Carmageddon: Reincarnation Alpha Update Crosses The Line

One curious effect of vintage series rebooting and reviving as 'Early Access' releases is that they don't make much of an impact. They meekly shuffle into the room wearing a taupe cardigan rather than down kicking the door in a leather jacket, carrying a six-pack in one hand and a boombox in the other, screaming "Let's do this you mothers!" Unfinished as they are, they mostly attract old fans rather than making new ones. And will this slow exposure stop them from making that splash when they do properly launch?

Anyway, in the meantime, work continues. Carmageddon: Reincarnation yesterday launched its second big Early Access update, bringing a new level, three new cars, more performance options, and other doodads.

The changelog has the full run-down. The new level's the excitingly-named Bleak City, while some of the new cars do add jazz with permanent zappy Electro-Bastard Ray or fiery Hot Rod power-ups. The patch notes also mention adding new power-ups including the Electro-Bastard, but surely it didn't launch without something so iconic? (Have you been playing Carmageddon: Reincarnation? Please do correct me. And how is it, anyway?)

The new graphics options give oodles of ways to boost FPS, which will come in handy as poor performance has been one common complaint about Reincarnation. One imagines performance will improve over the course of development, but this'll help for now. Do be aware that the game will launch with all its graphical bells and whistles turned down by default, so go in and tweak away.

Here's a peek at the new update and some of the things it adds, including a fine demonstration of it running with the graphics turned way down to play on a shoddy laptop with shockingly slow load times: