The first-person shooter, as a genre, owes a lot to Id.  Id helped to entrench it and get it on the map.  Well, at the top of their game, Id releases Quake III Arena, which was expected to be THE top game in the area of tournament FPS shooting.  It was going to define it and be the top dog.  Well, then out of nowhere Epic release Unreal Tournament, and I believe it took the FPS genre.  The mod community really went for it, and it became benchmark for the arena FPS.  Epic did multiple new versions and Id was left in the dust.

I think think back to Rage.  Rage was THE talk and a big deal regarding graphics.  It was expected to be a big deal.  Heck, even I ended up expecting it to be big.  How could it not be big?  It has such awesome graphics.  Id was pushing it and they know FPS.  Well, then Borderlands comes out and takes people off guard.  Borderlands has become one of the major titles, and became a sleeper hit.  Borderlands 2 is now seen as a AAA title, expecting to do real well.  And where is Id with Rage?  Rage is now in the $20 budget bin section.  It didn't go blockbuster.  I do consider both games similar in nature, with Borderlands arguably more RPG.  But both games involve a Madmax world where you do missions and get loot.  Of course there is also Fallout 3 in the mix, which can be argued to fit into this discussion also, and maybe can be argued to be such.  But I would place that as more in line with RPG players, with some crossover, less than Borderlands.

Anyhow, what are your thoughts on this?  For me, I see there be somewhat of a repeating of what happened with Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament with Borderlands and Rage.

Borderlands does so many things right especially when played with a friend that shares the loot. It has just about the best coop, humor, guns and just good times. It does a lot right from the vehicles to the variety in fools to kill. Rage does only two things right when it tries to do many things. The shooting aspect, which ID is known for, and the graphics. Everything else in the game is pretty terrible from the the story, characters, rpg elements, psuedo-open world, and length. It has fun parts at the indoor shooting parts, but otherwise it is a poor game. A shame, but ID just showed they just need to stick to a straight shooter or hire people that have more experience with all the other elements. Rage had potential, but it failed. Borderlands really does everything right and got good sales because of it. The sequel should be good if the manage to change enough.

I think rage was just an awful game.

Borderlands was great, and did great. (Though it wasn't what was advertised sadly.)

Though without it, I still think Rage crashes and burns.

I am playing Rage now and find it decent.  Experiencing Borderlands though, it is way short.  I would say that Borderlands and Fallout 3 really make Rage fell like it isn't what it could be.

And on that note, I could say the same is true about Quake III Arena.  It is an ok game in its own right, but compared to Unreal Tournament, it just falls short.  In comparison both if IDs offerings fell short to rivals.

What was Borderlands advertised to be? i understood it to be an RPG-FPS hybrid with LOTS of guns.  And that is what it was/is.  Maybe people were upset with the Vault.

Largely the LOTS of guns part.  In the previews and interviews they way oversold how much the random loot would change the guns.  In general they made it feel like every gun would feel different.Like having a sniper rifle with revolver bullets would be totally different then a regular sniper rifle, guns that teleporteted explosives insde their victims etc. 

It made it sound like there was going to be all kinds of crazy different types of guns out there.

Really though, they are all the same.  Outside the Rocket Shotguns/ Shotgun Pistols and a few 1-off quest guns (TK's Wave/ Elephant Gun)

Heck, even the elemental guns are all exactly the same except their post effect.

The "Tons of guns" before it released made it sound like there would be dozens of types of guns.  You might end up with a sniper rifle that shoots like a shotgun that shoots napalm!

etc.

When people saw Rage they just wanted it to be another Borderlands. When it turned out it wasn't, people lost interest. Id's name just doesn't command respect as it used to.

I didn't like Borderlands too much, but it is very well designed for co-op. Rage was not what it was meant to be. Horrible textures, no story, limited weapons and upgrades, repetitive enemies, small game world, bad racing.

Borderland was so much fun, that game and Valkire chronicels stole one of my summer holidays. But I was shocked as well on how Rage turned out. It was hupe to be the next big thing, it even had "from the creaters of doom" on the front cover and it was a really bad cover.


BTW you can find the game New for less the $20

Once I ignore Borderlands' story and it's over the top claims, it's actually an excellent game.