RAGE

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The various Bandit Factions in RAGE are very artistically inclined for a collection of murdering rapists. The entire wasteland is filled with scrap sculptures, wall paintings and all kinds of pre-war nicknacks re-purposed into installation art. It’s kind of like a post-apocalyptic Burning Man festival only slightly more pleasant, as you’re surrounded by flesh eating mutants instead of preposterous wankers.

Some of you are probably disappointed (more so than usual) by the lack of well … rage in today’s strip. I’m actually thoroughly enjoying the game, despite its issues, but I know some of you just can’t start your day without a bit of a froth, so here we go. RAGE’s PC release has been a complete mess. Even ignoring the straight up crashes and lack of any meaningful configuration options at launch, the tech the game runs on just seems fundamentally flawed. The “Mega Texture” system, which uses one giant texture for the maps instead of lots of itty-bitty ones, sounded great when explained in John Carmack’s dulcet tones, but in practice it’s causing horrible texture pop-in, and the heavy compression required to keep the texture file size manageable means indoor scenes look like Onion Appreciation Day on planet Teargas. The tech has introduced more problems than it’s fixed – I mean, were we really that bothered by repeated textures in the first place? The time, money and effort could have been better spent elsewhere. Like on the script, for example.