Back to San Andreas… or at least Los Santos!

[Via Rockstar Games]

Whereas Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas reflected the “death” of the 1960s American counter-cultural revolution, Rum Diary is set during an earlier stage of that movement. So it’s all the more fitting that there’s more of an actual purpose behind Depp’s shenanigans in this film – as opposed to just the kooky meaninglessness of his deeds in Fear and Loathing.

[Via Screen Rant]

Rage combines three types of game-play styles: open world, corridor shooter and combat racing. If you play shooters to blow stuff up and watch gibs fly in all directions, then this is your type of game. Or, if you prefer driving/racing simulators then this is also your type of game. My point is that Rage does both equally well. Built on the id Tech 5 engine, distinctive environments from mission to mission help to combine these game-play styles into an immersive, post-apocalyptic world. Each type of enemy encounter is original and unique. The AI is life-like and each weapon has a different feel. In the beginning you can choose your character specialization. There is also an item crafting aspect and if you choose an engineer character type then you can also learn new recipes.

First impressions when entering the world of Rage are very positive. The amount of detail that went into the scenery and textures is impressive. As a gamer, I’ve never seen rocks and canyons portrayed with the level of realism that Rage brings to the table. When you first start looking around at the finer details of the world one can only wonder how many hours they took making every object look gorgeous. And by gorgeous I mean completely trashed, dirty and broken looking. The character models are another high point of Rage. Each character is uniquely detailed with trinkets, tattoos and clothing that give them an original personae. The voice acting and mission briefings are clear and concise as to give the player a direction in the game. The key is talking to everybody. Side quests often open up new possibilities in the game and although Rage is a first-person shooter, the role playing elements add to the charm of this game.

The vehicle combat reminds me of playing Interstate ’76 or Twisted Metal. Albeit a completely refined and beautifully rendered version. There are many different types of races: Time Trial, Non-Combat Race, Rocket Rally, Pulse Rally and Rocket Race.

If you come into this game looking for a thrilling story, Rage will not deliver. With all the role playing elements built into Rage it is a serious letdown that more effort was not taken to create more depth and perspective. However if you’re looking for a gritty, no holds barred first person shooter then Rage will not disappoint. Action movie fans and exploding gib junkies will definitely get there fill from this game.

With that all being said, your hardware configuration will make or break your gaming experience. With some users stating that Rage is unplayable others like myself had almost no problems.

The road-blocks first appear in the game when textures start getting glitchy (texture tearing and overlay flicker). This isn’t constant throughout the game, but it is a big enough problem that it diminishes the playability. How did something like this make it past beta testing? It’s obvious to me that PC gamers were shanked in this regard. The mouse tracking and movement aren’t affected on my machine, but it still causes head-aches. Other hardware configuration weren’t as lucky. (1, 2) Looking at the problem from a developers perspective, when they design a game for the PlayStation 3 or X-Box 360 there are only a limited amount of hardware configuration that the game must run on. PC’s are all about customization and upgrades. There are many more potential hardware issues. That being said, PC users across the internet have been voicing their rage that id would release such a flawed game. The common sentiment is that developers need to stop porting versions of the game and actually develop optimized versions for each of the platforms.

Fortunately there is a fix. For AMD/Ati users a patch is available. Bethesda posted on their twitter account, “If you have an AMD/ATI graphics card, the new RAGE Catalyst drivers are out! BE SURE to grab them immediately.”

Unfortunately NVIDIA users will still have to wait a bit.

Bethesda forums also have a workaround that may fix these problems. Forcing v-sync on in the NVIDIA control panel did the trick for me.

Conclusions: If you like corridor shooters, fast paced action and combat racing then Rage will not disappoint.

Rating: 8.5/10

Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz let loose a juicy bit of information today: The series will be returning for one more season, with a limited number of new episodes, to air before the forthcoming movie. The announcement was made at “A Bluth Family Reunion”, an Arrested Development panel being held at The New Yorker Film Festival in Manhattan. Arrested Development veterans Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, David Cross, Portia de Rossi, Tony Hale, Alia Shawkat, Jeffrey Tambor, and Jessica Walter are all in attendance with Hurwitz, speaking about the series and the movie that’s been in the works for some time.

[Via reddit and Screen Rant]

Glyn Moody points us to a frightening analysis of a proposed copyright law in Italy that seems positively ridiculous, in that you could lose access to the internet based on a single accusation (which doesn’t even have to come from the copyright holder):

1) citizens, outside of any judicial proceeding and without the right to appeal to the judicial authority, may be banned to access the Internet if ANYONE (a rightholder or an ordinary citizen) notifies a provider about alleged infringement of copyright or trademark or patent (“one strike” disconnections);

2) Internet service providers must comply to the blacklisting of citizens who are *suspected* of copyright or trademark or patent infringements (“proscription lists” to ban citizens from any access to the Net);

3) an Internet service provider must use preventive filters against services that infringe copyright, trademark or patents;

4) an Internet service provider must not promote or advertise, and must use preventive filters against, services that do not directly violate copyright, trademark or patents, but that *may* lead citizens to *think* that infringing services exist;

5) a provider or a hosting provider which does not use effective filters will be charged with civil liability.

The post notes that this law would be compliant with an early version of ACTA, and suggests that this was done on purpose. However, the report also notes that this proposed law would clearly not be compatible with current EU law. Either way, that’s quite a wish list from the entertainment industry.

[Via techdirt via reddit]

A video press release from the hacker group claims it will launch an all-out assault that will bring down the social network. Anonymous has singled out Facebook for its shady privacy settings and its policy that makes it difficult for users to delete their account.

[Via games blog and Gizmodo]

The coastal and Mid-Atlantic states had the fastest and most reliable Internet (with Rhode Island scoring highest) while the Mountain states and Midwest did the worst.

It also reinforces what we already know about the digital divide: wealthier communities have better Internet service, while poorer communities tend to have worse. Pocatello, Idaho, um, poked along at a mere 251KBps, while tony Andover, Mass., was zipping at 2,801KBps.

[Via Gizmodo]