That's a result of expectations by Crysis 1 fans applied to Crysis 2, I think. That it would be another huge step forward graphics wise (comparable to Crysis, "a game from the future") which it apparently isn't (since it needs to run on Xboxes etc). There were also the usual tech freaks who expected it to be DX11 just for the sake of it.

It's still the Cryengine though so it can't really look bad.

Many (PC) people were underwhelmed by the multiplayer demo I think. tbh it's a noteworthy blunder to leave "press Start to play" in a PC game when it would probably have been fixable. Makes me wonder about their QA. Apparently the engine is still buggy, too, just like Crysis 1.

I'll probably buy it though. 

It is far from perfect in some regards, as mentioned the "press start to begin" crap is laughable, and the lack of a graphics options menu completely baffled me from a Crytek game.

But on the whole, I can comfortably say its the most enjoyable fps I've played in the last... oh say 5 years? Maybe more.

The multiplayer is where most of the bugs are at from my point of view. The matchmaking system is broken and my weapon and module unlocks keep resetting whenever I restart the game, very irritating! The most obvious bug in the single player is that enemies ai can sometimes go a bit haywire and then stand around vibrating in a corner somewhere, while its hilarious it doe's ruin the immersion somewhat.

Very fucking awesome / 10 overall :D 

 

Officially confirmed by Crytek. My graphics card is shaking already ;) 

I hope the DX11 patch will allow me to finally play the game without the constant hard locks. 

Try this (if you havent already):

Assuming you have Win7, find the crysis 2 executable in your steam folder, or crysis 2 folder, right click it, and select 'troubleshoot compatibility', and set it to run in compatibility mode for Windows XP.

Always run the game 'as administrator' too.

Did this work? 

Besides, when has the compatibility mode ever solved any problems with software?

This must be an odd hardware issue, either incompatibility or some fault in the card. The latter would be strange as it's new, although that doesn't outrule the possibility of course. The manufacturer (Colorful = cn :/) doesn't seem to have regular tech support and I haven't tried with Nvidia yet.

I shouldn't be surprised though - when starting the game, an "unsupported video card" message appears. :P 

 

> when starting the game, an "unsupported video card" message appears. :P

They did announce it would run faster and better than Crysis 1...

On an Xbox! 

Rage weapon trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zm7HJ4Pun8&feature=player_embedded

Meh, pretty boring selection of weapons. Also a pretty boring selection of enemies and locations. Looks solid if you're up for a polished Quake 4 though. I'm not sure I am.

I like that they've tried to move out of their comfort zone at least a little with the driving and RPG elements, but as a developer they still seen like this old lumbering beast. They know what they've done well before so they do that. I feel like I'm trying to get someone to not order the plain cheese pizza every damn time.

The gameplay will likely be kinda fun though... who doesn't enjoy a nice run-and-gun. After 4 years on a new IP, though, my fingers were crossed for a real original spark or wildcard move.

Probably I hold them to too high standards. Id clearly aren't Valve, but because of the history, I think of them with similar reverence. Objectively though, they don't really have a sense of humour or irony and they don't think much about player psychology beyond "People like shooting guns". Carmack probably still thinks stories are for sissies. Sissies who feel emotions. 

Pretty much agree with all of the above. Utterly bland selection of both BUT it does look fun and it does look very pretty. I will play it as a solid FPS but not unfortunately as the next Q1/2 

they lack mad touch of romero and hall! 

"Stories are for sissies. Sissies who feel emotions" - great. 

I do like "solid FPS". It's actually what I want from a shooter.

I agree though that id has already done enough of those, so something more out-rageous would be nice.

Probably the wrong developer to look to for that, though.

Combinations of things like id and Splash Damage seem to work well. 

I tried playing mappi2 in coop, and every time i try to attach the cable to the device to spawn that boos, my quake crashes. Nahkahiir had the same. I use joequake nahk tried with directjoe, same result. any way around this? 

Wow - one of the guns is an AK47. My pants are billowing with excitement. 

yeah, that was hilarious. i mean, you can see the gun has been put together from spare parts. and yet, it looks just like an ak. -_- 

To give them credit, I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict that the finished game is actually going to be quite good and will have at least one or two very cool gameplay innovations (for the FPS genre at least) that they are not going to want to be spoiling this early on. My evidence for this is wholly unsubstantial, but basically comes from the following observations:

1) They've been developing this for an arse-drillingly long time
2) id aren't entirely stupid 

i predict they'll just follow in their own footsteps-- the engine will be fantastic, the gameplay will just be fairly mundane (yet still a good shooter, by all means). the art will be incredible, in part because of huge teams and money, but mostly because the tools will be so good.

i'm not arguing that id IS entirely stupid, but this formula has worked for years now. there's really no reason for them to shake anything up. carmack and co are fully capable of programming up some insanely good stuff which they can use to trade on, instead of relying as much on art and gameplay.

it's what i would do if i had access to programming skills like that. if id could just market their engine better this time around...
id tech 4 didn't see as much as as tech3 did, iirc. quake3 was like the defacto engine back then. but tech4 was more focused on interior stuffs, and while it could do exterior, it wasn't a perfect fit, and the big trend was outdoors/sandbox type stuff which is where unreal seemed to completely take over. seems like every other game out there is unreal now.

i guess the real negative point for them right now is that all the fancy stuff i remember them making a big deal about rage (for example texture streaming) is already IN most engines out there. i'm sure someone's done a version of megatexture too (crysis2 probably?). 

 

You mean, it will have to be judged by its gameplay?! 

gameplay first, please. I usually skip all cutscenes. Even crysis 2 makes me want to press buttons during cutscenes :( A convincing setting is a whole different story though (see hl1) 

The 'new' id (=carmack and his minions as opposed to a group of like-mined game devs) indeed seem to be mostly focused on advancing the engine technology and only create an alibi game around that because it has to payf of at least a little, and to get potential licensers interested. It seems the innovative/fun gameplay aspects became less and less important after Doom/Quake3 or something.

Admittedly I haven't followed much of the Rage preview material, but atm it appears to be a Borderlands with better graphics. I'm still going to get it, however without expecting too much. 

It's indeed a serious bug - a conflict between coop mode and my hacks (modelindex or the like). I'll have to investigate. 

i wouldn't mind that, tbh. i quite enjoyed borderlands with it's mix of FPS/vehicle combat.

otoh, if that's what gets done, i'd prefer it was more sandbox.

in truth, gearbox didn't have to gate the different zones in borderlands the way they did. they should have just left the entire thing open and leave it up to higher level mobs from discouraging players from moving to fast.
as it was, leveling speed was stupidly fast. for anyone who's played WoW, it felt like i was playing with perpetual 'fully rested xp'.
basically, i could have done with about 1/2 or even 1/3 xp gain rate. there was almost no reason to do side quests because you'd out-level the main quest after maybe only a couple.
it seems most devs don't seem to 'get' the XP system as a self-balancing system and instead rely on artificial means completely defeating the purpose.

anyway, i don't know if there's XP perse in rage. i just remember hearing there's 'rpg elements' which might just mean there's an inventory and you can pick up random shit. -_-
RPG is like the most abused term these days.