[Maras]

Rage Details: Regenerating Health, Designed for Controllers, Car Upgrades, DVD vs. Blu-ray

New details on id Software's open-world shooter-cum-racer Rage has surfaced via this month's issue of Game Informer, painting a picture unlike any previous id game.



A whole host of details are revealed in the article, including the following features:

■ An engineering system to craft devices including sentry turrets and RC car bombs, if you have the blueprints and parts.
■ Your health regenerates--a gift connected to your history.
■ Races and missions are available from hub towns.
■ Vehicular combat is a big part of racing, with power-ups and ammo placed around the courses.
■ Weapon upgrades, such as a scope and aiming stabilisers for a crossbow.
■ Alternate ammo types, including a crossbow bolt which allows you to briefly control victims before they explode.
■ Stealth is an option in combat too.
■ A gladiatorial game show named Mutant Bash TV offers big prize money.
■ A car parts system allows boosts to areas such as acceleration, traction and suspension.
■ Other car upgrades include bombs, a magnet to draw power-ups, tire shredders and EMP shields.
■ Multiplayer modes are currently not finalised.
■ One weapon is a three-tipped boomerang called the 'wingstick,' which will return.
■ The PC version will offer higher resolutions, more anti-aliasing and faster texture page-in times, but the three versions are essentially the same.

Rage is currently being designed for controllers because "the largest chunk of our market's going to be on consoles," id's John Carmack explained, echoing comments made by CEO Todd Hollenshead earlier this year. "I mean, yes, you can use the mouse for it but it's critical that the controller be the way that we design the game."

Ideally, id would like to ship the Xbox 360 version on three DVDs, but is facing difficulties splitting the game into three parts. "We've got two large wastelands on there," explained Carmack, who added that "we can cut it into two pieces" but "couldn't make an arbitrary cut." Meanwhile, he reveals Doom 4 is "structured" so that it will "almost certainly going to be cut up to 3 DVDs versus one Blu-ray [disc on PlayStation 3]."

Early-game Rage spoilers follow, so avert your eyes if you are of a sensitive disposition.

As had been previously revealed, the player character is one of the lucky few who escaped a terrible disaster--an asteroid strike--safely in suspended animation inside an 'ark' deep underground. An earthquake cracks your ark open early, and you awake to find the crew dead and databanks ruined, so you stumble out into the wasteland.

There you find the tattered wastelands living in fear of a mysterious group called The Authority, who for whatever reason offer a hefty bounty for turning in ark survivors. Your mission naturally involves discovering just who The Authority are and what they want.

Rage is due to arrive on PC, Xbox 360 PlayStation 3, and Mac "when it's fun and when it's done," which definitely won't be this year but might be before 2011.

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[Maras]

The official site for Rage has been updated with a new teaser for id's open-world shooter-racer hybrid. For more on the game, check out the recent flood of details.

The brief video ends with a tease of "more at QuakeCon 2009," which takes place at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, Texas on August 13-16 and promises "exclusive looks" at both Rage and Wolfenstein. id has yet to say exactly when Rage will hit PC, PS3, Xbox 360 and Mac, though going by past comments, 2010 seems like a safe bet.

Video

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[Maras]

Update: id has shed more light on the situation, clarifying that, once the game has been optimized, the studio expects it to "be 60 hertz on every supported platform."

Original: Edge magazine has found that the Xbox 360 version of id Software's shooter Rage matches the PC target of 60 frames-per-second, while the PlayStation 3 currently only manages to run the game at 20-30 FPS, a discrepancy that id's John Carmack does not deny.

"The PS3 lags a little bit behind in terms of getting the performance out of it," said Carmack in the latest issue of Edge according to CVG. "The rasteriser is just a little bit slower--no two ways about that."



Added the 'Mack: "The RSX is slower than what we have in the 360. The CPU is about the same, but the 360 makes it easier to split things off, and that's what a lot of the work has been, splitting it all into jobs on the PS3."

It is unknown whether PlayStation 3 performance will improve significantly before the game ships. There is still plenty of time for Carmack to work his optimization magic: Rage currently has no release date, and is expected to arrive in 2010 at the earliest.

shacknews.com

[Maras]

Following up on word that, at this stage in development, the Xbox 360 version of Rage runs faster than the PlayStation 3 build, new details have surfaced, indicating PS3 owners should have nothing to worry about when the game is eventually released.

"We are committed to ensuring that gamers on all platforms have a great RAGE experience," developer id said of the "ruckus" in a Twitter update.

Additionally, id tech guru John Carmack, whose admission of lackluster performance sparked the whole debacle, told Edge that "we expect [Rage] to be 60 hertz on every supported platform" and "the work remaining is getting it locked so there's never a dropped frame or a tear, but we're confident that we're going to get that."

No word yet on when Rage will hit PC, PS3, Xbox 360 and Mac, but 2010 looks likely.

shacknews.com

[Maras]

Several new screenshots of stunning Rage environments were included in a SIGGRAPH 2009 talk given by id Software senior programmer J.M.P. van Waveren.

Consisting mainly of environment shots, the images show off id's "virtual texturing" process, which allows the studio to create "unique, very large" textures in the id Tech 5 engine. For the technically minded, notes on the talk are available in this PDF.

Thanks to FreshyK.



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[Maras]

The 2009 QuakeCon convention is underway, and id Software has debuted a new Rage trailer during its opening day press conference.

Check out the video below in streaming format, or download it directly from FileShack.

Video

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[Maras]

Hot off the QuakeCon presses are four new Rage screenshots, showing the stars of id software's PC, Xbox 360 and PS3-bound shooter--guns, cars, and misshapen mutants.



Stay tuned for our Rage preview, coming soon to a Shack near you. In the meantime, have a gander at the freaks, guns and gearheads in motion with yesterday's new trailer.

Rage Screenshots Display Best of British

New Rage screenshots show that even in a post-apocalyptic future, there's no escaping British sports hooligans. Given that id Software's shooter features combat-filled racing and an ultra-violent game show named Mutant Bash TV, I suppose the presence of a shaven-headed man daubed with the Union Jack is inevitable. Here's the chap now.

Go on my son!

Rage on with the QuakeCon trailer and our interview with id CEO Todd Hollenshead, or wait for it to arrive on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 "When it's fun and when it's done."

shacknews.com

[Maras]

While id is still deciding exactly what the multiplayer component of Rage will entail, the studio has said that the shooter is unlikely to support dedicated servers on PC.



"It's not cast in stone yet, but at this point no, we don't think we will have dedicated servers," id technical director John Carmack told Variety's The Cut Scene before noting "things are cooking along well" for the PC, Mac, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 title.

Infinity Ward recently revealed that its anticipated shooter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 would not support dedicated servers, a decision met with vocal opposition.

"The great thing is we won't have to be a pioneer on that," explained Carmack. "We'll see how it works out for everyone else." An online petition opposing Infinty Ward's decision has surpassed 185,000 signatures, with the studio arguing that the new matchmaking system will provide more players with a better experience.

Lower player count, worse latency and the fate of mod support are among the various topics that have fans up in arms over Modern Warfare 2's lack of dedicated servers.

And while id has yet to say much on the topic of Rage's multiplayer component other than admitting it's a work-in-progress, CEO Todd Hollenhead recently suggested that the traditional inclusion of mod support was likely, but represented "something we may [have] to sit down and have a discussion with [id owner] ZeniMax about."

Thanks to everyone that sent this in.

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