Playdate: Rage 2 (05/15/2019)

That’s a big-ass mug

This is my first video as a premium member!! I DID IT!!

@menkhor: Woo! Welcome!

After the QL I was still kind of on the fence of maybe getting Rage 2 after really anticipating the game for the past few weeks. This stream has absolutely cooled me on it. There isn't really anything else out at the moment but I think I rather just keep chipping away at Mass Effect Andromeda than start on this.. and thats saying something.

Man what a bummer.

#PleasePlayMoreHitman2

I could do with this.

I haven't watched this yet but did they play it on normal also? Like others have said hard and nightmare is the way to go on this game. It is a different experience almost entirely. I'm having just as much if not more fun than I was hoping to have. I'm only about 6 hours in and just getting stronger and having the shooting of Doom and some of the best driving mechanics I've seen in a open world game (driving is weighty and impactful as you spin out and slam on the ground).

From the screenshot it seems they are sour on the game and the comments too but its a super solid game.

@humanity: I'm getting to a point where I'd rather play a janky-ass disappointing game than one that seems perfectly serviceable. I just finished Murdered Soul Suspect and, while not great in any one way, it was interesting enough to keep me hooked for about ten hours and I've spent a lot of time these past few days thinking on it. Rage 2 looks totally alright, I'm sure shooting is fun and the driving is workable and I bet the dopamine rush that comes from picking the upgrade mats up is good, but I just don't care. I want an incredible game that blows me out of the water, or I want a game that tried and failed.

@steveurkel: yeah they played on normal, results as expected. I don't blame anyone for being underwhelmed when they hid the real game behind a poorly balanced normal difficulty.

I'm also having a blast with it though, hope some people give it a shot when its on sale or whenever. You might be in for a pleasant surprise. One of the best shooters I've played in years, and certainly more fun than the last few Far Cry games.

Watch Shroud play it, feels like a completely different game in hard/nightmare difficulty and if you play it fast and focus on getting all the abilities and guns it's a frigging riot.

I'm trying to like this game, but it's just so buggy. Playing on PC and it crashes all the time. Worst of all, it crashes 25% of the time when saving, and then the save is lost and you lose progress. They need to fix these bugs and crashes asap or this is going back in the bin.

@danryckert I cut coffee out of my diet because it was causing my anxiety to get wildly out of control. Even now, after having a 12-oz cup of coffee, I'll notice myself tensing my entire body and fidgeting. I really, really do not recommend drinking coffee with anxiety. It's a disgusting, horrifying amount of caffeine.

Edit: lordy lord this comes up every time Fight Club is brought up... the movie realized how stupid it was. Tyler is the ultimate villain and gets shot in the fucking face. The narrator's entire life spirals out of control when he's a major influence. The entire point of the film is that fixating on anything is detrimental. The people who wanted to start fight clubs are a point of ridicule in the movie.

Easily in the top 2 games in the Rage series.

Seriously though, despite all of its issues, I'm having fun with it. I do wish I chose a harder difficulty, but I'm not going to start over at this point. (EDIT: I know you can change the difficulty, you can stop telling me)

And jeebus, does it run wonderfully. Just like DOOM '16, you don't need a killer rig to max it out, which I always appreciate.

Edit: I'm amazed that Dan isn't more into this. It's such a Doin' Cool Guy Stuff game.

Man y'all really seemed to be struggling to give any fucks about the game. Not sure why you guys even did a playdate on this. Like the stream was fine (y'all are entertaining) but it kinda just felt pointless.

@moda: To piss you off specifically

Any discussion of video game baddies reacting to the player without someone yelling ITS PAYNE is a wasted opportunity.

@the_nubster: This is me too. I'm much more interested in playing unique games that aren't like anything else than the latest COD or whatever.

Unless it has a good story, I'll make an exception for that

Settings the graphics to Ultra is almost never worth the performance hit unless you're taking screenshots. It makes even less sense if you're streaming since it makes things more sharp/detailed which video encoders and players still struggle with in motion and it ends up looking worse for the viewers.

I was sitting here, trying to figure out where the hell I'd heard Dr. Kvasir's voice before, and then I realized it's Neil Ross AKA Colonel Volgin, AKA the Mass Effect Codex guy, AKA Doc Fassenbeinder from Crimson Skies, and so on.

Just got a weird nostalgia hit from hearing his voice.

@menkhor: Congrats Duder!

Hahah, this is my first premium video too! :D

@shagge: You know you can change the difficulty at any time right? I recommend it. I started on Normal and it quickly got way too easy. I moved up to Hard and now that's getting easy after getting a bunch of powers and upgrades. Moving it up to Nightmare next time I play.

@nightmaresabin: I did not, cheers! The way they throw upgrades at you every 15 seconds, I was worried that Normal would get stupidly easy after a bit.

@menkhor: I love you

The spoiler function is basically useless on a black background. Great stuff.

It's been a while since I've watched in a browser, is there no way to embiggen videos anymore? That's a bummer if so!

FYI: They left 13 minutes of pre-stream in the VOD.

@ybbaaabby: I‘m not totally sure if that is the case for capoeira...but I know that for some types of „dance fighting“ styles they were created since the local or enslaved population was not allowed by the conquistadores to acquire ways to defend themselves. So instead they developed these fighting styles so they could gather under the guise of „dancing“

Film & 40s for Sound of Music would be good. Truly the most Dan of Dan movies.

Edit: Also, A Visit from the Goon Squad is, indeed, awesome.

Being a librarian, I think it's great to hear that @danryckert has taken interest in books. I'd like the idea of having the GBE crew do a GB book club podcast every now and then, where they talk about recent reads.

I'd like to give Dan a reading tip that might sound somewhat interesting: "The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle" (released as "The Seven and a half deaths of EH" in the US, because of some copyright thing) by Stuart Turton. It's a murder mystery but with a twist: think "Clue"/"Cluedo" meets "Groundhog Day". The protagonist wakes up with memory loss. Apparantly he's attending a party at a mansion. The titular person gets killed at night, but as the protagonist falls asleep and wakes up he realizes it's the same day again but he has switched bodies with one of the other party guests. This curse is lifted only when someone can stop the murder from happening.

The book could almost be transfered to a First Person Adventure game since it has some mindbending game rules attached to it. I'd bet a dollar that Turton is a gamer.

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY!

Dan: You can call the car from the weapon wheel select screen (Q key by default, not sure which button on controller).

I want that goddamn mug!

@thissucks: This sounds great! I'll definitely give that a read. Thanks!

Biggest wet fart of 2019. Days Gone or Rage 2?

Im a sucker for Krull-like glaives in games. I want to run around like it's Dark Sector.

@vinny download links are not working.

YOOO MY FRIEND'S BAND POWER TRIP IS PLAYING DURING THE RACE!!! 1:21:00

Gross as it is, I kind of picked up my interest over the Scientist and his 'Mount'. I thought I was seeing personality. But the rest seems muddled in what it is doing and presenting.

For all the world, it takes me back to that second Unreal FPS, where you were a nice guy enforcement Something or Other in a strange kind of disconnected hostile, solar system, galaxy (I forget.).

Also if these are the people who did the Mad Max game, my impression is that they got some tonal things really right, which perplexes me more.

@shagge: You can change difficulty mid game.

@pompouspizza: Yep, already got that. Cheers though!

Why do all NPCs in open world games from the past 5 years say 40% more words than necessary?

So that entire marketing campaign was built solely around having a slightly colorful UI?

You can change the difficulty at anytime in the settings menu.

Rage 2 is a damned fun game.

This looks extremely boring. Other than the shooting bits, this is one of the most unappealing games I've seen all year. Other than Days Gone.

From what I've seen thus far, it's astonishing just quite how much of the Mad Max game Avalanche have put into this one.

I was one of the few that really liked Mad Max when I played it (going so far as to completely clear all of the activities on the map) even though I didn't ultimately finish the game in the end.
But, for that same reason, my interest in picking this up has steadily waned.

Maybe I'll give it a look when it inevitably rocks up on PS Plus next year.

Neither's really insultingly bad, though Rage 2 is at least fun with it's shooting, while Days Gone really didn't shine on any level, except looking nice now and then. But I think of games released so far this year, Anthem feels like the one that would "win."

Or you know, Crackdown 3, of which I don't remember bascially anyone talking about after it launched.

Do you think the open world would be improved by constant blasting of Andrew W.K. songs?