Joystiq Rage preview: Doomed down

[darkswordsman17]

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/04/20/rage-preview/

Ouch, but I'm glad for the honesty.

Some choice excerpts:

Multiplayer is expected to be a fairly compact experience, with up to six players able to take part in a few gametypes on a sparse offering of five maps. "If you add game variations just to add game variations it confuses people," said one of the designers during the hands-off multiplayer presentation. "People don't know what to play."

Still, the open-world elements of the gameworld seem limited, and intentionally so -- "exploration is not what defines Rage," explains senior producer Jason Kim. The player visits a city-hub to acquire a mission, and then drives to a location to initiate the (extremely) scripted event. Without an addictive progression system to urge the player onward and into what appeared to be a pretty barren wasteland, this oversimplification of the "open world" shooter seems to be in danger of becoming a series of chores.

The narrative backdrop, too, seems just as nonessential. Replace "nuclear apocalypse" with "asteroid strike," and you can easily fill in the missing pieces of the story by borrowing from another game plot. Select people were placed into stasis underground in anticipation of an imminent disaster (sound familiar?), and your character emerges from a damaged Vault -- oops! -- "Ark," only to face the harsh wastelands. He soon encounters small factions of survivors and the technologically superior Enclave, er, "Authority," which pesters any Ark-dweller with persistent dropship attacks.

I think their article title fits very well. Sounds like Doom 3 all over again.

 

[gothamhunter]

Aww, I liked Doom 3 🙁 Not for the story, but for the fun 🙂

 

[Bman123]

This sucks, it looked good last time I saw it

 

[blurredvision]

Has there ever been any id Software game with any kind of plausible depth to the gameplay? I'm not trolling, that's a serious question. It's not really surprising to me that it's not shaping up to be as grand as some people were hoping.

 

[reallyscrued]

Looked uninteresting to me from day 1. Waiting on Doom IV. I don't care if it's a mindless shooter as long as it looks good. (Yeah, I'll admit it.)