Nothing else to say, that is literally the summation of my feelings about Far Cry 3.

Nope. Rage is great at what it is. Far Cry 3 is great at what it is.

I don't think RAGE was trying to be anything close to this kind of game but alright. Having finished Far Cry 3, I thought it was pretty good but didn't make good on enough of it's presmises and it's really repetitive... at the end of the day as much as I devoured that game there just wasn't much to it. At least RAGE was a fairly straightforward first person shooter with an open hub world. It succeeded as a shooter, I think people put weird expectations on that game and wanting ID to make some kind open world FPS version of Fallout 3.

@Napalm: Rage was okay. It had a big open world for exploration, but discouraged that by having Car Battles be very involved and expensive (what with having to buy ammo, drones, shields, missiles, etc. after each fight), and it didn't make clear what was to be gained from going out in to the world. The shooting felt very good, but it was broken up too much by what felt like unnecessary driving and racing segments. I couldn't shake the feeling of being little more than a pawn in the story, either. Every mission was either a fetch-quest, or a fetch-quest that you had to do so NPC #4 would fix Technology X for you. Not to mention the way the game just sort of puttered out minutes after you get the biggest, sickest gun in the entire game.

As a whole, Rage was fine, but it could have been so much more. It was just too many systems which were way too involved, and the cohesiveness of the game suffered for it. Far Cry 3 soars above each and every goal it sets for itself (except for the story; I just got to the second island and I'm only playing because Outposts and Radio Towers are so fun to do), and it feels like a complete package. Although, I do agree that Rage and Far Cry 3 shouldn't really be compared. They don't give off the same vibe at all.

@The_Nubster: Rage is perfectly cohesive and there's plenty of stuff to do. Beside a bit of the car mission stuff, the shooting and exploration in the mission levels was what was the point of the game. Not much exploration in the open world, but it's not really an open world, and it wasn't supposed to be. They were good at giving the game a sense of place.

I think Rage was a superb gaming experience. Everything about this game just works. It's driving is cool, its characters memorable and the gunplay is the best we've had in recent years. Sure, it didn't reach the Half-Life 2 standard people bestowed upon it, but it's still an excellent shooter nonetheless. I also agree to some extent that some craftable items ended up being useless, and the four-weapons loadouts got super irritating when played on the PC.

Far Cry 3 is a great tittle too. But the hinted endgame serves absolutely no purpose, skills are way too limited and underused, the storyline looses all its flair midway through.

What's up with all these topics recently shitting on John Carmack and RAGE? The world in Rage was nothing special, but the shooting in it was a blast (which is what an ID tech should be about).

Also: anyone tried the dlc that recently came out for RAGE? Currently installing the two SP discs to my xbox (otherwise it sounds like my xbox is begging me for mercy), but for 5 dollars how can you go wrong?

No. Far Cry 3 is a great game, but I think Rage overall might be a little better. Funny thing, I was just taking a pee and I was just thinking "Which game has more replay value, this or Rage?" What I have come to was the fact that Rage probably has more replay value. I just beat Far Cry 3, and after 30 something hours of doing everything and finally finishing up the story, I had come to the conclusion that I'll probably never care to play the game again unless it's years down the line when I've really forgotten about it. I actually came to that conclusion a couple hours before I beat it, which means yesterday morning, but after I beat it, yeah... I'm done.

The side mission stuff was pretty meh overall, but for upgrades it was enticing, though at the end it wasn't all that worth it 'cause not every play style calls for the things you can use, so there was a few things I still hadn't done, like sit under two guys and take them both out with the knife, or do a takedown and use a gun. I just never found any use for them. The guns and their upgrades weren't really worth getting either in hindsight. The story was OK, and I actually liked it a little more than I think some were hoping it'd be. There were times when it was going for a "Oh shit, in the end, it's going to reveal that you're actually going wacko, or you're on drugs and things aren't really as they seem!" but it went with a more generic ending, and I was totally fine with it, but it wasn't great.

The characters weren't anything special to me, and even Vaas was cut short it seems, for all of the stuff they did with him in the trailers; almost to the extent that the guy playing him got more coverage than needed, and I felt a little sad for that. I don't know, overall the game was pretty great, but if you're like me and do in fact go back to great games that you had enjoyed the first time through, this is unfortunately not one of them, and that's rare. While if you compare one aspect to another, it could be considered variety, but if you look at them on their own, so main missions as one, and side missions as another, they're all pretty repetitive. In the main missions it seemed like you were either timed, or you had to protect someone.

Maybe the idea of Rage and how it was perceived by the media and public, but I don't think the developers were really trying to make Rage like this. Rage is basically a mission based game. All the missions take place in unique areas inaccessible outside of the mission. If anything Far Cry 3 tries to take on this formula with a couple of the missions that take place indoors but while those missions were the best part of Rage, they are the worst part of Far Cry 3.

Each game has it's strengths in different departments, and they don't necessarily mix that well.

Oh man. I guess that's what I get for blithely summing up my comparative feelings in a somewhat nuanced subject. Guys, I get you. On one level you can't really compare Far Cry and RAGE.....but on another level, you can totally compare Far Cry and RAGE.

You can compare skydiving to chess, going for a run to taking a poop or even oxygen to a fine ginger biscuit!

And replay value? Dude, I play video games every goddamn day and STILL don't have time to replay ANYTHING. Why? Quality problem: Awesome shit is coming out CONSTANTLY. Factor in the kickass Indie stuff that came out just this year. That shit isn't going to stop. If Far Cry gave you 30 hours of enjoyment TAKE IT AND RUN!

Some one should have told John Carmack he was supposed to be making a completely different game then.

I tend to sort of agree with the view that @Fearbeard presented. Far Cry 3 and RAGE are very different games with different aspirations.

There are a lot of people still carrying around the misconception that RAGE was supposed to be some grand open world FPS RPG, probably due in equal part to poor marketing strategy and a surface resemblance to things like Borderlands and Fallout 3. However, it's really a game that's more about presenting a modern take on the classic id Software shooter with a focus on refined shooting mechanics and well constructed corridor crawls. The driving portions were really just the connective tissue between fairly traditional Doom/Quake style missions.

Far Cry 3 on the other hand has nary a corridor to be seen outside of the occasional cavern level. It's a game that's all about the open world and the freedom that it provides the player.

@Rainbowkisses: John Carmack has little to do with game design; he's the engine guy.

@Chaser324: Ok, what I should have said was 'I wish RAGE was as solid as it was during missions, but at the same time had an awesome open world like Far Cry 3' Which I totally get is a COMPLETELY uncontroversial thing to say because who the hell wouldn't want that.

To actually pull something like that off would be insanely hard, but man...one can dream.

It's one of my hopes for the next gen that someone finally manages to create the bastard offspring of ID and Bethesda, minus the backwardness that both companies often bring to their games. Being that they're in the same house now, I have a reasonable expectation of someone trying to do it, even if they don't pull it off. At first I thought Rage might be it ... but no. Then I thought maybe Borderlands ... but no. Far Cry 3 takes the idea down the path a bit, but it's still not quite there yet.

Looking back at where we were at the beginning of this gen of consoles, it's hard not to see just how far these games have come, though.

@Chaser324 said:

I tend to sort of agree with the view that @Fearbeard presented. Far Cry 3 and RAGE are very different games with different aspirations.

There are a lot of people still carrying around the misconception that RAGE was supposed to be some grand open world FPS RPG, probably due in equal part to poor marketing strategy and a surface resemblance to things like Borderlands and Fallout 3. However, it's really a game that's more about presenting a modern take on the classic id Software shooter with a focus on refined shooting mechanics and well constructed corridor crawls. The driving portions were really just the connective tissue between fairly traditional Doom/Quake style missions.

Far Cry 3 on the other hand has nary a corridor to be seen outside of the occasional cavern level. It's a game that's all about the open world and the freedom that it provides the player.

You're my favorite mod ever, ever.

RAGE was never meant to be an open world, it has a hub made for driving to enclosed more classic FPS levels.  
 
Its fine.