Trailers: Rage: The Legacy of id

[Don Reba]

There's lots of screenshots floating around, many of which look leaps and bounds better than the one you posted, and a lot of gameplay footage which looks phenomenal.

With the updated megatexture tech behind Rage, the level of detail that artists can handcraft into a level is unprecedented, and it even frees up more resources for a system to use. Add to that all the mondern graphical features you'd expect from a top of the line engine. It really is genius tech. Don't get me wrong, Crysis and Metro 2033 were and still are wicked looking games, but id's new tech will stand toe-to-toe and bring in some innovations of their own. id have even gone so far as to say that Doom 4 will blow Rage out of the water.

Given what they're aiming for and that the game will be multiplat, I think it's quite an achievement.

I did not even try to find an unflattering screenshot - that was just the first game footage in the video. The rest looks the same. Just try to find a much nicer screenshot that is recent, not blurred, and not a pan view. Graphically, Rage looks a lot like Doom 3, and that game in its time was already surpassed by Far Cry. Nothing the video hails as unique actually is.

I had a bit of the same feeling and I'm completely clueless what the megatexture actually does :\
I don't think Id was left behind, but they used Carmacks brilliance in the wrong way. Other tech is now much closer, so they can not get away with something like Doom3 anymore. We just need more game, less tech I guess.

Game models are made of 3D meshes "wrapped" in square pictures called textures. Storing all of these textures in separate files is a bit of chore and could be wasteful, so Id decided to merge all of them into a single huge megatexture and let the game engine decide which pieces to load at any given time. It was quite a revolutionary idea back in 2006.

Carmack is certainly a smart guy, but there are others in the industry who are at least as good.

 

[Still Life]

Rage looks a lot like Doom 3, and that game in its time was already surpassed by Far Cry.

No. Even with the HD update, no. However, from what I heard, the Crytek engine was a lot easier to use than id tech 4.

I can find shots of Crysis 2 and Metro which have similar levels of detail. I don't think screens from a compressed video format are a great depiction of any game.

 

[Don Reba]

Rage looks a lot like Doom 3, and that game in its time was already surpassed by Far Cry.

No. Even with the HD update, no. However, from what I heard, the Crytek engine was a lot easier to use than id tech 4.

We've got square heads and black shadows of Doom 3 with its ubiquitous oily sheen against soft shadows and somewhat decent materials of Far Cry. Although, Doom 3 scores big bonus points for accurate dynamic lighting. It's interesting, though, that at around the same time STALKER was showing off its DX9 renderer, which had large open areas, soft shadows, and accurate dynamic lighting all at the same time. That tech was made by the people behind Metro 2033.

[snip]
I can find shots of Crysis 2 and Metro which have similar levels of detail. I don't think screens from a compressed video format are a great depiction of any game.

The first screenshot looks pretty good, thanks to blur and lack of foreground. The second screenshot is not too bad either, but compared to the best modern games, it has pixilated textures, low-polygonal environment (crates with drawn-on handles, a dozen grass polygons), and all surfaces covered with the same oily material. It does have soft shadows, though, so I have to take my words back - it is a big improvement on Doom 3. But this is what it's up against:

http://uk.pc.ign.com/dor/objects/849120/metro-2033/images/metro-2033-20091201041454008.html
http://uk.pc.ign.com/dor/objects/849120/metro-2033/images/metro-2033-20100204093902251.html

http://uk.pc.ign.com/dor/objects/14354294/crysis-2/images/crysis-2-20100817104439901.html
http://uk.pc.ign.com/dor/objects/14354294/crysis-2/images/crysis-2-20100614021419717.html

 

[Still Life]

Rage looks a lot like Doom 3, and that game in its time was already surpassed by Far Cry.

No. Even with the HD update, no. However, from what I heard, the Crytek engine was a lot easier to use than id tech 4.

We've got square heads and black shadows of Doom 3 with its ubiquitous oily sheen against soft shadows and somewhat decent materials of Far Cry. Although, Doom 3 scores big bonus points for accurate dynamic lighting. It's interesting, though, that at around the same time STALKER was showing off its DX9 renderer, which had large open areas, soft shadows, and accurate dynamic lighting all at the same time. That tech was made by the people behind Metro 2033.

FC certainly had a more vibrant style than D3, but the id tech 4 was the more powerful engine. D3 was also extremely flexible in its hardware scaling considering the huge amount of detail that went into each level. It has also aged surprisingly well even against the likes of Source. Prey 2 looks quite good. The character models were good for the time, though, overshadowed by Valve's digital actors which blew away everything and still hold up really well today.

The first screenshot looks pretty good, thanks to blur and lack of foreground. The second screenshot is not too bad either, but compared to the best modern games, it has pixilated textures, low-polygonal environment (crates with drawn-on handles, a dozen grass polygons), and all surfaces covered with the same oily material. It does have soft shadows, though, so I have to take my words back - it is a big improvement on Doom 3. But this is what it's up against:

I still think Rage will stand up with the competition judging from those screens. Metro has very hi res textures and I suspect those shots are for PC as that is the platform the dev touted most. I found that on closer inspection, the character models didn't hold up that well and a lot of the crappy textures found in game were mitigated by the great lighting. As for the polygonal environment, I'm not so sure. I found lots low res textures and low poly environmental detail in Crysis 2, also. This is not to downplay those games, because they were designed well enough that these things didn't stick out and draw a player out of the illusion.

At the end of the day, I'm not saying that Rage will be the best looking game period and id haven't laid that claim either. There's also a subjective element in that statement because there's a bit more to it than simple graphical prowess. One of things id have been touting is the ability to create an exquisite looking game with huge amounts of detail, which retains an average of 60 FPS on all platforms. That's not something to sniff at and is testament to the high efficiency and power ratio the engine has. As great as those other to games are, they both chugged (especially Metro) on console. Metro 2033 even chugged on hi end PCs and the graphical quality didn't nearly push things like Crysis did.

Regardless, I can't wait to give Rage a spin on an up to date PC

 

[Nouw]

Looks beautiful and I hope to some day purchase it.

 

[Reptiloid]

Wow, these people just can't seem to stop patting themselves on the back. Guys, you made a game, you didn't find a cure for cancer, so calm down.

Kudos for the single player focus though, we need more of those these days.

 

[NicolasMarinus]

Enough talk! Release the game already and let ús decide how "awesome of an full experience" it really is.