Concept artist Brian Hagan has worked for clients like MMO giant NCSoft, Microsoft, Lucasarts and id Software. Which means he's worked on properties like Star Wars and RAGE.

So let's take a look!

The Star Wars game is actually Star Wars Kinect, which looks stupid in motion, but in terms of art, Brian's done wonders with what little he had to work with. The RAGE stuff is pretty great too.

You can see more of his work at his personal site.

An "undisclosed number" of staff at Doom and RAGE developers id Software have been let go. [Gamasutra]

Rage, id Software's beloved and detested blending of post-apocalyptic combat racing and first-person shooter, finally has a demo.

"The demo presents a slice of the early game, giving players a chance to explore the town of Wellspring and participate in races, games and other attractions. When you've had your fill there, you can head out to deal with some Ghost Clan raiders. Shooting might be involved."

For those of you who haven't picked up the game yet the demo is available now on Xbox Live and will hit the PS3 on Dec. 6. In the meantime check out my review if you want to read my take on the game. I fell into the first category.

RAGE demo up on Xbox Live; PS3 demo coming December 6 [Bethblog]

Here, in this Rage clip, wonky A.I. leads to deadly child's play. Peekaboo? More like peekabang.

Rage was released on Oct. 4. Read Kotaku's review here.

このＡＩは誰得？『RAGE』に登場する最強のチラチラ戦士 [へちま via Atomic Gamer]

Today's Fine Art features two men who worked on RAGE, id's recently-released desert shooter. One helped design (and build) the game's cars. The other, the game's mutants.

Both somehow found the time to draw pictures of pretty ladies as well. Which, given the amount of tiny shorts on display in this post-apocalyptic wasteland, shouldn't be too big a surprise!

The car stuff is the work of Joey Struve, who also did a whole load of the game's installations, vehicles and weapons as well (which you can see in the gallery above).

The character pieces, meanwhile, are from Ben Olson, who in addition to working on RAGE has done art for games like Area 51: BlackSite and the cancelled This is Vegas.

To see the larger pics in all their glory (or so you can save them as wallpaper), right-click on the "expand" icon on the main image above and select "open in new tab".

Rage's Wasteland is a mean bitch. There are essentials you are going to need to survive, like TV remote controls, dirty mags, and firepower. Who better to explain that than Snoop?

The famed rapper talks through what gets him through the Wasteland, as well as gives a rundown of weapons and gadgets. He also drew a picture of a dog with a rifle on its head—as one does.

Snoop also gives shout-outs to his buddies like Mike Tyson and Jermaine Dupree. Follow ya nose, ya nose knows.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=LaXt2jDa5Xg

It's been a big month for PC games, and things are about to get even bigger, so if you've been lazy and forgotten to update your graphics card drivers, you're going to want to fix that.

Between big games having issues (RAGE) and even bigger games just being...big (Battlefield 3), both AMD and Nvidia have released brand new drivers that boast big performance improvements for both those games and other upcoming titles like Batman: Arkham City.

For specifics on what's being improved/fixed, you can see AMD's 11.10v3 notes here, while Nvidia's 285.62 notes can be found here.

A source claiming to be close to the publishers of the recently-launched Rage has told Kotaku that, at a recent "company wide" meeting held in Dallas, Bethesda and parent company Zenimax made the decision to "indefinitely postpone" development of Doom 4.

Pete Hines, responding to our request for comment this morning, says no game in development has been postponed.

"We don't comment on unannounced games and DOOM 4 hasn't been announced (though I appreciate that id has previously referenced DOOM 4)," Hines said. "Games are done when they are done and no title under development at id has been postponed – indefinitely or otherwise."

Despite having been first announced back in 2008, Doom 4 has been on the backburner at developers id while work was completed on multiplatform shooter RAGE, which was released earlier this month to decidedly mixed reviews. While Crecente enjoyed it (and I'm digging it as well), the game's repetitive nature and numerous technical issues left it falling well short of many people's expectations.

The apparent source says that Zenimax and Bethesda made the decision based on the "the issues and reviews" surrounding RAGE's launch, which in their eyes has demonstrated "a serious lack of confidence in the project management at id".

Remember that, before you get too invested in this, at the moment the news is entirely unconfirmed. We've contacted Bethesda for comment and clarification, and will update if we hear back.

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago, Gamasutra's Brandon Sheffield ran an interview with id Software's CEO Todd Hollenshead about Rage. In the interview, Sheffield expressed some doubts about the game, and wasn't convinced by many of Hollenshead's answers. It was a solid piece of journalism, and as our own Stephen Totilo pointed out, it's the kind of interview we could use more of.

Sheffield has penned an op-ed about the interview and the response it prompted. In the piece, he recounts playing the game at a San Francisco event, and how as he played, time and again he found himself flummoxed by the design decisions that id had made. After playing, he sat down to talk with Hollenshead and Rage artist Andy Chang and asked about the issues he noticed.

The oddest thing was how unprepared Hollenshead and Chang were for my questions. How had nobody broached these subjects before? It felt as though the game had been developed in a bubble, where they were told everything they were doing was great, without question. I can understand that, it's id after all. But Hollenshead seemed to genuinely appreciate that I had taken a laser-focus to the game's systems, and the air in the room was contemplative, not hostile. We spoke for an hour, and smiled and shook hands at the end.

After the interview ran, Sheffield describes receiving an anonymous email from only identified as being from a "AAA creative director" that described his line of questioning as "hostile" and "clearly biased," and claims to have instructed PR to refuse future requests form Gamasutra regarding their game. Sheffield doubts the veracity of this email, but all the same, wonders about the language used.

It's out of respect for id that I called them out on what I saw. I gave them an early chance to defend issues with the game that others were undoubtedly going to have upon release. If treating someone else's work the way you'd treat your own - that is to say with scrutiny and criticism - is disrespectful, then we clearly have different definitions of the word.

Opinion: Journalistic Rage [Gamasutra]

There appears to be a number of ways to drop yourself beneath the skin of Rage. This one, by hidden rebel elevator, seems the most convenient.