Stainless Games let their fans know that they were busy on a Carmageddon sequel as the reviews were rolling in. The buzz (and money) they created on the first, and Splat Pack would guarantee a second, if not series. They announced another game was in the pipeline to keep public interest going. From a business standpoint it made sense to cash in while the franchise was hot. They promised something completely new. The next title would not simply be the old engine with more levels. This was a shortcut that made a quick buck for publishers. The flip side of that was that audiences quickly lost interest if the sequel was too much like the original. More of the same wasn’t a winning strategy. The long-term health of a franchise required studios to take their time, and create a worthy successor. If you don’t believe me see how Activision drove the multi-million dollar Tony Hawk, and Guitar Hero franchises into the ground with annual sequels.
Stainless wanted to give audiences something worth their money. Carmageddon II Carpocalypse Now was most definitely it! Awesome name aside the game engine was completely redone. New models, new physics, new locations, new game play, and new everything. This included an entirely new Eagle, and Hawk. They were the third redesigns of the iconic cars. Each one now highlighted its specialty. The Eagle was bigger, and heavier, it was meant to take an impact. The Hawk was sportier, and much more suited for racing. Fans did miss the yellow livery on the Hawk, Stainless would return to that in the future. I made sure to pick it up as soon as it was released for the lab at work. My coworkers, and I were eager to see how the game had evolved. Our 1997 end of the year party with the Splat Pack was arguably the best of the LAN events during my time in college. We had faith that the next game released in October 1998 would add more hijinks to the next holiday party.
Right from the all CGI-intro we were not disappointed. The team at Stainless Games didn’t just add the cars, or tracks that were planned for the original. They gave the game as much dimension as possible. This started with the vehicles themselves. Stainless reviewed the vehicles for returning opponents, then created new models that were hyper detailed. In the first Carma the polygonal bodies could be deformed to represent vehicle damage. They would still however remain in one piece. Most of the vehicle panels in Carma II could be dented, but more important, they could be pulled apart. The fenders, wheels, doors, hood, trunk, and even engines could be broken off from the damage they received. It was possible to shear a car in half, lengthwise, widthwise, or even cut the top off. A car cut in two might still be drivable depending on how much total damage it received. It might not drive very fast, or just end up spinning in circles depending on the severity of the hit. The windows on the cars were not simply textures either. They were semi-opaque, they could crack, and even shatter. Stainless created driver models that could be seen in the cars. They looked like their character portraits; helmets, leather jackets, spikes, and all.
Some of the vehicles featured killing devices, like spinning propellers, rolling spurs, and animated guillotine blades that moved up and down. These were expanded ideas from weapons featured on The Bear, and the Twister in the first game. These details would have been useless without pedestrians to try them on. The new engine meant the game needed new victims. This time Stainless didn’t have to run over Tony Taylor for research. Two dimensional sprites were dropped completely. The people, and animals (imagine PETA’s reaction) in the game were actual 3D models. They had complex animations too. They could walk, run, hide, fall over, and beg for their lives. They could also be pulled apart, just like the car models. This meant amputations of all four limbs, and the head. Hitting them did not mean an instant kill either. You could bump into one at slow speed, and watch them roll off the hood, crawl on the ground, get back up, and start running. Or you could knock off an arm, or leg, and watch them bleed to death. Earning a pedestrian kill was a little more challenging than in the original. Not only that, since these models had size, and weight, it also affected how cars handled. Cars could be thrown completely off course by hitting a large group. Smaller cars would bounce around, or spin out while trying to run over corpses.
The realism was then applied to the world as well. Some buildings had breakable windows, and even breakaway doors. Gates, and barriers could be pushed aside. Offices, and residencies were filled with furniture, and equipment that could be tossed about. Enormous boulders (or snowballs) could be pushed down roads, flattening any vehicle in their path. Conveyor belts pulled material through the Beaver County Quarry. Cross traffic moved on the streets of Beaver City, whereas there were only static parked cars in the first game. Passenger airliners actually landed, and took off at the Beaver County Airport. Even more impressive were the fighter jets taking off, and landing on the aircraft carrier; the USS Lewinsky. Ski lifts took tourists up the Beaver Mountains. Trains passed through crossings in the Beaver Woods. Stainless was flexing its programming muscle, while at the same time repeating the sophomore humor that they were known for. There were plenty of sexual, if not sexist innuendos in the stage names. There was also at least one erect stone obelisk with two boulders, surrounded by bushes in the El Morte Desert. Dick jokes aside, the world Stainless created was filled with more life than other virtual environments. They were raising the bar for vehicle deformation, physics, animated NPCs, and world building. Remember that this was in 1998, they were certainly way ahead of Grand Theft Auto, and all their other contemporaries.
Carmageddon II was a fantastic game, but it also came with quite a learning curve. The focus on realism actually affected the game play. Gone was the indestructible “Hot Wheels” physics that had I enjoyed in the original title. One of the first things players learned was not to go too fast on the courses. The cars could be totaled, or even split in half if they hit an obstacle too hard. Instant game over, even if you were leading on a race. You did have the ability to upgrade the three elements of each car; the Armor, Power (engine), and Offense. However instead of buying parts you had to seek out icons hidden all over the map. This was great for exploration, and training audiences to memorize the shortcuts of a particular map. In order to give each stage replay value, and encourage the search, there was a potential 30 slots for each element to upgrade, meaning a total of 90 icons scattered over nine unique environments. By contrast in the first Carmageddon there were only five levels of upgrades. A car that was fully powered up did manage to capture the reckless energy of the first game. They wouldn’t explode if they hit opponents, or buildings too hard. With a full 90 slot upgrade it was possible to have a car that was too strong, and make for short matches. Stainless gave players the ability to reduce the strength, speed, and change the ride height of their car to make games more evenly matched. For some opponents a fully upgraded car would be just enough to level the playing field.
Stainless Games pushed the number of cars that could run in the tournament. The original game featured six cars in the race at one time, plus any police vehicles hiding in the stage. In the sequel up to 18 cars could hit the field. Most races had less. The library also included some of the biggest rides ever featured in a vehicle combat game. Psycho Pitbull drove a tow truck called the Towmeister in the original, in the sequel he had a gigantic earth mover called the Big Dump. Halfwit Harry traded in his Humvee the Lumberer for a massive log stacker called the Loggerhead. The wheels of these heavy machines were bigger than some of the opponents. It was hard to believe that even a monster truck paled in comparison. The introduction of these vehicles was done more than shock value. The majority of the stages in Carma II observed the rules of the original. You could win a level by either finishing all of the laps, destroying all of the opponents, or killing all the peds. Stainless then introduced timed missions to the end of each group of races. Some of these were fights against bigger opponents, but the majority had a story element to them. Such as run over escaped hospital patients, assassinate an evil admiral aboard his aircraft carrier, or kill the deviant circus clowns at the fair. Missions were a good way to unlock massive opponents. The Hawk, and Eagle couldn’t go into a head on fight with them. Beating the new library of vehicles, especially the big boys, required some thinking.
Even without upgrades it was possible to take on the giants. The strategy was hit, and move before they could react. Just about every vehicle could run circles around the juggernauts, save for the Deathcruiser, a tour bus powered by a missile. Having a time limit for each mission upped the challenge. Players did not have to complete the mission in order to continue. They could finish other groups of races, upgrade their vehicles, and try again later. Savvy players learned that every vehicle had a weakness. If you could get to the driver it would make the fight easier. Instead of wasting time running into the tires, or trunk of a car, a well timed jump directly through the windshield could kill the driver instantly. This was true for both the Loggerhead, and the Big Dump. Players learned to angle their cars just right, and leap into the cabs with the Kangaroo on Command power up. Speaking of which, the power ups were a complete game changer in the sequel. Stainless had gotten a lot of feedback on favorite multiplayer modes, and the benefits of certain power ups. In the original game the power ups either effected the player’s car, or were global effects for everyone. They were instant, or lasted a few seconds. Players could not control when they wanted power ups to kick in. In Carma II players could stack some power ups, and use them like weapons against the computer, or human opponents. The types of power ups were expanded to affect pedestrians as well, including a flame launcher, and ability to make them stagger around drunk. Again some were automatic, but many could be saved in reserve. They came in especially handy during the missions.
The massive collection of new rides, each with their own strengths, and some with unique properties gave Carmageddon II fantastic replay value. Going through the stages with each vehicle was a completely new experience. The creative multiplayer maps, and changes to power ups, kept fans coming back. My coworkers, and I were having an absolute blast with the sequel. The holiday 1998 work party went off like never before! Did I forget to mention that heavy metal icons Iron Maiden were featured on the soundtrack? Along with instrumental music by Sentience, it was one of the hardest riding soundtracks of all time. The CarMod community kept developing new skins, and models to keep the game fresh. Some created realistic muscle cars from the late '60s, and early '70s. Some created cartoon cars from the old Hanna Barbera cartoons, like the Flintstones mobile, and the Hong Kong Phooeymobile. Every vehicle type was a welcome experiment. Any issues with the game they were negligible. Little things like traditional cop cars were used in the game, instead of the armored brutes from the original. Also the World War II German fighter plane driven by Heinz Faust, the Supastuka, really seemed out of place. His prior appearance had him in a tank-treaded car called the King Merc. Again these were minor complaints in an otherwise fantastic sequel.
News outlets repeated the same exaggerations about violent video games. Audiences completely tuned out any alarmist headlines this time around. Those curious about a sequel relied on word-of-mouth more than media reviews anyhow. Even then the gaming press enjoyed this one as much as the first. The most positive reviews were for the PC, and Mac. IGN gave it a 7 out of 10, GameSpot gave it a 7.8 out of 10, CNET Game Center give it a 8 out of 10, CGSP gave it a 4.5 our of 5, GameRevolution gave it a B+, PC Gamer gave it an 83%. The console builds were universally panned. Those were the fault of SCi for choosing the wrong studios for an adaptation. Or because they tried to censor the game features. Stainless had done the impossible. The tiny studio from England didn’t create the genre, but they certainly did master it. In two years they set the standard that would be copied by dozens of other studios over the next few decades. What happened to them completely floored the community. The series would continue, but it wasn't the same. We will talk about what happened with Carmageddon 3 in the next blog. I hope to see you back for that. If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!
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