My favorite games of all time, the story of Carmageddon part 3...

Carmageddon would never have been developed by any major studio in the ‘90s. No AAA team would  approach the idea. Management would fire anybody that had pitched something similar. Decades later some of the biggest games revolve around sex, guns, violence, and fast cars. Studios are falling over themselves to corner the mature market. The biggest of the mature titles is the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series. GTA V has made Rockstar Games an unbelievable amount of money. Disney, and 20th Century Fox tout the billions made by Avatar, and the Avengers. When it comes to a return on an investment nothing comes close to GTA. Avatar for example made $2.8 billion, on a budget of $237 million. That’s impressive but GTA V made $6 billion on a budget of $265 million. Even if you factor in marketing costs the numbers are simply unbelievable. When GTA was first released in 1997 it was nowhere near as notorious as Carmageddon. I would often have a laugh when people would ask “if you love Carmageddon, why don’t you like GTA?” Back then the camera was top-down, and the game play didn't compare. I would sometimes move the camera to top down in Carma, and say, “there, now it’s GTA.” To be fair there was one other major studio that beat both Stainless Games, and Rockstar to the punch. That was SingleTrac, and their breakout hit Twisted Metal, which was published by Sony.

It was not surprising that Sony published Twisted Metal. They understood that the audiences growing up on consoles were getting older. They were targeting the families that already had a Sega, or Nintendo system. Most of those kids had outgrown Sonic, and Mario. They wanted a game with more blood, and action.  If it wasn't on the Sega, or Nintendo machines, they were willing to switch. The wave of violent fighting games, and 3D shooters in the early ‘90s, such as Atari’s Primal Rage, Rage’s Killer Instinct, Midway’s Mortal Kombat, and id's Doom were proof that mature titles were selling. Aside from fighting games where else could the genre incorporate violence? David Jaffe and his team at SingleTrac melded vehicle combat, with a first person shooter. Throw in an over-the-top story involving a tournament, and you’d think that Stainless Software was poaching the concept. The ideas featured in Twisted Metal, and Carmageddon actually came from many different places. Vehicle combat was nothing new, and had roots in traditional tabletop gaming.

Steve Jackson Games was responsible for publishing dozens of original tabletop gaming systems. Those are the ones that require dice, some miniatures, and a score sheet. One of the more popular titles was Autoduel. This role playing system from 1985, received a PC game by Origin Systems in 1987. The rules of Autoduel would eventually become standardized in GURPS, the Generic Universal Role Playing System, which was first published in 1986. These systems, and games were based on an even older Steve Jackson game. Car Wars the tabletop game series first published in 1980. It has always remained popular in the tabletop gaming community. The sixth edition was published in 2019. The newest tabletop game to join the genre was called Gaslands. It was released by Osprey in 2017. Games Workshop released Dark Future in 1988. It faded in popularity over the years but was brought back as a PC game with Dark Future: Blood Red States in 2019, by developer Auroch Digital. All of these titles had a hand in influencing the creation of the vehicle combat genre. 

Video games would bring the tabletop experience to life. I already mentioned Twisted Metal, however the ‘90s, and ‘00s saw the genre grow. Twisted Metal received a number of sequels. I will talk about the varying quality of those later. Other publishers knew the trend was coming, and had their own games lined up. One of the more stylish entries was Interstate ’76 by Activision. The game came out in 1997 same as GTA, and Carmageddon. Its physics engine was amazing, and stylish polygons gave it a retro feel. The combat mechanics found the line between Twisted Metal, and Carmageddon. The sequel was Interstate ’82, which came out in 1999. The series also inspired the Vigilante 8 games, which were designed with consoles in mind rather than the PC. Rogue Trip Vacation 2012 was a spiritual successor to Twisted Metal by SingleTrac. It came out in 1998. David Jaffe wouldn’t touch another vehicle combat game until 2007, when Incognito Entertainment released Calling All Cars! Not to be outdone Slick Entertainment released Scrap Metal for Xbox Live in 2010. All of those aforementioned games had tremendous planning, and lots of market research. This ensured the publisher could have a game delivered on time, and on budget. Carmagedon wasn't the result of spreadsheets, and data analysis. It came about more by accident.

When the developers at Stainless would get bored with racing games, they would turn around, and see what chaos they could create by driving head first into traffic. They saw that most games handled collisions poorly, if at all. Some didn’t even allow you to turn around completely. They were fans of Banger Racing. It was a sort of demolition derby-style race that had a following in Britain. They knew that there was a market for a game like that, and started putting together a prototype. The work they were doing would influence a generation of game developers. These included Criterion, famous for the Burnout series, Evolution Studios which created MotorStorm, Black Rock Studio which developed Split/Second, and Rockstar which created GTA. Fellow UK developer Reflections Interactive actually beat them all to the market. They released Destruction Derby for the Playstation in 1995. For a console game the physics engine was amazing. It gave a real sense of weight, and speed to the cars. Vehicles were deformed in pileups, this was the opposite of Gran Turismo, where Sony promised the manufacturers that their cars would never so much as be dented in the game. This focus on realism was also very noticeable when compared to Twisted Metal. The engine Reflections built got better in the Driver series, and Stuntman for the Playstation 2, both of which added different types of vehicles.

Destruction Derby, and Twisted Metal helped put the Playstation on the map in 1995. Stainless had started working on their own vehicle combat system in 1994. One of the things they were trying to figure out was how to avoid pedestrians in their open-world game. They decided they should make running them over a part of the game play. There weren’t any publishers willing to take the call to talk about their idea. Fellow Brits at Sales Curve Interactive (SCi) had worked with Stainless in the past. Having the studio adapt PC games for the Mac. They decided to take a chance on the game. To increase the odds of getting published they were looking for a license to attach the game to. One of the front runners was the Mad Max series. The trilogy by George Miller started in 1979, and had sequels in 1981, and 1985. The films had a cult following the world over. The title character fought roving gangs in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It is entirely possible that Max Damage was named after Mad Max. At the very least some of the “Auto Scum” gang members in Carmageddon could be traced to designs featured in the Miller films. The series was big enough to be recognized, but not so big as acquiring the license would be wildly expensive. SCi had difficulty finding out who owned the rights to the property. Since Miller had made the films in Australia, different studios in the US, and the UK were responsible for rights, and distribution.

SCi hit a literal dead end trying to get the rights for Mad Max. They didn’t pull the plug on Stainless. They kept them in business by assigning them other projects in the interim. While doing research SCi discovered an even older cult film revolving around cars, and violence. This film had even more in common with what Stainless was going after, including awarding points for killing pedestrians. Death Race 2000 had been released in 1975. Featuring David Carradine, an actor that became famous from the TV show Kung Fu. As well as a young Sylvester Stallone before he created the first Rocky movie. The characters were very crass, and over-the-top. Carradine played two-time winner Frankenstein, “who lost a leg in ’98, an arm in ’99, with half a face, and half a chest, and all the guts in the world.” His face was covered by a rubber mask, and he sported a helmet similar to Darth Vader’s two years before Star Wars premiered. Many people noticed that Kutter from Carmageddon looked very similar to Frankenstein. Stallone played mob enforcer Machine Gun Joe Viterbo, his moll Myra was played by Louisa Moritz. These were not unlike Alfonzo Spaghetti, and Madam Scarlett respectively. There were many more such characters in the film, such as Nero, Calamity Jane, and a Nazi named Matilda the Hun. Each character  had an outlandish supercharged race car, covered in spikes, horns, and even teeth. The Hawk, and Eagle from Carmageddon were undoubtedly based on The Monster.

In the film the high-speed cars run a transcontinental rally, rather than just around a city. The rule changes for the year 2000 were explained in the film; women are worth 10 points more than men in all age brackets. Teenagers are worth 40 points. Toddlers under 12 are worth 70 points. Anyone over 75-years-old was worth 100 points. The movie featured nudity, sex, drug use, vulgar language, and misogyny, on top of all that violence. Of course audiences accepted that this was a dark comedy set in a dystopia. Many films from the ‘70s were about exploitation. Death Race 2000 had shlock value like other titles from that era. With the fancy sets, actual race car props, and various locations used, it was essentially a polished “grindhouse” movie. A full year later the video game industry had its first controversial game. The title was called Death Race, it had nothing to do with the movie, you could imagine that many people assumed it did. Exidy had released its first title Destruction Derby (no kidding!) in 1975. Their follow up was Death Race, in which the Grim Reaper in a hot rod drove over “gremlins,” and not people. Each time players ran over a character there would be a scream, followed by a tombstone left on the screen. The game made headlines as parents were upset with the content, trying to get arcade operators to pull the cabinet. Reporters were shocked as well, and published brutal reviews. This negative publicity of course increased orders through 1977.

SCi had no luck with the owners of Death Race 2000 either. They were afraid that a video game allowing you to run over pedestrians was too controversial. It would bring down the value of their film. Yes, the same producers that had no problem with Sylvester Stallone punching his girlfriend in the face, a man getting stabbed in the crotch by a bumper-mounted knife, a Nazi expounding the values of the master race, and Frankenstein assassinating the President of the USA was okay. A video game with only a fraction of that content was simply too much! The talks seemed to be going well for Stainless, or so they thought. The studio didn’t even get a chance to change the program name before the it was published. If the title managed to suddenly quit on the Mac, or PC it would say that “Deathrace” has crashed. This did not deter the team from putting their efforts into making the best game that they could. That was easier said than done. No other studio had attempted what they were going for. Stainless didn’t really work from a template, they literally made things up as they went along. Part of this meant doing research on actual car crashes, as well as running over pedestrians. No, really!

On an earlier blog I mentioned that Tony Taylor played Max Damage in the “Prat Cam.” He was a general handyman, and a friend of the team. He was also a sort of amateur stuntman. When the studio was recording footage for the Prat Cam he yelled, and jerked himself around as if he was in the Eagle. In order to get the shot of him getting crashed into from behind he had the team hit him as hard as they could in the back of his head with a pool cue. Thankfully he was wearing his helmet at the time. It was only the beginning of his exploits. I think the statute of limitations has expired on the things that Stainless Games had gotten away with during the development of Carma. Frankly it’s a miracle that nobody was killed! We will look at what the creative, and physical risks the studio took in the next blog. 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!

The Street Writer Blogcast, Episode 5

Every time I release a new Podcast I will release the text version for my hearing-impaired friends. I don't want them to miss anything that I cover. Also you are welcome to leave comments and questions for this podcast as well as future podcasts on this blog.
 

Welcome back to the Street Writer Podcast, I'm your host Noe and we are talking about the greatest rivals in fighting game history. Today we look at one of the most fearsome and tragic figures in the genre. Hanzo Hayashi was an assassin that operated for the Shirai Ryu clan. He he had a wife but more important he had a fearsome reputation. He was known only as Scorpion to those that wanted to hire his services. There was another clan known as the Lin Kuei where Hanzo had a rival named Sub-Zero. The two knew of each other but never formally crossed paths. In ancient times a a sorcerer named Quan Chi hired both Scorpion and Sub-Zero to find a map hidden in the Himalayas. The reason he hired the two was to ensure that at least one of them could complete the mission. Quan Chi was trying to grow his magical powers and achieve immortality, the map was a key piece of the puzzle. Neither Scorpion nor Sub-Zero knew that their clan had been hired. Both followed their own leads and made their way through the Himalayas. Eventually the two crossed paths. You can imagine the amazing battle the two had. Both were excellent martial artists but Sub-Zero had the advantage. His tribe was descended from Cryomancers, these were sorcerers from another dimension known as the Outworld. In the Outworld sorcery rather than science reigned supreme. It was a barbaric place, filled with horrible monsters where only the most powerful warriors and magic users could thrive. There were connections between various dimensions and the Outworld, one of which lead to Earth. Several of the priests and monks from the Outworld had a hand in creating secretive martial arts schools in our world. Sub-Zero could freeze the air, ground and even opponents. He could also throw projectiles like frozen blades. Scorpion was limited by his traditional weaponry. Sub-Zero won the fight and decapitated his opponent. He later returned with the Lin Kuei clan and wiped out the Shirai Ryu, including Scorpion's wife. As the soul of Scorpion descended into the Netherrealm, the Outworld equivalent of Hell. He was offered a chance to return to Earth as a demon, but with little to no recollection of his previous life. He took this opportunity for revenge and became the fighting undead.



Sub-Zero had actually crossed paths with Scorpion while in the Netherrealm. He was sent by Raiden, the Thunder God, to retrieve an amulet from Quan Chi. Sub-Zero fought Scorpion in the hellish world and won a second time. He managed to escape the Netherrealm while Scorpion was down. Scorpion would not get his revenge until the end of the first Mortal Kombat tournament. The two did not fight in the actual tournament but after it had concluded. Scorpion with his newly formed demonic powers was more than a match for Sub-Zero. Scorpion could now summon roped daggers from his palm and throw them at his opponents. The trademark yell of "Got over here!" was born. He also gained the ability to teleport behind his opponent and beat them with a flurry of strikes. Behind his mask he was a skull set ablaze, on top of all his new powers he could also breathe fire. With these new attacks he killed Sub-Zero. As soon as his mission was complete he burst into flames and returned to the Netherrealm. He would be bound to wander that place for all time. It was a hollow victory because while he had avenged his wife and clan he would never be able to join them in the afterlife. This was some amazing storytelling and more important, it was the first memorable rivalry created by a Western-produced fighting game.

For the first few years of the '90s every arcade, corner liquor store and laundromat seemed to have a fighting game. The genre had blown wide open thanks to the success of Street Fighter II, Fatal Fury and the early pioneers. Audiences knew that the Japanese absolutely ruled the fighting game genre. No other developer could touch the nation when it came to graphics, control and gameplay. That perception changed very quickly in 1992 when US studio Midway released Mortal Kombat. This game looked and played unlike any other. First of all the graphics revolved around enormous sprites that were much larger and more detailed than the sprites used in other fighting games. The reason for this was because Midway was trying out some new technology for speeding up the game creation process. They would videotape and photograph actors in costumes. The artists would then create sprites out of these frames of data. This process was much faster than having to redraw sprites by hand. The studio could also focus resources more on control and gameplay because the graphics were taken care of. Midway did not really have much experience with fighting games but they did not simply want to poach the Capcom mechanics and risk a lawsuit. They used four main buttons for the attacks and a block button for defense. Data East would come along later and release Fighter's History which used Capcom's more familiar six-button layout. Capcom would take Data East to court but lose the case, opening the doors for other studios to copy the same control scheme as Street Fighter. But I digress... Midway managed to publish a fighting game that was fairly well balanced, offered some unique gameplay mechanics and introduced a bunch of new and hidden features. They did this in record time, just as the genre was taking off. Part of the success was thanks to their graphics process cutting down on development time. Updates to fix bugs could even get out to arcades faster than any other publisher. This was important because when the game came out it lacked the polish and ease of use of Street Fighter II but a few upgrades later it was suddenly very easy to get into.



Midway was sitting on a gold mine and at the heart of it were some violent characters. Players went crazy trying to figure out all of the Fatalities. Word spread quickly through the arcades when a new one was discovered. With each new secret uncovered there was a rush to the arcade to pump more quarters into the machines. No other studio had considered how important the replay value was when they released a fighting game. Adding hidden characters, secret moves, fatalities and levels kept people returning again and again. This raised the status of Midway and made the Japanese publishers take notice. The American studio was working around the clock to fill orders while the other publishers were cooling down sales. Suddenly every corner market, 7-11, Circle K and laundromat was coveting the fighting arcade machine as well. They did whatever it took to get one of the hot titles. It didn't matter whether they bought them from the publisher or got a bootleg from the black market. It was guaranteed money from a rapidly growing fan base. When it came to favorite titles fans were already picking sides. Every character in the Mortal Kombat franchise, even the hidden characters, had a following. Arguably the two biggest stars were Scorpion and Sub-Zero. They were perfect rivals. Midway could not have hoped for a better outcome to their design. The two had their own unique powers and abilities, each required their own technique to master. In any other fighting game people would have just thought of them as a pallet swap with some gimmick moves, but these two were different. They were living, breathing, fighters and not cartoons. The beef they had was tangible. If and when a movie came out then audiences knew exactly what they would look like and who they would root for. Speaking of which my younger brother and I won tickets to see the premier of the Mortal Kombat film in Los Angeles many years ago. We got a copy of the soundtrack and an autograph from Cary Tagawa, the actor that played Shang Tsung, he and his son snuck in to secretly watch the film.

 Many fighting game fans in the USA, just like many fans in Japan, had grown up on martial arts movies. The kung-fu films from the Shaw Bros. and the indy films from Taiwan had circled the globe. They had cheesy effects, lousy scripts, were poorly dubbed and put on television in just about every market. Despite the quality of the films they were universally loved. The people creating the fighting games were just as familiar with these martial arts films as any fan. Street Fighter and the other games may have been inspired in part by the movies but Mortal Kombat was the first game that captured the spirit of those live action films. For the first time in the genre fans were not rooting for cartoon characters but real people. They were rooting for modern versions of those classic heroes and villains. Scorpion and Sub-Zero were created in a supporting role. Fighters like Liu Kang, Sonya Blade and Johhny Cage were the stars and Goro and Shang Tsung were the bad guys. Yet fans were very interested in the secretive ninjas, there was just something special about them. The anti-hero versus the cool villain, it wasn't as simple as good versus evil, both were killers. Both were two sides of the same coin. When audiences learned that the two hated each other they ate up the drama. What other fighting game character, or movie character for that reason, hated someone enough to return from Hell for a rematch?

 

Many of the elements, settings and characters in Mortal Kombat wouldn't have existed without kung-fu cinema. US audiences bought into the whole plot of the game. The game however could not have excited without the excessive violence from Western cinema as well. The game could never be violent or shocking enough for fans. It had to be brutal, it had to be bloody and there had to be a certain dark comedy element to it as well. Gen-Xers that made up a good portion of the arcade and console boom were starting to mature and they wanted to see more adult themes in their games. Scorpion and Sub-Zero were the R-Rated heroes in a previously PG crowd. They were not unlike Deadpool to the sanitized heroes in other Marvel movies. Speaking of comics a good portion of the design from Scorpion was also inspired by the Ghost Rider. The "Spirit of Vengeance" also had a flaming skull for a head and he threw a chain to snare opponents.

The purpose of Scorpion would evolve over the sequels. When he learned that Sub-Zero had returned for the second Mortal Kombat tournament he was furious. Death was not strong enough to keep his arch-rival at bay. Scorpion returned from the Netherrealm to enter the tournament as well. He eventually discovered that this was a different Sub-Zero, a younger brother who had the same cryomancer powers. Scorpion realized that he had no quarrel with the second Sub-Zero and let him be. The two would form a shaky alliance over different games and the truth would eventually be revealed. It was Quan Chi that orchestrated the murder of the Shirai Ryu clan and Scorpions wife. Quan Chi was teleported to the Netherrealm where Scorpion would spend eternity hunting down the powerful sorcerer. It was a fitting ending for one of the most violent fighting game characters invented. Audiences would never forget this warrior and the betrayal that created him. Not every rivalry in fighting games involved revenge. Some rivalries were created out of necessity. The last one I will feature for this series was simply destined to happen. Yet destiny has a long and winding road. I hope to see you back for that entry. As always 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 bigger and better recordings and videos.