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[PC] [360] [PS3] Rage

Unread postby Zakharov » 25 Nov 2011 06:42

**

Holy shit a new id Software game. Fuck, is it 2011 already? Doom 3 was SEVEN years ago? I could have sworn that... no, Quake 4 was by Raven Software, and Quake Wars by Splash Damage, and then Raven again for Wolfenstein but I was through caring about second-rate imitations by that point. Alrighty then, it's been a long-ass time. I'm ready to shoot some dudes and feel my heart in my ears. "Nightmare" difficulty of course, but I may need to switch a notch lower, at least until my virgin hands develop their calluses (so I hope!).

So let's start the adventure. Cool exposition even if it's long and unskippable; I could listen to John Goodman bitch about his shit all day. There's a big bad "Authority" hogging all the awesome stuff and rumors of a "Resistance" aiming to topple them. The environments and actors look AWESOME, even if the textures aren't extremely high-resolution and nothing's slathered in neat effects. Orchestral music covers the standard range of backdrops, from spookiness to uptempo fighting. No tracks are memorable, but grandiose scores a la Halo wouldn't be suitable here anyways. id should have picked a more funky music genre but this'll do. Hey, I can strafe-jump like in Quake! That's a brilliant game right? Now I've completed lots of levels on the main plotline, driven to lots of cool-looking places, played lots of cute minigames, and done lots of short tasks for lots of colorful characters. And you know what? I was half-smiling. But... why is my heart not violently thumping? Where has the excitement gone? Where is the face-tightening challenge to elevate this above a simple walk in the park, albeit if parks were post-apocalyptic wastelands ripped from Mad Max? The answer: Too little, too late, and then only if you refrain from playing your best. Rage is a bastardized id Software game, only this time ruined by the father himself.

The weapons and ammo types are quite diverse and feel good to shoot, with some exceptions. The basic pistol and shotgun ammunition quickly become obsolete save for combining into more powerful shots via a crafting process labeled "engineering", and the high-tier pistol ammo eclipses other big bullets like the sniper rounds. The hyped mind control bolt would be exactly like the dynamite bolt but for a crappy "mind-o-cam" sequence. You are invulnerable through the entire event, which amounts to SLOWWWLY jerking the victim half a meter forward AND THEN pushing a button to detonate. The "wingsticks", basically homing boomerangs, are pretty neat mook decapitators. You have sentry bots, explosive RC cars and a couple types of grenade to play with. All in all this is the most comprehensive assortment of toys yet seen in an id game, even if a few suck too much to see major use.

The enemies are quite excellent to behold. They maneuver, show pain and die extremely fluidly without use of cheap, floppy ragdolling (as seen in Doom 3, Team Fortress 2, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2). Melee attackers scale damn near everything to close in. Gravely wounded enemies may drop to the floor, crawling and still resisting before they finally give out. Their tactics are a significant step above the typical FPS fare, rivaling if not surpassing those in FEAR. In other words they're not glaringly retarded and exhibit some nice touches like good evasion and animation. The Authority soldiers and tougher mutant varieties are especially noteworthy: The soldiers approach with a vicegrip, and shotgun-armed shield troopers lead the guard. Their high damage, high health and high bullet resistance combined with heavy, metallic footsteps and stranglehold approach makes them menacing indeed even in few numbers. The larger mutants provide a much-needed durable source of ranged attacks to the swarms, and the later mooks with increased health aren't complete slouches when in good numbers.

So what the fuck am I complaining about? The eyecandy is sweet, and many of the weapons and enemies are superbly designed. What more could I ask for? Well for one I miss the classic Doom-style labyrinthine levels with keys spread out and bursting with secrets, but linearity is not implicitly inferior. Rage's problems are many and absolutely CRIPPLE the experience. The agonizingly flat difficulty curve suddenly BOTTOMS OUT on the last mission (!!), the slow buildup prior to that is made EVEN WORSE by copious chunks of mindless filler, and there exists an abundance of items which can render you pretty much invincible, destroy the vast majority of enemies in one hit, and even provide resurrection... more on that later. And that's all BEFORE you realize your character is actually quite durable -- the red tunnel-vision so common these days goes a long way before reaching 0% health.

NIGHTMARE? This fails to qualify as "Hurt me plenty". But wait a minute, I thought you said the enemies were "menacing indeed", or at least "[not] complete slouches". So how is the game so easy? Well yes, those specific units whose levels are all too few, all too brief, and all too far towards the end. Even when they do appear their potential is mostly squandered. For example, the Authority troops frequently arrive via jetpack. Neat right? However they're slow to land, and the tiniest ding is enough to send them careening to their death. The wide array of mooks, while still lively and well-animated, are fucking pissants. Running straight up and punching everything in the face is much more viable than it should be, "it should be" evaluating to "not at all".

Then comes the filler, also known as driving sequences. As if the missions weren't lukewarm enough on their own, there are many instances where progressing means completing a few races, or shooting up some buggies, or driving across the wasteland and talking to someone... and you almost always have to drive a ways just to start a level proper. This would be fine if it were remotely exciting. Winning races is trivially easy. Destroying other cars is trivially easy, and very tedious if you want to kill more than a handful. Ramping off various surfaces into Authority drones earns you awesome, fulfilling rewards like a message saying "YOU DID THIS JUMP!" and an "electrical wire kit" which you already own a hundred of. Only a couple jumps take more than one try anyways.

But the real icing on the cake, the coup de grâce which seals Rage's failure, is the neverending stream of instant heals, one-hit kills and resurrection safety nets. Let's start with the primary healing item, bandages. You may pop one at any time your health is below 100%. It fully heals you. There is no cooldown or penalty for using it. You may purchase as many as you like, or collect the items which combine into as many as you like. Every level is positively littered with the bastards. Is that "red-o-vision" and heavy breathing too much for comfort? Just mash bandages until you feel all better. What the fuck? Okay okay, I just won't use them. I'll tie my pinkies down. That fixes everything right?

Well, at least until you can craft "Fat Mammas" -- a pistol bullet which one-shots most enemies in the head, two-shots most of the rest, and pierces bodies in a line. You can also acquire a scope for your pistol, which then replaces your weaker and more awkward sniper rifle. Next comes "Pop Rockets", a shotgun grenade with 1-shot damage and spammability. And then regular old rocket launcher rockets, dynamite and mind control bolts, pulse slugs, wingsticks, hand grenades, sentries and turrets which fight for you, etc. ALL OF WHICH are purchaseable in arbitrary amounts and strewn across levels. The fucking Big Fucking Gun is less powerful because its ammo is rare and there are never enough enemies to make the damage radius worthwhile. Oh, and you only have it for the last level, which is simple enough even without the fist of God in your pocket.

But wait, THERE'S MORE! If your health somehow reaches 0%, you enter a resurrection minigame which kills adjacent enemies and restores health! You can go through TWO of them, and then only when you "die" a THIRD time will you need to reload a save! At least there's a cooldown, even if it's just a few minutes. I might have had a stroke if id fucking Software implemented unlimited lives outright. But look at me, being thankful that failure is only practically impossible in an id Software game. Foolishness. Rage is an okay challenge if you tie both hands behind your back, hop on one foot and slap the keyboard with your face. On "Nightmare" difficulty. Players should not need to hold back just to get a decent fight.

Any one of these flaws would be inexcusable, but still bearable on its own. Rage compounds them. And you know what? It's not the items' fault for being strong. We've had rocket launchers, high-damage piercing shots, grenades and BFGs before. We've had invulnerability, on-demand health boosts and even damage amplifiers. And they were good. The problem with Rage is that they're vastly overabundant, and that most enemies are weak AND homogenous. If the supply of items were strictly controlled, then exploring their maximum utility per-use suddenly becomes relevant. The item crafting system might turn out interesting if you couldn't acquire ingredients en-masse. If enemies presented a genuinely lethal hazard, and required different tactics to efficiently dispatch then the exercise becomes essential and exciting. A particularly daring game designer might even decide to respawn dead enemies -- a true "Nightmare!". Hahaha, like anyone would ever do that.

I was really hoping, blindly, that Rage would be id Software's return to form. I liked Doom 3 even if it wasn't on par with their best games. But this... this is too much to bear. Calling Rage Xboxified would be an insult to good Xbox games. Never before have I seen so much wasted potential. At least it's mildly amusing, enough so I can half-smile. Hearing news of Tim Willits' resignation or spontaneous combustion might make that full.
Last edited by Zakharov on 25 Nov 2011 23:00, edited 2 times in total.
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Unread postby icycalm » 25 Nov 2011 14:35

That has got to be the best review written by a girl ever. At least that I am aware of. Are you eva from TIGS, by the way? Anyway, I'll post it as soon as you answer/fix the following tidbits:

Zakharov wrote:All in all this is the most comprehensive assortment of toys yet seen in an id game, even if a few of them suck too much to see major use.


Which ones? You can add them in parentheses after the "them".

Zakharov wrote:The enemies are quite excellent to behold. They maneuver, show pain and die extremely fluidly without use of cheap, floppy ragdolling.


It would help to back up this claim if you could give some example of games with "cheap, floppy ragdolling". You can add them in parentheses again after the "ragdolling", like this: "(as seen, for example, in games X, Y and Z).

Zakharov wrote:and even provide resurrection.


Here you need a comment in parentheses after the "resurrection" to the effect that "more on which later".

Zakharov wrote:fulfilling rewards like a message saying "YOU DID THIS JUMP!" and a spool of wire.


I don't get the "spool of wire" comment. The game gives you a wire? What for?

Zakharov wrote:There's too much shot, and not much worth shooting.


I don't get the first clause here. "Too much shot"? What does that mean? "Too much TO shoot", perhaps?

Zakharov wrote:A particularly daring designer might decide to meter them exclusively via pick-ups


Again, I don't get what you are trying to say here.


And, finally, how would you like to be credited? You can choose between real name, pen name, or username.
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Unread postby icycalm » 25 Nov 2011 14:36

A word about the music too wouldn't hurt...
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Unread postby Zakharov » 25 Nov 2011 15:07

icycalm wrote:That has got to be the best review written by a girl ever. At least that I am aware of. Are you eva from TIGS, by the way?


I'm not a girl. We share a credit card, and the Paypal account for that card is under her name.
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Unread postby Zakharov » 25 Nov 2011 21:46

icycalm wrote:Which ones? You can add them in parentheses after the "them".


I thought "A couple become obsolete save for combining into more powerful shots" linked with "even if a few of them suck". Have I clarified the connection by listing them specifically?

icycalm wrote:It would help to back up this claim if you could give some example of games with "cheap, floppy ragdolling". You can add them in parentheses again after the "ragdolling", like this: "(as seen, for example, in games X, Y and Z).


Done. I've noticed a decline in death animations since Half-Life 2 and Doom 3's generation. The tech's emergence provided a pretty good, easy (given a competent physics system) solution for actor death but I think Rage's animations are detailed enough to beat it.

icycalm wrote:Here you need a comment in parentheses after the "resurrection" to the effect that "more on which later".


Done.

icycalm wrote:I don't get the "spool of wire" comment. The game gives you a wire? What for?


I meant to imply that you get a cheap trinket. I'll just use an in-game item name instead.

icycalm wrote:I don't get the first clause here. "Too much shot"? What does that mean? "Too much TO shoot", perhaps?


Yes. I was using "shot" as in "buckshot" but it's awkward phrasing. I'll just remove that sentence.

icycalm wrote:
Zakharov wrote:A particularly daring designer might decide to meter them exclusively via pick-ups


Again, I don't get what you are trying to say here.

That segment and the rest of the sentence is a mess of allusions to classic FPSes. I had also originally written a sentence giving more context, but then removed it and forgot to fix the paragraph.

Also, "pickups" or "powerups"? I tend to use "powerups" just for items with limited duration like quad damage.


icycalm wrote:And, finally, how would you like to be credited? You can choose between real name, pen name, or username.


Username please.

Also, is editing the original post after it's been replied to proper in this forum?
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Unread postby icycalm » 25 Nov 2011 22:02

In this forum, yes. Otherwise your "done"s do not make any sense, since you haven't done anything.
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Unread postby Zakharov » 25 Nov 2011 22:12

Okay, updated with the above plus some minor tweaks.
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Unread postby icycalm » 25 Nov 2011 22:18

Zakharov wrote:No tracks are memorable, but grandiose scores ala Halo wouldn't be suitable here anyways. id should have picked a more funky genre but this'll do.


"Genre" as in, say, football management, or music genre? Also, what does "ala" mean?

Zakharov wrote:The enemies are quite excellent to behold. They maneuver, show pain and die extremely fluidly without using the cheap, floppy ragdolling which has become popular since Doom 3 and Half-Life 2's generation.


WTF is this even supposed to mean? Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 were "generated"? As in what, randomly generated? Or by an AI-singularity-type thing?
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Unread postby Zakharov » 25 Nov 2011 22:58

icycalm wrote:"Genre" as in, say, football management, or music genre? Also, what does "ala" mean?


As in music genre, and "ala" is a typo of "a la".


icycalm wrote:WTF is this even supposed to mean? Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 were generated? As in what, randomly generated? Or by an AI-singularity type-thing?


As in generations within a family, but now I see the vagueness of using that word. I'll follow your original suggestion of putting examples in parentheses. I chose these specific games (Doom 3, Team Fortress 2, The Force Unleashed 2) because they span a good period of time and feature pretty damn floppy ragdolls.
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Unread postby icycalm » 25 Nov 2011 23:08

Zakharov wrote:As in generations within a family


This still doesn't make sense. There are no "generations" "within a family". There are "videogames", "created" by "people", within "genres". These are words we have been using since the seventies. I don't see any reason to replace them, much less by someone who just posted his first videogame review, and who hasn't bothered to give any reasons for why we should.

Zakharov wrote:As in music genre


So what are these "funky" music genres you speak of? Perhaps you are not aware of this, but the reader cannot read your mind, dude.

There's still more to fix, but fix these for now and I'll get back to you on the rest.
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Unread postby icycalm » 25 Nov 2011 23:13

And for the love of God, stop trying to "fix" the problems I point out BY DELETING THE PROBLEMATIC SENTENCES. You've already done it at least twice, and I plan to ask you to reinsert the deleted comments, BUT FIXING THEM this time. So don't delete shit -- FIX IT.
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Unread postby icycalm » 26 Nov 2011 00:39

I've locked the review to more edits, because I am in the process of posting it, along with a Rage HD review I've been sitting on for a while now. So you can't edit the original post any more -- you'll have to wait for the published piece and then post individual edits here. Just wait for that, then, and for a full list of my requests which I will post here shortly.
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Unread postby Nic P » 26 Nov 2011 04:06

You should add a bit about how gawdawful the level design is (again, from an id software game!). Most of the enemy fighting "areas" (which are usually separate from the contiguous world/overmap) are extremely linear. There is usually only one path to follow, and one corridor or door for enemies to come down/through. You can actually camp by the door and wait for the melee enemies to charge mindlessly towards you and mow them down point-blank with your shotgun. The more ambitious ones occasionally throw grenades to try and flush you out, but these are on a very long fuse and do little damage, to the point where you can take a few steps back and let them waste their whole supply. As for the ranged enemies, they do take cover, blindfiring, raising their heads to spot you, and all the other typical intelligent enemy behaviour bequeathed to us from MGS and Gears.

The problem is that, in Rage, your weapon dosen't seem to have a physical dimension, so that when you shoot your bullet goes straight down the ironsight, without drop-off, and without ever colliding with objects in front of your barrel (if the gun were modeled in 3D space) or between you and your target (as often happens in FPSs when the collision box of the object is bigger than the texture would imply, or when an object is completely solid when the texture gives the appearance of gaps, often seen with chain-link fences). If you have a clear line of sight to it, you can kill it. Unfortunately, this allows you to peak a millimetre over cover, or shoot through a pixel-wide gap between two bits of debris and still hit you target. So the enemies cycle through their animations, like looking up, rolling and running from one bit of cover to the next, while you keep picking off that stray elbow pixel showing over the side of a desk, slowly whittling down their health.

The levels' linearity also means there is no room for cool sneaking stuff like in MGS or Far Cry. There is almost always just one path, there are no cool multi-tiered areas/arenas with various points of ingress, sniping perches, or vents to crawl through. Nor are there any wide-open areas where you can pick off enemies with a sniper rifle from miles away, even if only for the heart-pounding joy of watching a whole platoon rushing towards you guns blazing. The enemies are also "gifted" with that particular brand of FPS clairvoyance which alerts them to your exact coordinates the moment they a) see or hear you, and b) locate one of their fallen comrades, so you can't hide or give them the slip. And their patrol routes are never interesting enough to learn (nor do you have to since, as was already mentioned, the game is piss-easy!). But even if more intelligent behaviours were present, the level design and lack of environmental interactions, techniques (like CQC, hanging from railings, etc...), or useful non-lethal gadgets means there's only one thing to do with enemies (go through them), so why not sooner than later?

And lastly, the boss fights are insultingly easy. Bosses posture and look menacing, but attack in the familiar Zelda 1 2 3 pattern, which is piss-easy to dodge, and then stand around for a full ten seconds showing you their teeth while you fire a rocket at their face. Rinse and repeat.
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Unread postby icycalm » 26 Nov 2011 16:01

I am going to copy-paste these comments in the review and add your name to the byline. Then I'll split the fee between the two of you. I know 5 euros is nothing, but hey, you can at least get a drink on me or whatever, lol. (Or, to be more precise, on the other subscribers, since that's where the money you are getting is coming from.)
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Unread postby icycalm » 28 Nov 2011 20:09

The review is up:

http://culture.vg/reviews/in-depth/rage-2011-pc.html

I am going to post my detailed requests for clarifications etc. later, because I am a bit busy at the moment with trying to upload a couple more pieces today, but in the meantime please look it over to make sure I haven't committed some monumental gaffe, like deleting a paragraph or something or messing up something you've written, in my attempt at editing the piece to sound as if the two of you co-ordinated your efforts in writing it.

Also, a minor correction: I'll be splitting the fee 7/3 between you, to reflect Zakharov's more extensive input. I know this sounds ridiculous, and I am sure none of you need this pitiable amount of money, but screwing people over with regards to money, even with tiny amounts, tends to create resentments that I am trying to avoid on this site by being extremely strict with how I handle my dealings. And the amounts will rise and become more considerable in the future, so it's best to set down the correct policies right from the start.

Also, I've gone ahead and credited Nic P with his username. If you prefer some other way, let me know.
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Unread postby Zakharov » 28 Nov 2011 21:59

We are ready to shoot some dudes and feel our heart in my ears.


That's the only bit that stood out to me.
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Unread postby Worm » 29 Nov 2011 02:34

Since the review's not final, I'll toss in my comments:

Zakharov wrote:the textures aren't extremely high-resolution


Technical nitpick here: being "megatextures," they are high-resolution, it's just that objects and scenery have low texel density. Pretty much everyone will understand what you mean regardless, but to be more accurate I would say they look blurry or overly compressed.

Zakharov wrote:Their tactics are a significant step above the typical FPS fare, rivaling if not surpassing those in FEAR. In other words they're not glaringly retarded and exhibit some nice touches like good evasion and animation.


Rivaling/surpassing some of the best FPS AI to-date means "not glaringly retarded" with some nice touches? That's an odd mix of strong and faint praise.

Nic P wrote:they do take cover, blindfiring, raising their heads to spot you, and all the other typical intelligent enemy behaviour bequeathed to us from MGS and Gears.


I don't think the guards do any of those things in the MGS games (certainly not the first one!), taking cover is the only one that applies to Halo (which is not in your quote, but was added to the review), and "bequeathed" doesn't make sense for Gears of War when you have games like the aforementioned F.E.A.R. coming out well before it. All notable titles, sure, but for these examples? I'd leave in Halo and go with Medal of Honor (1999) or maybe TimeSplitters (2000) as an earlier example of blindfiring and the "hide behind a corner/crate" kind of cover behavior I think you mean.

Nic P wrote:when the collision box of the object is bigger than the texture would imply


Shouldn't this be "model" and not "texture?" Though I don't see the point of the technical explanation in the beginning of this paragraph at all, since that's how guns are modeled in the vast majority of FPS games. Your point is that it's too easy to safely plink away at the enemies through small gaps, which is about their ineffective use of cover and how they lack the aggression / self-preservation needed to combat this tactic, not the fact that your gun model doesn't collide with world geometry.

Finally, a typo:
Nic P wrote:peak a millimetre over cover
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Unread postby Zakharov » 29 Nov 2011 06:33

Worm wrote:Since the review's not final, I'll toss in my comments:
Technical nitpick here: being "megatextures," they are high-resolution, it's just that objects and scenery have low texel density. Pretty much everyone will understand what you mean regardless, but to be more accurate I would say they look blurry or overly compressed.


Low texel density -> few texels mapped to objects -> low-resolution textures on said objects. While the megatexture may be very high-res, the visible geometry has low-res pieces mapped to it, and the player's perspective seems to me more relevant than the hard disk's. "Blurry" doesn't work as well because it implies low detail, whereas low-res images can still be high-detail -- and Rage's graphics are very high-detail (for the most part). But now I'm stepping into a vocabulary minefield. Resolution may be number of pixels for computer images, but it's more generally defined as resolving power, as in the finest possible measurement without overwhelming noise. I meant to capture both senses, both Rage's texel sparsity as well as its compression-induced artifacts. How about "low-res imagery" instead of "low-res textures" for nitpicking's sake?


Worm wrote:Rivaling/surpassing some of the best FPS AI to-date means "not glaringly retarded" with some nice touches? That's an odd mix of strong and faint praise.


Rage's AI is great among FPSes, but still pretty dumb and exploitable. I wanted to call attention to one of Rage's above-average points, but also establish how little it really mattered.


Nic P wrote:The enemies are also "gifted" with that particular brand of FPS clairvoyance which alerts them to your exact coordinates the moment they a) see or hear you, and b) locate one of their fallen comrades, so you can't hide or give them the slip.


This is something I didn't see. Rather than being clairvoyant, they simply showed good awareness and did not forget that you or a corpse existed after finding out. The enemies would search, but did not know your exact location unless you showed yourself or made noise within earshot, and did not see through walls if you moved away. If a base alert was not raised then later guards would be none the wiser.
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Unread postby Nic P » 29 Nov 2011 11:01

Thanks guys. Will be making those (and possibly other) revisions later today, which icy can approve before editing the review. Also, the username and 7/3 split are fine by me.
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Unread postby icycalm » 29 Nov 2011 16:19

Do not make any revisions to your post above, since the review has already been published. Make a new post instead and tell me what you want to change.
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Unread postby Nic P » 30 Nov 2011 03:20

Ok cool.

"even if only" is redundant, so maybe we should remove "even" and make it "if only...".

"the level design and lack of environmental interactions" is not very precise, so I thought of changing it to "the lack of alternate paths, environmental interactions...".

"the enemies are also 'gifted' [...] give them the slip" to "If an enemy spots you, you can lose them by running away, but since you can only go back the way you came from, why bother?/there's no point." (whichever sounds better). I was also thinking of adding the following bit between that sentence and "And the patrol routes": Stealth kills consist of sneaking up on each enemy in turn and using your wingstick or crossbow.

Change "peak a millimetre" to "peek a millimetre" (sorry about that).

I was thinking of changing "...as was already mentioned, the game is piss-easy" to "...the game is a cakewalk" (as piss-easy is repeated later).

Finally, regarding the "MGS,Halo,Gears" thing, I don't remember exactly when enemies began exhibiting the behaviour in games. Does anyone know if the soldiers did in the original Half-Life? I know they did it in Timesplitters 2 and MGS 2. I guess you can leave it as it is, or change it to "bequeathed to us by Halo, Timesplitters, et al.", "common to/seen in every FPS today", or just remove the line completely ("...and all the other relatively intelligent enemy behaviours").
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Unread postby Worm » 30 Nov 2011 23:28

The soldiers in Half-Life have a "take cover" AI routine, but it's about moving to a location with a blocked line of sight (it might involve some other variables, like designated cover nodes--I'm not sure). They don't lock into position behind corners and boxes, and they don't have special behaviors or animations for such places.

Your suggested revisions for that line all sound fine to me. My complaint was that it sounded like a historical claim, so as long as it's less specific, there's no need to worry about a definitive "first".
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