Rage 2 and Game Feel

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/ errantsignal
RAGE 2 is a really great shooter! But maybe there's more to playing games than being really, really, ridiculously good to play?

[@KamradO]

Bobby Tackle in "I Have No Agency And I Must Puke"

[@MrWendal]

Would be a lot worse if he also had no mouth

[@lazyholl0w831]

Poor Bobby. 1 like = 1 prayer

[@justinw1384]

and the NPC of the year award goes to... Bobby Tackle, Rage 2

[@teratoma.]

i see these reference all the fucking time. How long until a remake happens? I say 2023

[@johannlabertaler6095]

This game's most notable impression for me were the most realistic cannabis plants I've ever seen in any game. They have holes from bugs in them. And sun burn. I really want to shake the model artists hand at some point just to thank him for these beautiful outdoor plants.

[@exquisitecorpse4917]

A lot of devs struggle to make character deaths impactful. Some well-meaning writer will stick in a blurb "This is your stepbrother who adopted you from a pile of elephant dung; he taught you everything you know, and the depth of your emotional connection knows no bounds." Then an animator will show you some gruesome death sequence, we go into slow motion, and the voice actor gives it all they've got "NoOoOo, the person I theoretically love more than anyone else! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" _furious sobbing_ ....and you just go "Kay then. What's next?" It's like a narrative uncanny valley.....the words are wording, the people are peopling, the music is musical....and it resembles emotional storytelling just enough to ring incredibly hollow. Perhaps you have to get to know someone through gameplay before "losing" them feels like anything at all. That's certainly how Final Fantasy does it: Losing a party member means losing a meaningful function as well as a bobble-head on the screen.

[@Bluelink13]

I feel an example of well done death was recently on Fire Emblem Three Houses, and the honestly brilliant bit is that the game knows that you, the player, won't really feel sad for the character that bit the dust in a cutscene in order for the plot to advance, so it loads all the responsibility to make you feel for it not to the death scene and the character itself, but to everything else. Your main character is actually outwardly sad in a lot of cutscenes, and even in the screen where you select your activity for the weekend, his thoughtful expression is replaced by a sad one, and his dialogue choices when talking about it are more raw than his usual stoicism. Plus the environment at the monastery also reflects it. The usual cheery song is replaced by a more moody piece, everyone is actually affected by the event, students offer condolences, the other faculty offers to help with your work to give you time to grieve and overall really makes it feel like a community of people that care about both about the departed and you, making what under other circumstances would be a rather cliched moment in the plot into a section that really manages to convey the devastation that the main character is feeling.

[@1r0zz]

Game designers try sometimes, but are ridiculed by the "cool kids"... Remeber when every one acted annoyed at ff13 hope angst? The 13 years old kid who withnessed the death of his mother and was planning cold blood murder angst? Remeber how every one said other more idiotic games were better? Yeah.

[@edwoodgrant]

I like a lot the concept of the "narrative uncanny valley"... seems to be a good concept to use when creating or critiquing games that have narrative moments and arcs that "have everything", but it just doesn't work and feel incredibly phony and... well, robotic for a reason.

[@xBINARYGODx]

@@1r0zz Them trying means basically nothing - did they success or not? That is what is important.

[@1r0zz]

@@xBINARYGODx They are prevented to. Few examples.a Silent Hill 2 character is a "laughing stock" because she actually talks like the wounded person she is... Silent Hill(1 to 4) in general, a game with mature and adult layered narrative was bastardized into the most shitty goosebump horror. You see people express disdain to FF type-0 final chapter cutscene where the characters "invent" what they would do even if they know they will die, in a world where the dead is forgotten instantly... Some critics define persona 3 as the "romance sim" with RPG animu stuff... Fuck, nier automata was many times accused of "shoving" "faux philosophy" randomly! Final fantasy characters are defined "emo"! While, " good" games explore plot holes and feel-good ideas in a gameplay that contraddict everything! Last of US and rise of the tomb raider are more disfunctional that rage2...

[@MakeRetro]

To use a writing metaphor, perhaps game feel is akin to the prose of a book. It's important that it be clear and satisfying to read in order for the reader to intake the story, but that doesn't guarantee good plot or characters.

[@Wanna_Be_Desu]

The idea of satisfaction that keeps you glued to the game, even though you know the experience is sub-par and your time can be better spend elsewhere, reminded me of my 50+ hours time with Destiny 2. I was genuinely impressed how fun it was to pop multiple headshots on enemies that move at you in a straight line in a 4X4 meter room. Or to take in alien worlds with amazing visual production. Reload your gun to see the animations and hear meaty sounds. Pleasantly surprised by ability to check inventory at loading screens and even cutscenes (thanks for that, every game should have that, the story is borderline insulting in it's simplicity). These helped me make to the end, Forsaken DLC. 10h felt like It's genuinely the best part of the whole game. But then I looked at my time played, checked what endgame will consist of. And just uninstalled. The game was full of potential or, more truthfully, I desperately want it to be. But at the end of the day, I could have and should have dropped after the main story and did something else. There are so many games released and a lot of them very worth the play. Games that have better fun-to-time investment ratio. Not even mentioning doing things IRL or learning new skills. Destiny taught a good lesson. Persevering, wasting time, trying to convince myself of the light at the end of the tunnel, not judging things until you fully explore them - these are 'noble', respectable ideals, that are required in some cases. But I could have read at least 5 books, watched 25 movies, played 10 other games, found 2 new girlfriends in those 50 destiny hours.

[@gotgunpowder]

the same is true of literally all video games, dude, they're all a waste of time. trying to compartmentalize certain games being more of a waste than others somehow is just stupid and pretentious.

[@oddObjekt]

I love how self reflexive you are about your own criticism. Really, it's an admirable trait.

[@geriburrito]

It gets tiring sometimes though, self-deprecation can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[@oddObjekt]

@@geriburrito I don't really take it as self deprecation, more like a dialogue with his own ideas. "I used to think A but upon reflection I think A+B is more true." Self deprecation would be more like "I used to think A and upon reflection that was idiotic and I'm stupid for thinking it".

[@lordofthemanletpit952]

reflexive

[@quaternaryyy]

every Errant Signal review is also an Errant Signal review

[@KiraSlith]

reflective* We probably wouldn't be in this stupid political mire,the most divided time in human history if people were better at self-reflection.

[@randomfluffypup9608]

why is no one talking about the gamefeel?

[@toboldlysplitinfinitives6518]

Underrated fusion of game-dev and feminist theory

[@GreenEyedDazzler]

Dante Gearbox Ugh gross! An incel!

[@TotalNigelFargothDeath]

@@toboldlysplitinfinitives6518 inb4 alt right reeeeeeeee

[@danielyahalom3961]

death to capitalism end patriarchy smash the binary hail satan hallelujah!

[@Dexyu]

dont give a shit, its all about the agency and story for me. ME 1 was janky as fuck, but is one of the greatest games ever.

[@KingsandGenerals]

Mouthfeel ep.2: Gamefeel

[@unnunn12]

i keep seeing you everywhere on KZbin, you've got a real M'aiq the Liar vibe about you.

[@tobyissac9432]

I dont mean to be so off topic but does anyone know of a way to log back into an instagram account..? I was dumb lost the login password. I love any tips you can give me.

[@jamaljude4084]

@Toby Issac Instablaster :)

[@Uriel238]

I remember lamenting gamefeel issues in _Tom Clancy's The Division_ (2016) and then later rebooting _Borderlands 2_ and noticing all the gunplay problems of _The Division_ had been resolved in a game four years earlier. (When Tom Clancy was alive, his games were required to have realistic feeling gun action. Less so once he died.) So yeah, it's a thing. Hardly the only thing. But a thing, still. *edit:* Formatting

[@hee-ho-kun9106]

Rage 2 really did make me feel like I was an addict just looking for my next fix; If game feel is the only thing that matters, we should all just play slots at Casinos, bc all that tries to do is give you dopamine on a drip feed to keep you there.

[@dylanspangler547]

"there is no such thing as a well designed gun" is a reminder they give us at my design school to basically say "no matter how refined your work is, it has to mean something good too"

[@AmyDentata]

"Cool Names and Idle Animations" would be a cool name for a screamo song

[@torb-no]

Or for a dubstep artist that used to be in screamo band.

[@thekidkrow]

Sounds very See You Space Cowboy

[@noatrope]

It sounds like a Machinae Supremacy song title.

[@ItsTheFizz]

Rage 2 to me feels like its game development and advertising were completely disconnected from one another and the game's art direction was hastily changed in the post-production phase Suicide Squad-style to better reflect the hot pink tone of the Andrew WK ads...

[@danielmasolov9829]

I don't know if it's just me or not, but something about the post-production of Rage 2 hurts my eyes in a way that no other game does. I physically cannot bear to look at it for a long period of time. I think it's a combination of intense bloom effects, the brightness of its saturated and very vibrant colors (notably the hot pink), and the constant introduction of different and vibrant colors on screen when stuff happens, but I'm not 100% sure what it is exactly. And of course, the game is one of the very few that lacks a brightness or gamma setting in its options menu (or at least it did when it came out, I'm not sure if they patched it in post-release, I would hope that they did, but TotalBiscuit is rolling in his grave either way). I don't have epilepsy, and literally no other game has made me feel this way. I ended up quitting after a few hours because of it - and because the game just wasn't consistently good enough to merit having my eyes burned out. It just rubs me the wrong way, and the lack of basic graphics options doesn't help that one bit.

[@Narokkurai]

Suicide squad seems like a perfect analogy, because both projects were half baked ideas meant to capitalize on trends that had already grown stale, and once the creators realized this they hastily redesigned the stuff they already made to look "wacky" and "fun" with the same lack of taste and meaningful direction that they had in the first draft.

[@shawklan27]

This is a accurate description of this game's development cycle

[@1r0zz]

@@Narokkurai With the difference that rage2 works as "intended"(gameplay is the only thing devs seems to be free to work on) and suicide squad is literally void of quality.

[@Mordalon]

I wonder if someone has a compilation of games whos advertising was tonally way off from the game. I feel like I've heard this happen multiple times, but I can't seem to remember specific titles.

[@douglasdriving6278]

Games that has good "game feel" but nothing else can make me hooked and get me wanting to come back and play more, but leaves me feeling empty afterwards and I usually regret playing them.

[@Whit3Wolff]

Game feel can add a lot to a game, but its to me only an addition, it needs to have something attached to it otherwise it'll just be another whatever game it is. Like is there a reason to start the game again?

[@Coypop]

I've rebuilt Rage 2 in my head a half dozen times while playing it, even only using the elements that are already in the game not blowing out the hypothetical budget, there's a real diamond in the rough there. It's the biggest love hate relationship I've had with a game in a long time.

[@trevorc4413]

You say the moment-to-moment gameplay feels good, but does it? Does the moment-to-moment gameplay of looting a place after you've cleared it feel good? Does the gameplay of traveling between points of interest feel good? Does talking to NPCs feel good? A different way of looking at it is that they polished the gunplay experience, but there's a lot of game here, and only a small part of it is gunplay, with the rest not feeling that great. This is as much a valid choice as polishing the NPC interaction and looting, while only having perfunctory gunplay and travel systems, but the lack of polish in core gameplay elements is something that should be called out, no matter which elements those are.

[@Robert399]

Sure, I suppose he meant the game feel of gunplay. You're right though that, even for the people saying, "ignore the plot, characters, setting, tone (if that's even possible...) and enjoy the gameplay" that gameplay is *everything* you do. If you spend 10% of the game with really satisfying combat and 90% mindlessly following map markers in a dull, repetitive landscape, then 90% of the gameplay was boring.

[@Worgen33]

I swear I'm one of the few people who liked the driving and enjoyed just driving around the world to see the sights.

[@jimmy21584]

The most memorable part of the game for me was hiking on foot through the jungle, and then discovering beautiful lookouts and ruined cities. A bushwalking simulator with a Mick Gordon soundtrack.

[@Excludos]

Gamefeel can by itself be enough for a game itself to be fun, but it's only 1 of several game mechanics that can make up a game. A game can be good with a good feeling game, as long as there is nothing else to it. Tetris is a fun game, and it has pretty good gamefeel, but lacks anything else. Rage 2 has good gamefeel, but also has a lot of other things which detracts from it. If those things has been tossed aside for a barebone arena shooter with nothing else to it, it would probably have been better. Less can be more, but if you're going for "more" then you better make sure all aspects works. Anything that doesn't will actively detract from the game. I've also played games with absolutely amazing stories that I would never recommend to anyone, because the gameplay itself was absolute poop. If the story had been a book or a visual novel, I'd be much more inclined to call it good. But the bits that didn't work (ie: Everything else) was so bad it detracted too much from what was good.

[@ANewPseudonym]

Excludos Maybe it’s a minor point, but I feel like you’re mixing up gamefeel and gameplay a little bit. Like, Tetris has more than gamefeel. There is a solid gameplay core, that tests your decision making under pressure, requires some strategy, and naturally creates cycles of buildup and release. Many versions of Tetris ALSO have good gamefeel - responsive controls, crunchy sound effects, visual feedback - and that bolsters gameplay that is already solid.

[@88Factor]

I do backup ANewPseudonym's point, but outside of that, I think your point stands. I've played games that should've been good, as they were fine as shooters, but their game feel wasn't quite there. Which suggests Gamefeel is something that is necessary, but insufficient.

[@Mordalon]

While I agree that terrible gameplay can doom a good story, personally I find myself more willing to stick with a game with mediocre gameplay if the story is compelling, while a game with good gameplay but a bland story will quickly lose me unless the gameplay has some long-term goal, like compelling mechanical progression.

[@spinningninja2]

This is a really good take. If you’re gonna prioritize an aspect of a project, make sure it’s not only the best part, but also the most _prominent_. Don’t drown it out with other crap you’re not putting as much time or effort into.

[@vincent78433]

@@Mordalon for me it's the totally opposite

[@Someursault]

I like that you're thinking about this stuff, but by the end of the video I'm feeling really confused about what falls under the "gamefeel" umbrella for you. It seems like you jump from the idea that "good gamefeel can make you happy" to "things that make you happy are manipulating you with dopamine" to "lootbox animations release your dopamine and are thus part of the gamefeel conversation." In my mind, at least, there's a clear difference between responsive and satisfying gameplay (moving Mario around in Super Mario 64; Rage 2's FPS mechanics) and a package of sounds and animations used as a reward (Mario's flourish when he gets a Star; lootbox opening). Sounds and animations might be a candy coating on the gameplay that makes it "feel" even better, but how Mario can move around obstacles creatively while retaining his momentum is the core of why SM64 feels good to play - it's still fun when you strip away the art and sound and any other source of emotional manipulation. As a silent game made of bare polygons, the physics are still a blast to mess around with. So it is strange for me to hear you decry "fun" as a fudge word and "gamefeel" as overrated. It's okay for us to think in different frameworks, but I hope there's room in yours for a consideration of "non-superficial gamefeel," or "why people still like to make Mario go fast even after you strip away all that tricky stimulating feedback."

[@GregoryStevens909]

I have to agree. Usually I enjoy Errant Signal's analysis but, to be a bit crude, I think he got a bit too far up his own ass in this one. Seeing fun gameplay and lootbox mechanics as the same thing because "dopamine" is reductive to the point of absurdity. Dismissing the quality of a game's actual gameplay as not actually important is as silly as saying that a car's ability to move is peripheral to the experience of driving.

[@svnhddbst8968]

the whole point is that gamefeel is complicated and subjective. "it's messy"

[@misterproject8]

Zimmerman says that Game Feel can be described by 3 things: Polish (visual effects), Real-Time Control (responsiveness) and Spatial Simulation. Lootboxes have polish, but don't have the other two ingredients. It's not exactly game feel, but it is, uh, adjacent to that.

[@Horatio787]

@@svnhddbst8968 The message I got was that he overall didn't like the game besides the combat, and then he tried to say if you liked a game for one thing but there were other things you didn't like then the game is still bad even if you thought you enjoyed it. I'm not trying to be an asshole but this one really felt like he was just trying to say you shouldn't like a game because reasons, and other than that the whole video was just a mish mash of unconnected points that felt like stream of consciousness pressed into an analysis that it didn't support.

[@Mordalon]

@@Horatio787 I don't think he's saying you shouldn't like those games, he's talking about critical analysis. We can enjoy bad movies while acknowledging they are bad. There are plenty popular games that are riddled with bugs or design mistakes that we still enjoy despite those (Dark Souls and Demons Souls come to mind). And on the flip side, just because a game is a 10/10 in every aspect doesn't mean you are obliged to enjoy it. The "goal" of this video isn't to say what people should enjoy (he makes it clear why people enjoying gamefeel is no accident) but that if you want to critically analyze something, don't prop up one element of it and sweep the rest under the rug. It just so happens gamefeel is something lots of critics do this for. I feel the importance of this is highlighted by the pointlessness of the open world, something lots of major releases have had. The AAA game industry at large believes More is More, when in reality Less can often be More. Instead of adding open worlds and unnecessary stats to pad out game time and have extra bullet points on the back of the box, figure out what makes the game fun and focus on that. The AAA games industry will keep loading games with this junk until people start calling them out on it, which doesn't happen often enough because people justify unnecessary open worlds with "the shooting was good so that makes the game good".

[@vin-cc9nk]

damn some days I feel like Bobby Tackle too...

[@CrabQueen]

To summarize: the game sux, but gun shoot good. But just because gun do a good shoot, doesnt mean the game is good.

[@Horatio787]

but whut if gun shoot good is good enuf and maeks game good?

[@Nixitur]

@@Horatio787 Then game should just be gun shoot, not rest of bad game.

[@gendalfgray7889]

read this if you want to save 20 minutes *WHY I DONT SEE THIS COMMENT ON TOP????*

[@superawesomecow42]

good shoot = game good what you want in a game heavily depends on the individual. sure, you can go on a grand intellectual dissemination like ol' boy Errant Signal of "what is good", but I don't care as long as I have fun in a game with fun shooting. fun isn't meaningless, fun is fun

[@Nixitur]

@@superawesomecow42 I see your point, but if you have to drudge through hours of dumb, unfun bullshit that isn't even engaging to get to the fun bits, then that's not great, is it?

[@MagentaMilk]

Haven't played Rage 2 nor read extensively on gamefeel, but isn't the real issue here a lack of cohesion? If the game was more focused, had better a better script, art direction, tone, etc. it would be a good game, right? Conversely, if it nailed the style/visuals/story/sound, but played terribly, it would likely receive a similarly mixed review, no? I think the importance of 'gamefeel' varies per title. Point & click adventures or visual novels can skate by with unwieldy controls by making the results of those clunky inputs still feel meaningful. But a game like Tetris can skimp on graphics since it feels intrinsically interesting to play; inputs happen fast and they gain ever escalating importance too. Thus, perhaps the amount and feel of the interaction between medium and player is not static, and should be judged on a case-by-case basis?

[@Robert399]

Yes of course *but* it's up to the developer to get that focus right; it's not on the player or the reviewer to focus on whatever the game happens to be good at. Chris loved DOOM 2016 and that works because the game keeps that satisfying gameplay in focus. Rage 2 doesn't. It's basically a Ubisoft-inspired, time-wasting, empty sandbox.

[@yeetleslaw8529]

The self criticism is very refresher. Too many reviewers/critics/person with a video editor and mic never reflect on past criticism. Like, their opinion doesn't change over time. Or failed to realized the game wasn't designed for them. I found myself struggling to describe "good feel" to others in RL. It is like abstract concept of "fun". I think game feel is a useful term for devs and end users. But for critics, idk... It's not very descriptive.

[@seano6859]

I actually had never heard the term “megatexture” until a few days ago when I was looking into Rage- there’s something I kind of like aesthetically about it. Reminds me of New Vegas

[@aidenp6001]

I think the game hit peak “doesn’t like humans” in its promotional song from e3, “get ready to die” by Andrew W K.

[@FrMZTsarmiral]

Good game feel makes a good game great. Good game feel makes a bad game tolerable. You have a game here that has enjoyable combat but wrapped around a mess of a package. Not only that but the combat is only a portion of how you're going to be interacting with this world so whenever you're not engaging in it you'll be back again in that half-baked world.

[@ArdorBlossomFindle]

I feel like you passed by the articles that made you think more critically about game feel real fast. Could you link to some of them in the description?

[@theDCification]

I second this, was trying to google, want to know more

[@ssatva]

The only name he mentions (at least running things back and slowing it down for a bit) was Liz Ryerson, who has clearly done and written about a lot, so my google search is... going to take some sifting through.

[@theDCification]

Wm Reeves that’s where I was at. Like, I’d love further reading, but could you maybe point me to a specific episode of her seeming multiple podcasts as a jumping off point?

[@superbun277]

A long time ago, Yahtzee came up with the concept of the "three C's" or "the three-legged stool of game design", those being: Challenge, Context and Catharsis (or "game feel", I guess). Every game will have different levels of importance for the three 'C's but you can't ignore the other two altogether, because a one-legged stool is kinda difficult to sit on.

[@bran_donk]

I agree "game feel" is a bit broad as a term. I am not sure I share your perspective about whether it should be valued or not based on a supposed tendency to mask faults. I think modern big-budget games have become much more than one type or instance of whatever game feel is. One might argue that Rage 2 has effective game feel in fps combat, but poor game feel in driving or narrative segments. It's difficult to value a game with such disparate parts. Game reviewers struggle with titles like Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem, Rage 2, etc. that have redeeming qualities, but many impediments. Even in broad terms, could game feel as a concept be better measured like how system performance benchmarks are measured? You may have high peaks of game feel, but also low valleys and inconsistency. And those highs might be impeded by the lows. Let's talk min, max, avg,median, standard deviation, and impedance of game feel in all its hand-wavy glory. :-)

[@bran_donk]

I should have led with this, but as always, excellent work on the video and in-depth analysis.

[@sharkofjoy]

The rage 2 trailer featuring live actors is one of my favorite, if not my favorite, promotions for a video game ever. It built a story about a world that had no rules with a dirty, wacky, sexual punk aesthetic that I really enjoyed. It's a deep shame that it doesn't feel like the game was built with that ideal in mind, that it doesn't really go all in on that wild humanity.

[@DaxterKing]

I enjoyed Rage 2 for the first 10 or so hours, albeit at the end I was looking up guides to see where the weapons I wanted were located because I already knew I would soon drop it. The game feel couldn't save it from every encounter design being an outpost from FarCry 3. I would recommend it on the cheap or as part of a subscription service for people since 10 hours of entertainment is still 10 hours of entertainment. Divorcing it from the launch $60 price tag definitely affects how I feel about rating the game. If price isn't an issue it becomes a question of how valuable is your time is, or if you feel a game needs to carry itself through the end and not just give you an amount of hours of entertainment.

[@Nipah.Auauau]

Bobby Tackle kinda reminds me of the on-rails animatronic rides in Disney World. You're meant to walk past the robot pretending its a real character but not to linger any more than that.

[@RaccoonGrrrl]

All this character names sound like they came from "Honest Game Trailer"

[@willhart2188]

You loathe "fun" as a description? I'd love to hear you talk more about this. Even though it is very subjective, I still think than "fun" is one of the most important things for a game to make an impression on me. Not comedic fun but, the type of fun that makes you feel that the author had fun making the game, and poured a lot of heart into making it.

[@RannekoPlays]

Fun is in itself not a very meaningful term and kind dead ends conversations as a result. It is much more valuable to talk about what makes the game fun than to say a game is fun.

[@Excludos]

Fun is a symptom of the mechanics that drive a game. Fun, itself, is not a mechanic. We also as individuals put very different emphasis on what constitutes as fun for us. Telling someone they should play a game "because it's fun" tells us exactly nothing.

[@Mclogenog]

Many good games are full of mechanics that, when taken individually, are not fun. Weapon degradation in Far Cry 2 and BotW is "Un-fun". In Left 4 Dead, the hard crowd-control abilities of the special infected are "un-fun" because they rob the player of agency and control. Almost all of the mechanics in mmo raids are "un-fun". But the way these mechanics work together creates something memorable, evocative, emotionally-rich, even as the moment-to-moment of play can be miserable or frustrating. "Fun" fails to describe the moment-to-moment; it's only useful as an after-the-fact shorthand for "yes, my time was well spent; I was satisfied."

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

What the others have said, plus: a game can be good -- interesting, moving, meaningful, engrossing, exciting -- while not being "fun" at all. It can leave you drained and exhausted and upset and still be an excellent game. Treating "fun" as a central measure of a game's quality makes it very difficult to talk about those sorts of games. We don't talk about other art forms this way, either -- a summer blockbuster is supposed to be "fun", sure, but no-one complains about a lack of "fun" in The Shining.

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

​@UCrhggw2oKffq5y2MGkT9q9Q You can probably finagle together a super-broad idiosyncratic definition of "fun" that covers a lot of media we wouldn't normally call "fun", sure. But you understand the problem, right? "Fun" implies a sort of pleasurable visceral thrill and excitement. Not all games can or should give you that. A game can be stressful and unpleasant to play, and leave you drained and upset, and still be a great piece of art.

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

I'm still bummed they just sort of gave up on megatextures after they couldn't get them working quite right for RAGE. That game's look still hasn't been matched for its thoroughly hand-painted feel, where you can discover unique visual details on every little crate and rock and pile of dirt. RAGE 2 looks far more repetitive and plain close-up. The technology wasn't the best choice for an FX-heavy shooter where you'd want fast movement, lots of dynamic lighting and destructible geometry. But it'd be wonderful for, say, an adventure game that asks you to pay close attention to the world.

[@MrSnaztastic]

Are you sure they gave up on it? DOOM was still frikkin gigantic in terms of disk space, would think that might be down to them still using megatextures. Pretty convinced it's still a part of ID Tech.

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

@@MrSnaztastic I don't know! If they're still using them, they've been wasting their artistic potential. DOOM's environments and vistas don't look nearly as hand-crafted as RAGE's. Lots of repeated textures and identical objects.

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

@@TheVisualNovel Weird! I wonder if they had to compromise it somehow to get dynamic lighting to work. Maybe they could only have one material type per surface or something?

[@DirtyMike124x]

This is the first video I’ve seen from you, and it was very well stated and thorough! You went well and beyond easy, opinion based descriptors, and gave way more usefully detailed analysis and objective metrics than I expected. It was professional, to the point, and well structured. I enjoy dunkey and nakey jakey style videos just as much as the next gamer girl, but what you’ve got going here is something worth coming back for. Thank you kind sir!

[@friendlytalbot4050]

Haha, that ending. Slaghead getting up to give you a kiss!

[@temporalwolf7054]

I think the most recent example I can think of, where every aspect of a game worked toward its overall gamefeel is Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. The scenery is gorgeous and gothic, enemy design is varied and satisfying to fight, the music is downright legendary, but what surprised me the most was the presentation of the story. The story is... very pulpy, and very clearly a Castlevania in all but name. The broad strokes are just, a demonic castle is killing people, go stop it. But the way the game plays with it is just so *fun*. There's a lot of detail in the characters that have their own implications into the mindsets of the survivors of Arvantville. From Lindsay's anger issues being rightfully justified in near blinding yet impotent rage as she saw everyone around her die, to Suzie's despair at the demonic invasion that causes her to latch on to memories of good food to get her through the day, both imply something deeper. That Lindsay was a really interconnected person, and that Suzie probably has amazing stories of how she got her hands on on tonkatsu ramen in England during the industrial revolution. But more than anything, Miriam herself is such a fleshed out character, and it's all done through very little dialogue compared to other contemporary games with more of a narrative focus. Just from how she interacts with the guy who keeps getting lost in the demon castle, or how she and Johannes use alchemy to cook, to the dedicated button that only makes Miriam do Jojo poses, paints a very interesting picture of Miriam being at once a very typical fantasy heroine that quite literally dives into hell, but also a person who likes to cook, hear stories, and take care of others, and even when there are twists that are telegraphed a mile away if you have even a tiny bit of genre awareness, it does it all with a sincerity and earnestness that is truly endearing. If anything I feel like Bloodstained's good game feel is more a testament to the passion going into the game and the general air of fun the developers seemed to have making it.

[@tomservo110]

My favorite games have good mouthfeel. Love your work as always, Campster.

[@Hozak]

When I played Rage 2 the cutscenes were so terrible I thought I might have accidentally activated some weird, quirky anti piracy feature that replaced everything with terrible dialogue.

[@0RecklessAbandon0]

Some of the names remind me of MST3K's Space Mutiny episode. Dirk Slabchest, Bruise Armbar, Touch Rustrod.

[@ieatatsonic]

They're like Kojima names.

[@Saxony]

Big McLargeHuge

[@asiamatron]

The names remind me of an old videogame called Champion Wrestler. Champion Wrestler also had characters with funny names like Nitro Panks, Miracle Rastan, Cobra Bloody Joe and Jimmy Carbon.

[@Nixitur]

Hot Coldman

[@asiamatron]

Decoy Octopus, Greg Nightmare.

[@DavetheTurnip]

It took you a while to get there, but I appreciated your point.

[@hemangchauhan2864]

Game's regional pricing steered clear away from me. The game initally was priced more than USD value in India, where $60 games are priced around $21 in local conversion (because purchasing power parity), and after a lot of shouting they revert it back to around $57, which is still bad for us. Very tired of publishers manipulating regional prices like this.

[@merlindekoe]

Hmmm i think this really puts forward the question of. "What do you want out of your game?" To me it feels like good game feel is like good action in a movie. They don't guarantee that the whole work is good, but they make it a lot easier and enjoyable to consume. And sometimes people just play a game for it's good game feel, just like how people sometimes just go to a movie for it's good action. (Think like michael bay stuff/ fast and furious. Movies that are generally regarded to have poor plot but are carried into populairity by their action scenes.)

[@gobblegobble7]

This is ResetEra in video form

[@EmethMatthew]

Very insightful examination

[@timothymclean]

8:55: Oh, Chainsaw Heart? Yeah, his anime dropped last season. It was pretty awesome. (RAGE 2 was released a bit over five months after the first chapter of _Chainsaw Man,_ meaning that a direct inspiration-while not strictly impossible-is very unlikely. It's a fun coincidence, though!)

[@diodamke1007]

I mean I'd be inclined to agree that we shouldn't overvalue the way a game feels to play, if what's meant by that is what the game's kinaesthetics are like, but half of what you described didn't sound like "game feel" at all, it sounded like game design. I mean the stuff about crowd control and having to prioritise knocking down armoured enemies until you can really damage them while shooting squishier targets, or whatever the specifics were - if that's what you liked about the game then that isn't the game simply feeling good to play on some mere aesthetic level, that's just being a well-designed game, having well-thought out gameplay. It's completely different from the game having satisfying gory headshots or big numbers popping up when you damage enemies. It's more like the game having a set of good rules.

[@DKUmaro]

I feel like (no pun intendend), something like that was the case for most of the games that were played in coop. Majority of the game's aspects or shortcomings get overlooked easily by having fun with a friend. Good Gamefeel and psychological tricks are just the singleplayer's equivalent to that. No need to have a friend anymore to overlook bad areas of a game.

[@GoneZombie]

I do feel like your point about the hollowness of 'game feel' is accurately captured by the term itself, though; at least insofar as it recalls the sister-term 'mouth feel.' A Snickers bar has great mouth feel, but that doesn't make it 'good food.'

[@peterkerj7357]

Food is a utilitarian. What's the utility of a game?

[@II00I00]

I had a very similar reaction to Rage 2. despite thoroughly lackluster story and world, I completed the game solely on the strength of combat gameplay. discovering arks was the only thing that made me engage with the open world enthusiastically, hunting down those prismatic pillars that signified 1) there's a new toy there, 2) likely guarded by a nice pack of enemies to dispatch

[@MoolbniBrie]

Wow this hit me right in the feels.

[@Bluelink13]

I really enjoyed this video because, honestly, I needed to hear this. 6 months later, I still am processing my feelings on Kingdom Hearts 3, because honestly, there is a lot I really, REALLY dislike about the game, yet I can't bring myself to say it was bad, and this really hit the nail on the head. Because yes, the game managed to make my brain squeeze some dopamine via some fun, flashy combat and pretty graphics and that does tend to overwrite the parts of my feelings that are driven by less powerful motivators that were bothered by stuff like narrative, and characterization. So I hope I can actually use this (And maybe another playthrough) to actually finally nail down what I think of it.

[@JanTuts]

8:44 "Dag Satan" means "Hello Satan" in Dutch...

[@SEGAClownboss]

Great video Errant

[@LashknifeTalon]

I would watch an entire video that was just a supercut of Errant Signal reading the names of NPCs in Rage 2.

[@Crispman_777]

This is basically how I would describe Destiny. All Gamefeel but no game.

[@JeremyComans]

That's similar to something I said to a friend about the base Destiny 2 game (I think it got much better as it expanded). He said it had great combat. I said it had great gamefeel, but only okay combat. Movement, firing weapons, hitting a target; these things all feel great in terms of sound, animation and feedback. Very satisfying. But enemies themselves are generally uninteresting tactically, play out in fairly similar fashion, and combat arenas don't often take advantage of all the games mechanics.

[@Crispman_777]

@@JeremyComans Yes exactly, even things that are supposed to add depth like energy types just don't matter if your gun is powerful enough.

[@JarLoz]

Great video, as always!

[@tattoo6862]

Almost bought, glad seeing this video before making my purchase

[@outside_voice]

The “Let’s Talk About Rage 2” title card and the music that accompanies is so gorgeously flippant.

[@MoogleBread]

I've spent 1500 hours into Destiny and Destiny 2 purely because the game feel and shootbang felt so good. But in no way will I defend the earlier years of those games and will admit that they were bad games before they improved.

[@xBINARYGODx]

except, of course, they are still bad - or perhaps, flip flop between acceptable and bad.

[@ask5118]

Great video Campster

[@lukasfletcher4732]

I’ve always thought of game feel as being the feeling of the game play mechanics being used, without the feedback (animations, particle effects, sounds effects and what not). In development it’s easy to distinguish the two but while playing they can’t really be separated since they’re so tightly connected. Hearing you use game feel in a broader sense, than my own, made me realize that.

[@PooShPoP]

I would argue that good "game feel" does make it a good game. If something grabs your attention long enough that you keep coming back to it, that means it did its job as a game. Of course depending on what a "game" should be to you. for example call of duty multiplayer since that is what most people play isn't necessarily a good game but it has excellent game feel which is why people keep playing it. There are plenty of multiplayer shooters out there so why does it remain at the top? I would argue simplicity for one... and GAME FEEL! I do think it makes it a good or even decent game but I think that is what separates good/okay games from the great ones!

[@Mordalon]

I think a summary of this is that we need to look at games more holistically. While there is an audience that doesn't care about the non-game feel stuff and, like you did, enjoy the game despite those things, giving an overall analysis of a game can't be that simple. The things you describe as being bad are bad because they don't serve the overall package, where as individually those elements could work in other games. This comes up a lot with games that have unnecessary stats or resource management, or in this case open worlds that they do nothing of value with beyond padding out the game. Mark Rosewater, the head designer of Magic the Gathering, did a GDC talk a few years ago called "20 years 20 lessons", and despite it being about his lessons designing a card game, he has many insights that apply to many games, and are useful to those wanting to critique games.

[@Corsair114]

Handy summary of the co-op experience in Ghost Recon: Wildlands.

[@starkravingmad31]

Thank you for summing up my opinion on this game in a way that even my own brain wasn't able to. I pretty much loathed most everything ABOUT Rage 2, but I could play that meaty weapons n' powers FPS combat loop forever. Just so viscerally satisfying, each and every time.

[@Rainbowhawk1993]

This game is worth it for the gunplay alone!

[@chancelytle3142]

You mentioned Liz Ryerson's writing on game feel in your intro. Do you have a link to that? I can't seem to find anything relevant

[@Nors2Ka]

Rage 2 makes you FEEL like game.

[@nimbulan2020]

It's funny I'm quite the opposite - I don't think we place nearly enough value on gameplay feel when evaluating games. Most people tend to ignore it entirely and we end up in situations where very popular games like Path of Exile (in a genre where game feel is EXTREMELY important) have terrible game feel for years and years before the developers finally announce they're fixing it. It does bring up another important point though that the genre of a game has a strong impact on how important different aspects of the design are. Game feel is certainly much more important in an FPS or a dungeon crawler than it is in an RPG, for instance. But that's not to say that other aspects should be neglected, as we see here in RAGE 2.

[@xBINARYGODx]

I dont know who this "we" is - but far too often in comments and via the press and youtubers, the game feeling good play is held up as a shield against other criticism, or as something that makes the other failures somewhat less important.

[@siddsen95]

Maybe Bobby Tackle is the symbolic homonculus of the players own self realisation that they live in a post apocalypse where the drive to aggressively pursue the next reward trumps all issues of human connection and identity. All they can do thence is be disgusted perpetually but unable to stop smoking the moist lit cigarette of good game feel.

[@adams3627]

The phrasing "a game has a responsibility to it's characters, it's story, and it's world" only makes sense if the game actually has effort put into it's characters, it's story, and it's world. Which Rage 2 really didn't.

[@NicolasAlexanderOtto]

Somehow you always put into words very eloquently what I personally felt when playing a certain game. Also back at uni we had a term for what you generally describe as game feel: “virtual haptics“. I agree however that while it makes up most of the gameplay loop in Rage it also wasnt enough to make up for the tonal issues and hollow characters and world. I wonder why they didnt put more effort into molding everything together with a more convincing approach to worldcrafting. Even the first iteration was better in that regard, altough it was over just when thing started to becone interesting.

[@lv26Phoenix]

Chainsaw Heart would make a good band name.

[@SpoopySquid]

Okay, you talked about the game feel... but what about the mouth feel?

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

1:20 - You taught that guy sweeping the floor a lesson.

[@toboldlysplitinfinitives6518]

Now, I freaking love game feel - I am literally writing my thesis about it - so I might be slightly biased. But! To me, the argument you're making here seems similar to the notion that just because music sounds good and makes you bop your head to it, it doesn't mean that the music is well made. However, that has a slightly "snobby" aftertaste to it. It seems to suggest that games have to have some deeper academic purpose to be good. While it's true that the catchiest earworm of the summer rarely displays the most technical mastery of music-production or instrument-playing there is still some quality to it. Making something that sounds good or feels good to play is also a skill, and that should be recognized. Even if a game *just* feels good to play and the rest is shit, for a lot of people (yourself included, apparently!), that is enough. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!

[@minsklit5811]

But he isn't saying that it's bad. He's saying that it shouldn't be one of the first metrics he use to judge a game as a critic. And he's right, and he explains very well why. It's cool when technique is used to astonish, but no art piece is ever good just because of a good technique, it's good because of what it accomplishes beyond a good grasp on mere technique

[@toboldlysplitinfinitives6518]

@@minsklit5811 I guess my problem is that game feel is categorized as "technique" and not as part of the art. I think game feel can be quite an art in itself. It says something about the world, the characters and can even communicate deeper meaning like the controls in "Brothers: a tale of two sons".

[@KiraSlith]

Well yeah, when you frame any criticism in terms of music it sounds bad to simple monkey brains because "Muzek critizizm iz elitizt!" Or at least that's what KZbin's comments have "taught" me.

[@kabeltelevizio]

These are my thoughts exactly. I understand his point about the deeper meaning of the narrative, but chess has no deeper meaning, and people consider that a good game too, don't they?

[@hb-robo]

@@toboldlysplitinfinitives6518 I mean, is it not technique? To your musical analogy, gamefeel is a lot like mixing or audio engineering - making the individual parts of the game come together with more clarity, a stronger purpose, to feel punchier and more residual and less like strata lying atop one another. There is an art to it of course, but the art comes from mastery like all "technique."

[@thesii213]

Did you play Hyperlight Drifter? I'd be curious as to your thoughts there in terms of aesthetics and game feel. It's the closest thing to a perfect game I've played in years. I'd also love to hear a list of your favorite games in recent memory.

[@guyincognito7188]

21:11 which fire emblem is this from? cos I don't remember a screen like this in Blazing Sword

[@eldiran]

From your description of why you kept playing, it sounds like it was because you enjoyed the game's strategy and mechanics. I wouldn't call that an aspect of game feel.

[@iroveashe]

It's not the mechanics, it's how they are executed. The mechanic can be "kill goon get heal" with a variety of animations, effects, sounds. All that happens visually and aurally is what gamefeel is.

[@lukericker8325]

Eldiran What the hell even is “gamefeel” then. Pretty sure it must have aspects of basically anything.

[@texasranger9599]

It just wanted it's own Sander Cohen scene and over shot.

[@joearnold6881]

This video was fun.

[@Jwozzbot]

I'm desperate for the sauce on that jingle during the "Let's talk" title card at 3:59 mins.

[@SASardonic]

A game that comes to mind in watching this video is Bulletstorm. No other fps game has had that same gamefeel to me, and yet the setting/characters/plot all really came together in a satisfying way too.

[@Thebaildude]

Bulletstorm is far superior to Rage 1 and 2 in every way. That game knew what it wanted to be and did it well, and it's story was pretty good too as far as FPS single player stories go.

[@thebigbrzezinski3201]

I have a similar suspicion of the perception of fun. World of Warcraft unwittingly trained me to be very observant to my own reactions to game elements. If a given activity in a game is enjoyable in itself, I consider that activity fun. Context and extrinsic rewards can be multiplied by an activity to adjust its fun, but not added to it. So while I could happily spend a whole weekend slamming out 5-man dungeons with randos, no amount of rewards was ever going to make daily solo quests anything but busy work. I've never heard of a debate over game feel. Games are venues for play. Play is the practice of a skill without the context of real life application. It's how this planet's neurologically complex organisms learn to do things like socialize, stalk prey, and attract mates. And since evolution has left an enormous amount of cruft in the human genome, there's a lot of idle bits of brainware sitting around waiting for the right game to come around. For instance, our brains recognize the effect of a hefty branch or sharp rock on skull, so weapons in a game that emulate these effects are satisfying to use (it's also why bullet sponges are so jarring). Instinctual knowledge is similarly exploited for games about everything from social interaction to space management to stealth. If a game feels really good to a wide audience, it's probably because it's tapping into instincts our hunter-gather ancestors depended on.

[@hippolyte5248]

Thanks to the architect of games for making me discover this channel!

[@Tyrus-jq8qk]

I remember I was talking to some friends about wanting to play rage 2 a few years back, on the same day it went free on epic. I completed the game 100% and had the same grievances. I think the game is absolutely terrible, and yet I decided to play it through again for a new game plus run, seeing if ignoring everything I didn't want to do would make the experience better. It didn't.

[@Jekyllstein_Gray]

I've honestly never been particularly affected by "Game Feel." It's not something I really care about, so I really like this video.

[@randommcranderson5155]

At 4 minutes in we are invited to join him on the beginning of the video thesis lol.

[@Jorlu934]

Great video! I still feel like your not talking exclusively about game feel though, seems to me that the bits you enjoyed in Rage 2 have more to do with its combat design than game feel. You don't talk only about shooting animations, sounds and vfx, it's more about how those details enhance an already enjoyable combat with expresivity and creative weapons.

[@_gamma.]

This was a good video and a great insight into something I hadn't thought about. Thank you for making it

[@WordsOfFarewell]

I have an intriguing question for everyone; maybe it can be the basis for a future video even. "Why is it that in recent years different facets of games like Rage 2, Wolfenstein: Young Blood, Fallout 76, Mass Effect Andromeda, Destiny or Anthem have been diverging further and further, with game play becoming more enthralling (shooting mechanics, sound, graphics, visual design) while the structural basis and narrative have become worse"? To put it into context, I always wonder why it seems so hard for AAA developers to get decent story lines, convincing characters and overall atmosphere to hold together their mechanics and design in order to create a coherent gaming experience. I feel like this is more common with A or even Indie titles then it seems to be with major releases over the last few years - with some exceptions like Wolfenstein New Order maybe. Or am I the only one who sees this as a recurring theme?

[@SzymonAdamus]

A very good critical look at this game and current trends. During the game I felt exactly like you. Shooting gave me a rush, but between him I felt a growing feeling of depression. The further I was, the more I searched for these individual, momentary elements that gave immediate pleasure, and the less I focused on everything else. In my opinion it would be good in two cases. 1. If the creators went all out with madness and such controlled chaos as in shooting, they also introduced in a narrative and visual aspect. If it was the game's equivalent of the movie "Crank", it would be a whole interesting. Consistent. 2. Or if there was any intelligent commentary, why there is such a climate duality here. If the game tried to say something wise about our addiction to fast dopamine. Unfortunately, it is not as crazy as the promotional campaign suggests or is not intelligent at all.

[@needycatproductions6830]

"Just Tony". Guess at what point they ran out of crazy names.

[@tsartomato]

youtube algorithms pick up on blips even more happily

[@TonkarzOfSolSystem]

As a counterpoint surely a game developers primary responsibly is to justify the player's dollar, not necessarily to theme, character or anything else.

[@AssasinZorro]

It's useful to see the analysis of a game that has good game feel but isn't a good game, because otherwise, it all melds together and it's hard to tell what is a part of "game feel" and what isn't. Max Payne 3 for me is another game with great game feel and tons of questionable design decisions, but when describing it I always tried to be precise about what was exactly so excellent in the game.

[@2Fiddle4U]

Interestingly enough, Peggle and it's gameplay loop of hitting that game feel was cited by Bethesda's Todd Howard as what he looks for in games. Might explain the changes made to Skyrim, from everything to character progression to combat to radiant quest generation, always giving you an excuse to go out and always getting a level up in something.

[@Mordalon]

Didn't they add in slow-motion kill shots with bows at some point? That feels a lot like the Peggle example.

[@hummens44]

It's a conflicting game but overall, it's one I enjoyed, but I absolutely agree the narrative could be improved and tightened so much.