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Preview of id Software's Rage
id Software's upcoming shooter Rage is nearing its Oct. 4 release, and the company recently provided some hands-on time with the game in its current state. GiantBomb described it thus: "In those three hours, I discovered a first-person shooter. Also, a racing game. And a car combat game. And an open-world adventure. A collectible card came, too. Lastly, it's practically every piece of apocalyptic science fiction we have known to date tossed into a blender, set to puree, poured onto a disc, and spread evenly over a seemingly lengthy and elaborate single-player adventure. In short, Rage is a kitchen sink kind of game, the kind so often labeled as 'missed potential' due to a lack of focus on any one particular aspect. I don't think Rage will garner any such labels." Rock, Paper, Shotgun's write-up is a bit more poetic, providing a first-person preview of the first-person shooter.
Really? That's like complaining that horror movies take place mostly at night, or cartoons aimed at young girls are mostly pink.
Even since the original Quake, I never understood the concern - those who were playing it at the time never complained about the palette until much later, if at all - and still don't know. It's a post-apocalyptic, dust-track racer. What colour did you *EXPECT* to see? Even if you had the ruins of something-or-other-colourful, it would be dust-covered and aged by the time the game is set.
If the biggest complaint you have is a steampunk colour scheme (because that's exactly what it is), then I really pity you for not seeing through atmospheric environments like that.
What, exactly, would you suggest you see in a post-apocalyptic world that would be colourful? Who's got time to paint the fence-posts when you're being shot at and chasing food / energy and NOBODY is making paint?
Maybe I should re-word my complaint that FPSs tend to take place where the brown-grey-beige color scheme is prevalent. I realize that Portal isn't technically an FPS, but in Portal 2 you have (at least) two separate aesthetics. For an exceptional example of creative environment design, check out the trailers/videos for BioShock Infinite.
The brown-grey palette just gets boring after a while. You'd think that it would *especially* get boring for the developers, who sometimes have to spend years in that environment. This is a game in which you can strap a bomb on an RC car, throw a boomerang-like weapon, or upgrade your weapons in countless ways. It's not like they lack creativity. And yet so far the only environments within the game (that I've seen, anyway) are the same dust-dirt-rust that's typical of the genre.
Even if it's post-apocalyptic, you could find excuses that some structures survived. Possibly underground. I'm not looking for a rainforest, but there's no reason for all the indoor environments to look the same.
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
The "Mostly brown and grey" argument always bothered me, so I'd like you to run a one man experiment for me. Stop reading and look around you. Count the instances of grey, and browns around you. When you get back compare with my results.
I sit at a wood desk (brown) with a hutch that has grey tack board. The walls are beige (grey and brown mixed), the carpet here is brown and beige patterned. There is wood coloured (brown) trim on the walls. My keyboard and monitor are black, so there's a difference, but not towards the direction of adding colour.
Now I want you to compare your results, and imagine how a developer at ID software, perpetually locked in their cubicle, would do. Think on that.
Now consider: Id is based in Mesquite, Texas. I'm not familiar with Mesquite personally, but the last time I drove through Texas even the grass was brown. When the creative talent at Id are allowed to leave their brown and grey boxes, they walk outside to a world where grass is also brown and the concrete is grey. It being Texas I'm sure that there is a high probability for guns and ammo crates to be found littered around the landscape.
You see it's not that they lack the creative talent to do colour. It's that after years of being locked in a brown and grey cube, with only brief access to a brown and grey world outside, it's the only two colours they can comprehend. It's a disability, and making fun of them for it is intolerance.
You intolerant jerk.
Why is it that videogames always seem to presume that a post-apocalyptic future will have no green? You know, even in the worst case scenario (and all-out nuclear war) there would still be plenty of plant life (unless you live in the desert or something). Hell, look at Chernobyl. That place got dumped with fallout and there is still a lovely forest there. Is it because everyone has seen Mad Max 2 and assumes that the Australian outback is what a post-apocalyptic future is SUPPOSED to look like?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.