Comments on: Thoughts: Rage 2

By: Thoughts - Necromunda: Hired Gun | The Scientific Gamer

Thoughts - Necromunda: Hired Gun | The Scientific Gamer — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 11:00:21 +0000

[…] hey, it looks like somebody actually read my Rage 2 […]

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Mon, 27 May 2019 11:22:21 +0000

I think I’m mellowing in my old age since I try to avoid fully laying into terrible games the way I used to — or at least I try to target the game without catching the developers in the crossfire, since nobody deliberately sets out to make a bad one. There was something about phoned-in Rage 2 was that just set me off though.

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Mon, 27 May 2019 11:17:17 +0000

I very much agree with your broader point that balance should take a backseat to what feels fun. Borderlands somewhat grasps this, although I think it fails to commit to it as completely as it could do (maybe I just missed out on the best weapon drops though). However, that doesn’t change my opinion that playing Borderlands on my own bored me to *tears*. The weapons are a catalyst and help the game immensely, but if you’re not playing with friends there’s just not a huge amount there to catalyse.

Still, I think you have a point: they might be average games, but there’s nobody else working in that space right now and so they have a gap in the market all to themselves. For what its worth I also think that the Borderlands series will also outlive games-as-a-service as a concept, since co-op hijinks with friends is an evergreen concept.

By: Delly

Delly — Wed, 22 May 2019 23:00:28 +0000

“I haven’t spent any time yet talking about Rage 2’s plot, and for good reason: if I spent much more than a couple of lines laying into it I’d have expended more effort on Rage 2’s plot than Rage 2’s writers did.”
Snarkosauraus Rex, I love it.

By: jack

jack — Mon, 20 May 2019 19:21:21 +0000

This is a great observation

By: drinkwithskeletons

drinkwithskeletons — Mon, 20 May 2019 18:04:39 +0000

This is a fun review, but I’m going to reiterate an opinion that I don’t see that often: Borderlands is possible because nobody else wants to make a true Diablo with Guns. Destiny and The Division are MMOs that need to be minutely balanced and capable of stringing players along for years on a steady stream of updates. The Division is also hamstrung by a relentless focus on “realism.” Neither game can ultimately allow players to have crazy, potentially game-breaking weapons.

Borderlands, like Diablo before it, is content to let RNG combine with crafted content to go completely bonkers, balance be (mostly) damned. They even changed their art style deep into developing the first game to more effectively convey that reality.

Nobody else seems interested in making that kind of game, though, so Borderlands gets all the money and popularity.