By Alec Meer on October 4th, 2011.
Good news! Rage is now on my PC, and I have begun to play it. I am excited to be doing so, based on what I’ve played of the game previously.
Bad news! I’m seeing quite a few technical problems on my PC. To the point where I’m not sure I can keep playing. Sounds like I’m not alone either.
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By Jim Rossignol on September 29th, 2011.
Yeah, all this malarky about pre-order bonuses leaves me a bit uninterested, and I tend to gloss over such news. This one, however, had me say “Aw.” And also “C’mon.” You know in that imploring, almost disbelieving way? The double barrel shotgun in Rage is only (so far) available if you pre-order, and therefore get the Anarchy edition. So a post-apocalypse game, by Id, where the sawn off double-barrel shotgun is only available as a bonus item.
Really? C’mon. There’s a bunch of other pre-order items, if you care, and they’re illustrated in the video below. (Worth noting: Bethesda tell us that we won’t be getting any early access to the PC version of the game, so we can’t review it before it comes out, so we can’t tell you whether or not to pre-order! Ha.)
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By Jim Rossignol on September 8th, 2011.
It’s often the case that companies release one trailer that gives away more about how a game will actually play that all the other trailers combined. I get the feeling this might be the one for Rage, which really does seem to convey a lot about how the game is going to look and play, present its UI, and everything else. Perhaps it’s something to do with being able to see a player’s viewpoint and at the same time seeing him from the perspective of his buddy, but I’m getting a really good sense of how the game will deliver itself from this. Take a look and see if you agree.
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By Alec Meer on September 1st, 2011.
Are you a German teenager? Then do we have some good news for you! After a short seventeen year-long wait, you are now legally allowed to buy a copy of Doom. And, indeed, Doom can now be stocked in normal shops, not just ones ominously deemed ‘adults-only’ – which was basically putting the game right up there with porn.
As of yesterday, Germany’s Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons (Bundesprufstelle) has removed Doom – and Doom II – from its list of ‘controlled’ games, following an appeal by id’s owners Bethesda. Their reasoning? Because the Bundesprufstelle thinks Doom is ‘now only of artistic and scientific interest and will not appeal to youngsters’, according to the BBC.
That's the id talking
By Alec Meer on August 26th, 2011.
Immediately after sitting down for a surprising hour with id’s forthcoming shooter Rage, I collared creative director Tim Willits for a quick chat. Covered: how close to finishing the game id are, how they hope to do DLC right, how people are playing the game in different ways, how… noteworthy he found some of the game’s female voice actors, and Rage’s ‘imperfect is good’ approach to character design.
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The id game that isn't an id game
By Alec Meer on August 23rd, 2011.
While Dishonored was the best thing I saw at Gamescom by a long shot, bagging the bonus invisible award of ‘most pleasant surprise’ was id’s soon-to-be-released Rage. I feel like I’ve been seeing Rage forever by this point – so many trailers, so many preview events, even some hands-on time. And I’ve always thought of it as this fast, dumb, relentless, obvious thing – which, it transpires, is because I’ve always been shown it as if it is. I’ve been shown or dropped straight into fighting, rather than approaching the game at the pace it’s designed to play at or nosing at the world it’s built. Now, I feel completely different about it.
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By Jim Rossignol on August 9th, 2011.
Id bossman Todd Hollenshead has explained to VG247 what the “failure” of the in-game advertising model means for Quake Live. He stated that the closure of ad firm Massive – which MS shut down earlier this year – has caused Id to rethink: “I mean, smarter people than me were making these estimations. Look at Microsoft. They spent, like, $200 million on the Massive acquisition, and they basically shuttered that division in February. So that had ramifications for us, because we used Massive. And if that was more successful, that’d have had a significant impact on what Quake Live is.”
It’s not over for the reborn Quake III, however, as Id are now experimenting with subscriptions and video-ads: “The game is an entertainment success, so now we have to figure out how to make the business model work.” And with no hats, how’s a company to make a profit? Eh?
By Jim Rossignol on August 6th, 2011.
Aha! I am not sure this video had surfaced while I was posting yesterday, but here it is anyway, below, via Bethblog. It covers Rage and the tech behind it, what Carmack thinks of the PC as a platform now, Doom 3 code being released, and lots of tech jabber about various platforms and games (even some mentions of Doom 4 tech) that you may or may not understand or care about. Nevertheless, one of our finest traditions.
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By Jim Rossignol on August 5th, 2011.
Mr Carmack was up on stage at QuakeCon last night, and he was talking Rage and PC. Getting the PC version up to speed has, apparently, been one of the sticking points for Rage’s development, which has taken a few years now. Interestingly, release might not be the end of the that particular line of development, either, because Carmack has revealed that he’s already started a new project, and the “research engines” that this new project produces could be added to the PC version of Rage down the line. Quite what this means isn’t clear, but apparently he has a “firm” plan to release this update to PC, as well as a high-quality texture patch. It’s fascinating to see Carmack getting excited about the PC again, a platform whose power he called “crazy”. Increasingly, I suspect, the words out of the mouths of Carmack and other tech gurus are going to be about the untapped potential of the PC, particularly as the archaic specs of 360 and PS3 begin to frustrate those developers who are still interesting in pushing their technology. There’s a bit more detail on Mr C’s talk here.
I’ve also posted a big old Rage trailer below.
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By Alec Meer on August 5th, 2011.
Quakecon 2011 kicked off yesterday, and included another of John Carmack’s traditional incredibly long and bewilderingly technical talks, delivered at an audience primarily there to repeatedly frag each other but prepared to sit through all this talk of doohickeys and megawotsits due to their sheer love and respect for the godfather of FPS. If they were also primarily there in the hope of Doom 4 being unveiled at last, they were disappointed. Carmack made it clear that 2011 is all about Rage – which, all of a sudden, is due for release in two months.
Soon after that, he revealed, id will release Doom 3′s source code to the world.
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Rage Against The Dying Of The Light
By Dan Griliopoulos on August 2nd, 2011.
(Click the images in this feature for full sized shots.)
I am a ark survivor! A proud child of the late Mother Earth, dispatched into hypersleep to escape the meteor inbound to pummel Gaia. Our deep-buried pod is one of hundreds of such! When we wake we will show that mankind has learnt from the mistakes we made on our original home. We shall spread enlightenment and humility through the stars until the heat death of the universe! I have a spanking new jumpsuit!
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