Feel the Rage

With Rage's release, there's been some amount of controversy. I've yet to play the game and, if reports are anything to go by, I doubt I'll get it at any point in the future, so this is all second hand. As is a lot of my more serious, non-review stuff.

By all accounts, is a functional enough shooter, if a tad boring at times. The problem seems to be, at least for the PC version, that it's a wee bit... broken. Lots of words have been thrown about, including things like 'shitty' and 'console' and 'port,' among other things, but let's examine the exact problems for now. Some of these could be put down as individual problems, but, given the vast quantity of reports coming in about this stuff, there's a lot of reasons to doubt that.

Firstly, and this one if kind of minor, the mouse sensitivity is apparently fucked up. The menu speed is, apparently (I'll be using that word and various synonyms a lot, for insurance) a lot faster than the actual game speed, to the point that people either have to play with low mouse sensitivity to be able to handle the various menus with ease, or precisely the opposite. The game also has a tendency to crash alot. Um, apparently.

There are also, seemingly, a lot of graphical problems. Like the lack of any detailed graphics options. And, by detailed, I don't just mean 'adjust your resolution using sliders,' there is literally nothing beyond gamma, resolution and anti-aliasing. That's a disturbing lack, and, in all honesty, I'm starting to see some validity to the consoleitis comments. Something like this would struggle to slide for a tiny indie title, never mind what is a triple-A title by a fairly major studio. If I remember correctly, one of the major players in id has, in the recent past, made some statements about how Rage would be a revolution in gaming, which makes this lack of attention particularly egregious. There is a texture streaming thing that apparently makes up for this shittiness, but it, apparently, works rather badly, with delays and textures taking too long to pop in.

Apparently the game has so many bugs and glitches that it can be nigh-unplayable. Framerate issues, random crashes, broken audio, bugged character models,the Russian roulette involved in loading a game - the list goes on for a depressingly long time. The developers have released a bunch of (*coughdayonecough*) patches to try and fix the issue. That's another one to check off my list, then, and without any money lost. Huzzah!

ISAAC!

You know how I mentioned I'd work on something substantial over the weekend?

Yeah... about that...

You see, there's been something that's been eating up my time. It's called the Binding of Isaac and it is bloody awesome (with some emphasis on the bloody). For those who don't know, this is a vaguely roguelike-shooter-hybrid-thingy made by Team Meat (or one member of it, at least). It has a few... unique and interesting features.

On each level, for instance, there are various items that give you various buffs and debuffs. Damage boosts, speed boosts, additional bombs, so on and so forth. Standard stuff. Except, interestingly, when items are picked up and equipped, they cause a visible change to occur in the eponymous protagonist. This is where the horror sets in. Your skin cracks and bubbles, poison flowing where blood should be, horns tearing open the skin of your crown, a coat hanger rammed through your vaguely foetal head. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

This is one of the most surreal, nightmarish games I've seen recently. The enemies - from skinless freaks with demented eyes to crying children whose heads have become hives for overgrown flies - are a truly horrid gallery of monsters. There are a number (at least 50), with various different behaviours and tactics. The bosses are just as varied, interesting, and ungodly - examples include the likes of a huge mountain of flesh and muscle which causes pustules to grow around the boss room, and conjoined twins, one of whom chases you around the room while the other floats behind firing balls of blood at you. A lovely bunch of folks.

The mechanics feel good, the aesthetic style is wonderful and, even better, the game is insanely addicting. I've been playing it for several hours and have yet to reach, never mind beat, the endgame boss. And I'm not frustrated. If anything, I'm even more incensed to continue, to find new items to use, new combos to fight with, new monstrosities to destroy. There are some problems, sure - the reliance on luck might annoy some, and there is a strange amount of lag for a flash game - but you will get so many hours of joy out of this it is well worth the price. It's on sale on Steam until Wednesday - give it a look.

Syndicate

Sorry for the lack of posts over the past few days, uni's kept me busy. This'll just be another trailer, but I'll work on something more substantial over the weekend. Probably.

The trailer's for Syndicate, apparently. I've never heard of the series before, but it appears to have been some kind of vaguely strategy-styled games developed by Bullfrog in the 90s - forgive my ignorance if I'm wrong here, I genuinely only heard about this series a few days ago. The trailer for the new game makes it fairly clear that the series has made a change to first person shooters. It looks to be a step beyond the generic sci-fi shooter, with some interesting features.

And also dubstep. Hm.

I'll certainly be keeping an eye on this, but I don't think it counts as a 'must buy' at this point.

The Hunt Is On

This post is going to be short, and there's a good reason for that.

That reason is The Hunter. Mastodon's newest is great, with a catchier edge to the proggier Mastodon. It's a showcase of so many types of songs, a rollercoaster ride of emotions, and yet it stays coherent. This is a genuinely fascinating album.

Seriously, listen to this album. The band have removed it from Youtube since the album's release (aaaaw), but trust me on this - it's amazing.

In fact, I'm going to go listen to it again. Fuck yeah!

The Darkness 2

Another trailer time. This time for the Darkness 2.

For those who aren't aware, the Darkness was a shooter a few years back based on one of the old 'classic antihero' comics. It was fantastically dark, with brilliant combat and an incredible sense of atmosphere. Unfortunately, it faded somewhat into obscurity, so consider it a hidden gem of sorts. The sequel's been announced, and this trailer comes with a Woody Allen narration interspersed with comicbook style art and some of the gruesome combat the game will, hopefully, feature.

Word of Warning: There are some serious spoilers here for the original game. Don't watch this if you intend to play it.

So, colour me excited, I guess. I really enjoyed the first game (one of the first games I got on a current gen console, actually), so I'm really looking forward to this. If you're looking for something a bit more visceral and dark than your standard shooter fare, well - you might have found it.

In other, unrelated news, I picked up a copy of Mastodon's The Hunter (while looking for Opeth's Heritage, but oh well), so I'll probably write up a post on that sometime soon.