[BFG 2010] id Software Shows Us Their...
RAGE may well be the most technically impressive game we've seen running on consoles yet. Yes, that's right, we've seen the console version and it is glorious.
Published: May 4, 2010
If nothing else, every single id Software game will go down in history has being something of a technical benchmark. It helps, of course, that they're also genre-defining games, but at the heart of the developer's design philosophy is the importance of having great underlying tech. Plenty has been made of id Tech 5, the bedrock on which the post-asteroid-stricken world of RAGE is built upon, but until now the game has been, understandably, demonstrated on the PC.
It makes sense, of course; PC builds are usually easier to run off for the odd demonstration to us press folk or at public events, but there always was a question of whether id tech guru John Carmack's promise that the game would run at a locked 60 frames a second (they use the decidedly PC definition of "60 Hz") on consoles without annoying problems like screen tearing. Well, we're happy to say that it's the farthest thing from marketing speak or target goal BS -- RAGE not only looks better than you've seen in screens (including a handful of new ones that we have right there to the left), but it runs so well that it's almost hard to believe.
The demonstration we saw at BFG 2010 was being pumped out of an Xbox 360, but id noted that they were actually going to bring along the PS3 version as that was, miraculously, running better than the 360 one. It would be hard to imagine the game even doing that, as it looked stunning on the 360. It really is hard to describe how the combination of id's much-vaunted Megatextures (which allow for a sprawling, gorgeously rendered environment to be created without a bit of repetition in the textures) and silken framerate add up to a game that gives that this-shouldn't-be-possible feeling, but we were all too happy to drink it all in.
Speaking of, the game's water looks great, with undulations in the murky depths slowly giving way to more clarity as things grow shallower. Even the rocks at the edge of the little lake where the demo started were detailed, offering a nice indication of just how much attention to detail id was pouring into this game. We noticed the exact same care in creating shafts of light that poured into a shack near the edge of the river and the old coot living inside that warned of bandits riiiight before a bunch of them swarmed the location. After popping off a few shots into their soggy midsections and now-empty domes, a quick hop into one of the game's upgradable buggies kicked off a race across the desolate landscape.
Though the trip was fairly brief, it underpinned one of the key ways in which id was trying to keep everything interesting; if you have to move between major locations (RAGE's post-apocalyptic world has few actual pockets of civilization left, apparently, clustered in ramshackle junk heaps that still function in some semblance of the old ways), at least you can do it while firing a pair of front-mounted machine guns. As was revealed along with the game's debut, racing and upgrades to your machine are a core part of the game, but things were kept more or less on the game's biggest focus: first-person combat with just a bit of light exploration.
In an interesting parallel to the Fallout series, a few very lucky people were selected to hide in Arks before the asteroid hit. The original theory was that when the rock hit, it would be an extinction-level event, leaving the world more or less without life and that it would take centuries to recover so pods with the necessary resources would keep humanity alive. As it turns out, that wasn't the case at all. Mankind survived the impact -- some of them mutated, feral and lawless, sure, but at least alive, in a way making the Ark residents the freaks.
It makes sense, of course; PC builds are usually easier to run off for the odd demonstration to us press folk or at public events, but there always was a question of whether id tech guru John Carmack's promise that the game would run at a locked 60 frames a second (they use the decidedly PC definition of "60 Hz") on consoles without annoying problems like screen tearing. Well, we're happy to say that it's the farthest thing from marketing speak or target goal BS -- RAGE not only looks better than you've seen in screens (including a handful of new ones that we have right there to the left), but it runs so well that it's almost hard to believe.
The demonstration we saw at BFG 2010 was being pumped out of an Xbox 360, but id noted that they were actually going to bring along the PS3 version as that was, miraculously, running better than the 360 one. It would be hard to imagine the game even doing that, as it looked stunning on the 360. It really is hard to describe how the combination of id's much-vaunted Megatextures (which allow for a sprawling, gorgeously rendered environment to be created without a bit of repetition in the textures) and silken framerate add up to a game that gives that this-shouldn't-be-possible feeling, but we were all too happy to drink it all in.
Speaking of, the game's water looks great, with undulations in the murky depths slowly giving way to more clarity as things grow shallower. Even the rocks at the edge of the little lake where the demo started were detailed, offering a nice indication of just how much attention to detail id was pouring into this game. We noticed the exact same care in creating shafts of light that poured into a shack near the edge of the river and the old coot living inside that warned of bandits riiiight before a bunch of them swarmed the location. After popping off a few shots into their soggy midsections and now-empty domes, a quick hop into one of the game's upgradable buggies kicked off a race across the desolate landscape.
Though the trip was fairly brief, it underpinned one of the key ways in which id was trying to keep everything interesting; if you have to move between major locations (RAGE's post-apocalyptic world has few actual pockets of civilization left, apparently, clustered in ramshackle junk heaps that still function in some semblance of the old ways), at least you can do it while firing a pair of front-mounted machine guns. As was revealed along with the game's debut, racing and upgrades to your machine are a core part of the game, but things were kept more or less on the game's biggest focus: first-person combat with just a bit of light exploration.
In an interesting parallel to the Fallout series, a few very lucky people were selected to hide in Arks before the asteroid hit. The original theory was that when the rock hit, it would be an extinction-level event, leaving the world more or less without life and that it would take centuries to recover so pods with the necessary resources would keep humanity alive. As it turns out, that wasn't the case at all. Mankind survived the impact -- some of them mutated, feral and lawless, sure, but at least alive, in a way making the Ark residents the freaks.
