RAGE, first steps...

[MOnk]

*Minor Spoiler Warnings*

I recently started playing RAGE and some things just stuck out so badly I figured I would share them and possibly prompt a discussion.

Incident 1.
Things start off reasonable enough with a cutscene about the Arks and their purpose and the state of the planet when you 'left'. You wake up go outside only to get jumped by two people, who are then blown away by a third guy (who just happens to be there) and you go with him to his settlement. All fine so far. He starts to tell you how Ark survivors are being sought out by the Authority which will pay good money for anyone who can bring them one, he then LAUGHS and says "oh well guess you don't know anything about this" and that's IT, he offers no more information. We get back to his settlement where he tells me that those bandits will find the corpses and come here for retribution so to stop that from happening I must go to their hideout and slaughter their entire clan...

BACK
THE
FCUK
UP

If someone told me their was a price on my head the first thing I would want to do is find out everything I can about these people and their motives. Then this guy just wants me to goto some gang hideout and kill everyone because there is a chance they might find corpses and attack this settlement, well surely a reasonable person would offer to defend the town if it did happen rather than just go pre-emptive strike and kill everyone. For all I know this guy might be a rival gang leader.

Incident 2.
A little further in I'm at some biggish town doing errands for people with no specific goal other than to do quests. My latest quest has been given to me by the Sherrif who tells me I need to deliver some supplies to an outpost (why I need to do it I'm not sure) BUT before I can deliver these supplies I need an armoured car. Considering I'm doing the Sheriff and the town a favour it would be reasonable to assume he'll LEND me one but no, I have to go win one in a race. BEFORE I can compete in the race I'm told I need a sponsor, so I go see some guy about sponsorship and he tells me BEFORE he can sponsor me I have to go through a running man style game show full of muties trying to kill me...

BACK
THE
FCUK
UP

At this point a reasonable person would go back to the Sheriff and tell him to shove those supplies where the sun don't shine. Instead I do as I'm told because I must, I go back win the race get the car and go back to the Sheriff. At this point I'm thinking well at least this is probably going to open up the next questing area. I get in the car drive 5mins down the road turn around and come back, QUEST DONE. So 1hour of dicking around getting a car for a 5min delivery quest, no comment.




It seems to me like they had all these ideas about what they wanted in the game threw them all in and then made up some weaksauce story as to why they are there. Ok I'm not all that far into the game but everything I have done up to now makes NO sense in the context of your situation and the only driving force you have is that you just do whatever people as of you without even saying "Would you kindly.".

I'd be interested to hear what other people thought in retrospection, without too many spoilers.

 

[remnant]

I'm not trying to hate but id Software haven't ever been known for storylines so to focus on that seems like a waste of time

 

[MOnk]

They are the ones who put the focus on the story and they did a right proper job of stuffing it up.

 

[Maplassie]

Monk, Don't want to spoil the story, but the ending, and the final bits leading up to it were :|

Like the ending of the original Quake, I was like WTF :|

You will see for yourself.

 

[MOnk]

I've heard more or less what happens at the end so I'm prepared.

 

[Dan]

It's an iD game i.e. a glorified tech demo. Story ain't their strong point.

Still, I never managed to tire of watching panicked bandits trying to outrun my wingsticks.

 

[Grievous]

It's an iD game i.e. a glorified tech demo. Story ain't their strong point.

Still, I never managed to tire of watching panicked bandits trying to outrun my wingsticks.

Yeah, id I known for kak stories, I think Monk is reading way to much into the story of an id Game. Couldnt agree more, its a tech demo.

 

[Sou1Co11ector]

Well for a tech demo it even failed at that... OMG what a buggy game, needed a day-1 patch just to work and a second one to give you options that should've been there in the first place.

RAGE itself was hyped about a lot and I was surprised to find it a sort of RPG style shooter game, which was something totally different than what id normally does, mindless shooters with demons/monsters. I also wanted to find out why there's a price on my head and what to do about it, etc.

 

[Graal]

Having heard horror stories about it, I decided to get a less-than-legal copy from a friend to see if it actually works on my PC first, then struggled for about two hours getting hotfixes and command line parameters just to get it working properly, and even after that I had horrible stuttering and texture popping. About two quests in I decided to drop the game entirely, as the story was entirely incoherent and the gameplay was less than satisfactory. Everybody told me gunplay was the most satisfying thing ever, but it felt like a watered down version of Bulletstorm for some reason. The final straw was when I shot a bandit in the head with a pistol, at point-blank range and he didn't die. I can understand that the radiation might have made them thick-skulled, but a bullet is a bullet.

To think, just the other day I was standing in Look & Listen, unable to decide between this and Saints Row The Third. In the end I opted for Saints Row as I reckoned I'd get more playtime out of it, and I have to admit, I made the right choice. Rage might be worth $5 on a Steam sale somewhere in the future when they've sorted out all the issues.