(Cross-posted from Steam forums for Rage, on the odd chance it will make it to the eyes of someone it might help...)

I know, I know; constructive criticism isn't allowed on the internet. And the odds of any dev actually reading this are minute at best. But what the hey:

I'm having a good ole time with Rage. Yes I had some technical problems; that dead horse is beat. Lets talk about the game.

Its gorgeous. Nuff said.

The difficulty of the first buggy time trial race seems off. (The one where you're trying to earn your first tickets in Wellspring, so you can buy a gun for your buggy.) I had trouble with it at the time, but just figured it was because I was still learning how the driving worked, because pretty much all of the driving since has been easy. Then my wife got up to that bit and couldn't get past it, so she asked me to drive the race; its still hard. That buggy handles like crap - which is fair enough for that point in the game - so you might want to go with an easier course, or an easier time mark, back when people are still learning and have crappy cars.

Many of the rally-style races - especially the ones on smaller courses - seem kind of random and pointless. I race around the course way faster than everyone else, blowing them up the whole time, but the marks don't happen to appear in front of me so I come in last. Then I drive small slow circles around two spawn points, getting blown up constantly, and I win gold. Whatever. There are a couple on larger tracks where the rally points seem to follow a fairly regular spawn pattern, and those ones I had some control over, but the other rally races felt like I was being rewarded for boring behaviour and punished for actually, you know, _racing_.

And finally, your save game mechanism completely fails to take into account that more than one person might be playing the game. You can't name your saves, so you can't tell them apart, and the quicksave button saves over the latest manual save. So if I jump on a day after my wife, load my game, play for a bit and quicksave, it saves over _her_ game. That's daft. Let us name the save games, and use a separate slot for quicksaves, rather than overwriting a manual save. It sounds trivial, but its a fairly major annoyance to have to remember to save your game twice in two different slots every time you quit, or risk losing your whole game.

But look, I'm really enjoying Rage, so don't take any of this too hard; just wanted to give you some fine tuning feedback for the next one.

Thanks!

There's so much cool stuff in Rage but . . . I know what you mean about those races. Especially that first buggy time trial. and that course in general because it was used a lot for other races too . . . I hated that track and those races and will probably not play the game a second time because of them. . . And yeah that other track where the marks don't appear and suddenly the other cars are coming at you and you're suddenly going the wrong way . . . lame and frustrating. Couldn't win it. Don't know why they thought they had to put those races in the game.

No one brings up that rage had no epic end boss fight? wtf happened... this is a id game which is known for boss fights and they gave us a push a button ending... so lame.

oh wells...

I really didn't get the Rally Racing myself. About as much fun as a 9-5 job on an assembly line if you ask me.

Anybody enjoy the Rally Racing?

Is there a way to get the edge on the competition other than the luck of the Gods?

It has been a Topic, here's a link...
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1245223-horrible-ending/

buggy races were hard?? I thought they were extremely easy... especially the rocket races, they were a joke! if you used two full boosts before weapons go online you'd be a good 1/2 lap ahead of everyone with zero fear of being hit by rockets.

Well I didn't bring up the ending because I haven't got there yet. (I'm just in front of it, running around the wilderness making sure I haven't missed any side-quests before I go for the end.)

And yes, I thought all the buggy races were pretty easy _except_ - as I mentioned in the OP - the first time trial and the rally races. And the _first_ real race being one of the harder ones is what struck me as backwards, from the sense of game flow.

I am with you on the saves. They just qseem to go in whatever random slot is available, so you have to note the in game as well as play times if you want to jump around or play different campaigns.

and the auto save seems weird, too.

i started mys econd playthrough, got past the tutorial levels and went to bed. the next day i fired up the machine and continued the campaign from where i had left off the night before.
Then, i was messing around and got killed... the game asked if i wanted to continue from the last checkpoint.
i said, "sure" but then the screen says "please insert disc 2"; it was trying to load a previous save (i am guessing my farthest along the storyline?) instead of reloading from my last savepoint.

It's so friggin ironic how this post was one of the few that was actually worth reading and it only has 7 replies. Wow. Enough said. Thanks for putting up a thread that was actually worth reading and responding positively to. People should take notes on this. This is like RAGE forum history right here. :clap:

Agreed. It's a lot more engaging to read constructive posts than the umpteenth hater diatribe. Problems with something? Fine, but try to be mature about it. This thread is a fine example.

As for the races, yeah, they're super easy on SP but I saw them as a nice break between missions. The real challenge is racing others in multiplayer. I find that pretty exciting and if others get ahead of me in rally races, I go in another direction and hit up a different spawn point when it comes up.

I honestly had no problem with the races, and the rally ones in particular are strategic - not about racing. You probably need to reconsider your techniques.

Agree!

I believe the only reason why I'm posting my constructive criticism is because I enjoyed the game so much but was left wanting more.

Of no fault but my own, it wasn't till the very last level, I realized I could purchase ammo and upgrades (pages left and right) from the stores (noob). I managed to make it all the way through the game using ammo I found scattered throughout the game, buying wing sticks and grenades. When I did realize I could purchase ammo, it suddenly made the game incredible easy too a fault. I had so much money, I was able to purchase all of the upgrades and schematics in one go and was now ready to take on any challenge..... but wait .... I finished the game and never needed to use any of the upgrades, turrets or walking spider guns. In fact I never really needed any weapons other than grenades, wing sticks, shotgun and machine gun. Was it me or was this game incredibly easy? I was so looking forward to using the mind control darts, but never really had a chance or found a situation where these would benefit over a good-old wing stick or grenade.

I enjoyed the side missions and liked to mix these up along with the main objectives. I was looking forward to going back and completing any side missions I was saving for later but later realized if I reached a certain check point, I was prevented from going back. Any attempt to go back and I was greeted with a locked door and/or guard telling me to back off. Bummer .

The driving on the first race was so difficult to control, I put the game away and stopped playing for several days. Upon giving the game/race a second, third, forth ...... 100th try, I gave up and asked my son complete the first race for me. Although he struggled, he finally made it through the race allowing me to get back to the FPS portion of the game. From that point, I determined I was going to really hate the racing/driving part of the game. But wait... I must have been visited by Dale Earnhardt in my sleep last night, because I've miraculously become a master at driving. All races after the first race have become incredibly easy. Was it all the practice I had or did Dale Earnhardt really visit me? Either way and although I hated the driving portion of this game, it suddenly became one of my favorite parts. So for any one struggling with the first race, stick it out get the upgrades for better handling and I'm sure you will enjoy this part of the game as I eventually did.

Final thoughts:
===========
Despite my obvious noob mistake, I still enjoyed the game. The FPS action was incredible and the AI very good at avoiding my strikes. The scenery goes without mentioning but I will anyway... it's amazing!

If you find by the end of the game, you have acquired a ton of unused inventory and never needed to use any weapons other than the standard issue, you might want to take on the side missions before accepting the main objectives of the game. Because the ending happened so quickly, and with ease, I had no real desire to go back and play the game again, the "right way". I feel the end result would be the same..... wanting something more when I'm just getting started.

I guess anybody having problems with the racing part plays the game on PC, right?
I heard that the PC version only supports keyboard controls for racing which doesn't seem to work well.

I play the 360 version and the racing part is easy to handle with a gamepad. The races are easy and the difficulty is progressing fine from one race to the next, so no problems on the 360 version at all.

Nope, you can use a controller on the PC as well. I've heard lots of people are playing the FPS portions with mouse and keyboard and then switching over to controller for driving.

I did the races with the keyboard, and found the first time trial insanely difficult the first time I did it. After a few goes however it does get easier, and once you do make it (and after 4 or 5 tries you should be able to make it every time) and get a few racing certs in, you can destroy some bandits to more easily get more certs, do DR's challenge for the boost upgrade, put in the tyres upgrade, and the buggy becomes insanely easy to use - very fast, very maneuverable, just streak ahead in all of the combat races and you'll win easily every time.

The bindings I found easiest were arrow keys instead of WASD, shift for boost, and I never even bothered with brakeing, just ease off on acceleration going into a turn and you'll do it, no matter how tight.

Don't worry. There's a clear difference between constructive and destructive criticism.

Most rants you see on the internet are destructive.

Indeed that works quite well.

Well then, a controller should be the weapon of choice for the driving parts. :foodndrink:

If you had trouble with any of the racing, you are bad at video games, I got gold in every single race on my first try through them. As for having problems with saving over your wifes save file and vice versa, this is why you have 2 profiles problem solved instantly. Profiles is how almost every game for consoles work now-a-days for saving progress get used to it, its not that hard.