T w e n t y S i d e d

Like I said in the introduction, this series is going to focus on advice more than straight critique. This is basically an expansion on the How I’d Have Done it sections in my Mass Effect Andromeda series. Also, I’m going to be focusing on a minimalist approach. The goal here isn’t to create a massive story-world full of complex intrigue and fill the game with hours of cutscenes. The goal is to create a story of surgical efficiency where we can create tension, stakes, and emotional investment in the shortest possible time. This is an action shooter, and the fanbase is not going to be filled with people hungry for ambitious worldbuilding and miles of backstory. Statistically, these players are not fans of classic BioWare, and we need to respect their expectations.

Which means these first few entries are going to be rough. The opening scenes of Rage 2 are easily the worst part of the game. As I said in my Escapist column back in May: There are about 3.5 minutes of gameplay in the first 23 minutes of the game. Having bad cutscenes is one thing, but having overlong bad cutscenes is worse and having them at the start of an action title is suicidal. Players are going to start skipping cutscenes, and if they skip the intro then they’ll probably skip everything else and all our expensive animation and voice acting will go to waste.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Rage 2 Part 2: Shut Up and Let Me Shoot Stuff”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Right up front, I admit that this is a terrible idea for a series. Judging by the comments, the audience of this blog typically majors in RPGs with a minor in Dark Souls. In terms of audience priorities, action shooters fall somewhere below “2D side-scrolling pixel art indie games” and random complaints about keyboards. 

Moreover, this game is fairly new, and my Spider-Man series demonstrated that the audience prefers to read retrospectives about games that are a couple of years old. Even in the wider gaming culture, this game didn’t seem to resonate with people. It vanished shortly after release and nobody had much to say about it. 

So why am I doing a retrospective on a poorly-reviewed game that people don’t care about that my audience cares about even less and would be too new to be of interest even if they were interested? I don’t know. I think this must be self-sabotage on my part. The years of imposter syndrome have taken their toll and now I’m trying to get rid of my audience so I can go back to working fast food.

Actually, I’m probably writing about this for the same reason I wrote about all those other games: I just can’t help myself. Rage 2 is filled with really interesting problems that compel me to look closer. I want to discuss these flaws (and complain about them, obviously) and talk about why they matter. In my Spider-Man series, I said the story was mostly good and occasionally brilliant, but with a couple of moments of perplexing awfulness. Rage 2 is the inverse of this. The story is mostly dross, occasionally awful, but with a few brief moments of perplexing excellence. How can a setup like that not make you a little curious about the development process?

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Rage 2 Part 1: I’m Not Even Angry”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.