanced shaders i.e. a flat brick texture on the console will have some form of depth mapping on the PC, etc. and on the PC and theres more detailing/trim.

Gerard · 30 Jan 2011 at 14:37

Wouldn't make sense for rage to have bad textures since one of the strengths of the engine is the fact that it can use literally tens of gigs of textures in any given scene with the "virtual texture" tech it has. One of the scenes they showed off from what i can remember had over a hundred gigs of textures in a scene.

That being said its id software, theyve not produced anything outstanding in a decade now.

Rroff · 30 Jan 2011 at 14:40

Its not using that much on a console tho - even with streaming theres only so much you can fit into the local storage (total) and video memory (at any one time). Thats one of the nice things about the engine tho you can develop your game with 100s of gigs of textures and it will automatically reduce it to the target platform parameters with good efficency.

arc@css · 30 Jan 2011 at 14:41

The lighting and A.I. looks like two very impressive features in particular to me.

Rroff · 30 Jan 2011 at 14:45

The AI is somewhat impressing me - each different monster group has very distinctive and quite innovative in some cases AI patterns, tho so far they seem to work as individuals which is a bit of a shame, not seen much of them working together against the player other than they happen to be in the same room.

At the end of the day I'm more interested in what other studios can do with their hands on the technology.

Gerard · 30 Jan 2011 at 14:51

Looking at the game it really looks like a typical id game, depressing colour scheme, human characters that look a bit "off" with a weird sheen to their skin. Im sure the multiplayer will be the same tired crap theyve been hawking since the mid 90's.

Just seems they could do so much more but they seem to always fall back on certain elements that make ther games have a "samey" look and feel to them.

The enemy tossing fireballs at the start of this might as well be the imp from doom 3, even throws them right handed..

BloodyL · 30 Jan 2011 at 14:54

Brown, again?

Gerard · 30 Jan 2011 at 14:56

BloodyL said:
Brown, again?

Hehe

They seem to have a very limited colour palette to say the least.

opethdisciple · 30 Jan 2011 at 14:57

I like the look of it and it is on my games radar.