My favorite Games of All-Time #5: Carmageddon - Originally published on 1UP - July 21, 2006

Carmageddon is the most vile and repulsive game on my list. It makes State of Emergency look like a walk in the park. My brothers were shocked to see how high it ranked on my list, more so when they found out that I ranked it above Burning Rangers. Carmageddon fills my criteria of a great game so perfectly that it is amazing I didn't rank it higher. If I were ranking games based on total time spent playing then Carmageddon is a top-three game.

I had to rank the games based on their importance to me. If I could only play one game for the rest of my days which one meant the most to me? Which game is my absolute favorite and which ones come close? Carmageddon is the closest game that any non-Japanese designers have ever designed. It is in the top-5, it is in a place of great distinction.

Carmageddon was inspired by the classic cult movie Death Race 2000, featuring David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone. If you can get the game to crash the error screen says "Terminate Death Race." There was also an arcade game called Death Race way back in the late 70's. The arcade game had nothing to do with the movie, it was a hot rod race around a cemetery where you ran over pedestrians and tombstones popped up. These peds were also called "gremlins" in some literature. The original arcade game was so repulsive that it was banned from most establishments. About 30 years later the legacy continued when Carmageddon was released and Australia banned the import and sale of the game.

Carmageddon (Carma for short) is repulsive and vile. It came out at the height of a congressional inquiry into violent videogames. Grand Theft Auto and Mortal Kombat were the other big games being dissected at this point. Carmageddon showed up and the debate exploded. The content and purpose of the game could not be argued. You were the participant in a death race, you acquired time and points by running over pedestrians.

After all, look at the play screen. All of the important information appears on screen. There is car position and lap position, in case you really were paying attention to the race. Number of opponents wasted, time, profits and pedestrian kills. You could finish the stage by either winning the race, destroying all of your opponents or killing all of the pedestrians.

The gore was through the roof in this game. Points were rewarded for how many people you could take out in a combo. If you clipped a ped and sent them spinning you might have gotten an artistic bonus, if you plowed through them you might have gotten a splatter bonus. Blood was everywhere and the image of the driver (Max Damage) in the upper left corner sums it up. He seems to derive pleasure from the violence. Congress was in a fit, they had all the evidence they needed to condemn videogames. Only real sickos could find any pleasure in this game.

Seeing as how 1UP is filled with murderous sickos then I feel right at home. After all, those that have been playing videogames for any amount of time are surely riding an immoral path. If you've played Silent Hill and are longing for a giant butcher knife with which to skin people alive then please raise your hand. If you've ever played Mario Bros and have taken magic mushrooms that allow you to throw fireballs then please... raise your hand.

Congress, and many people that "don't get it" see only the surface level of a videogame. They don't understand that the good majority of gamers know the difference between right and wrong. We know the difference between what we see on the screen and our actions in real life. This isn't a case of monkey see, monkey do. This isn't a case of de-sensitation to violence. Violence has been around for as long as human kind has, we don't have the luxury of blaming videogames for the wars we have engaged in. Some of us choose peace, and would rather play games with action or violence than engage in the real deal.

The first two Carma games were made by the people at Stainless Games over in England. SCi published the titles. The people that worked on this game seemed to be out of their mind while they were developing the title. With the debate raging in congress they had the audacity to not only create but market this game as the goriest title ever

While in development Stainless went to extremes to capture the sights and sounds for the game. Polyphony is famous for recording the engine sounds of more than 400 cars for Gran Turismo. On the other side of the planet Stainless participated in demolition derbies to get the authentic sounds of cars crashing. Then they recorded the cars getting hit by bats, bricks and cinder blocks. In order to get an authentic sound of hitting pedestrians they got a good friend, Tony Taylor, the actor that plays Max Damage, to put on a helmet and let himself get hit a couple of times by a slow moving car. Then they took a bat to his helmet and recorded those sounds as well. Some people suffer for their art, none more than those at Stainless.

The plot of the game was set, you started off as either Max in his Eagle, which was a take on a car in the Death Race. Or as the female counterpart, Die Anna, in her faster car, the Hawk. Carmageddon was a sanctioned race taking place all over the world. Anything was legal in this race, including taking shortcuts, running over opponents and pedestrians. There were temporary power-ups scattered over the map and many secrets to discover on the massive maps.

The opponents and cars in the game were all unique. Depending on your rank you could sometimes win their car if you destroyed it in the middle of a race. Each car had different strengths and weaknesses. Some were dainty and some were unstoppable. These cars were designed for the various styles of drivers. All of the cars could be upgraded, money won from the races could be used to purchase extra armor or horsepower.

Carmageddon was the definition of the impossible racer. The physics were good. The cars all handled realistically, more or less. It was what the cars that were capable of that made the game so much fun. The cars were almost indestructible. In any other game a car that hits a wall at 300 mph would explode. In this game it would just wreck the body a little. The cars behaved like Hot Wheel toys on some of the most fantastic tracks ever designed. These tracks had tunnels, massive jumps and drop offs. The cars could even operate under water, in acid, toxic goo, snow and lava. Some tracks were on raceways and others were on rooftops of massive skyscrapers.

Blind intersections where two cars could collide at high speed and send one of them flying a few hundred feet straight up were the rule, not the exception. This helped create a breakneck (no pun intended) pace for gameplay. Drivers and opponents were always willing to go full-tilt at each other or even at the police that patrolled the race because the cars would mostly survive the wreck.

Carmageddon is a great stress reliever. The more people you can get to join in a lan game the better it is. Within a few minutes any person that I've introduced the game to had the car up and running and was shouting "holy shit" at every crazed jump and high speed wipeout.

People often say that Carmageddon would be perfect if only it had weapons like Twisted Metal. I say that they are missing the point. The cars are the weapons. In Twisted Metal the cars don't behave like cars at all, they behave like FPS characters. The mass and momentum of real cars is lost in that game because the designers don't want it to weigh down the gameplay. Carmageddon is a pure game, the car is everything and it is the only thing. There is no more rewarding experience than catching up to a race in progress and wiping out the lineup with a runaway plow. Or dropping down on an unsuspecting opponent that is hobbling on his last three wheels.

Here's the part where you ask "well if this game is so great how come I've never heard of it?" Hell if I know. Stainless made this game back in the day when you could fit a Windows and Mac version of the title on one CD. Most reviewers that played the first fell in love with it. The game was mad hijinks and word of mouth helped it spread quickly.

A large community of gamers became dedicated to the game. Stainless released tool kits to let gamers make their own skins for the cars. The code for some cars that weren't finished with the release of the game were left on the CD. Budding programmers and modelers were allowed to finish the work of Stainless and were fully supported for example with patches that allowed gamers to play in ED-101's flying concept car.

The congressional hearings only helped make Carmageddon a more desirable game by all audiences. As the saying goes "even bad publicity is better than no publicity at all." Despite the negative attacks, magazine editors and gamers both agreed that this game was pretty damn good.

Stainless helped keep the momentum of the game going by releasing the "Splat Pack" shortly after the original was released. The new tracks and cars helped round out the overall experience. The Splat Patch helps cement this game in the top-5.

If this game was so great what happened? The sequel "Carpocalypse Now" was a fun game. The cars were far more detailed and could be pulled apart, pedestrians were no longer sprites but three dimensional models with their own weight and mass. Power ups were more weapon like now. The levels were just as massive and as interactive as they've ever been.

However the experience was less enjoyable the more realistic the game became. Cars could be destroyed far more easily. Some blind hits or explosive barrels could take you apart quickly. This turned a former full out crash and smash title into a delicate shadow of its former self. Realism is not meant for every game and definitely not this one.

Carmageddon 2 was good but not great. The third in the series was absolutely horrid. SCi had just acquired the rights to the Death Race 2000. The official name for the next title would be Carmageddon 3 TDR 2000, SCi figured that they could save some money by giving the game to a new developer and took Stainless off of the job. The game that came out was absolutely horrid.

Everything that was good in Carma 2 was gone. Any remnants from the original game were in name alone. TDR 2000 was panned by gamers and critics and a legacy that could have been was buried some years ago.

I still find the time to play the original game, although OSX on the Mac is making it harder to launch these days. The game holds up very well, even more against a human opponent. My brother was always a fan of Grand Theft Auto and Twisted Metal. There was one game that was more pure and enjoyable than either of these. I hope you get a chance to play it before your computer can no longer run it.

I’d like to hear your personal top-10, top-20, top fighting games, top sports games, or top games in any genre. Let me know in the comments section please. 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 better blogs and even podcasts!

My favorite games of all time, the story of Carmageddon final part

Carmageddon Max Damage is a worthy sequel to the franchise, and also one of the best vehicle combat games ever made. That should go without saying. For some reason the critics did not come to the same conclusion when it debuted in 2015. I have an idea what their issues were with the game, and I will explain them below. As for myself I’ve been playing driving games, racing games, and vehicle combat games for all my life. From the arcade pioneers at Atari with Gran Trak 10, and Sprint 2 in the ‘70s. All of the Sega, Atari, Midway, and Namco racing games from the ‘80s through the ‘90s like Monaco GP, Spy Hunter, Pole Position, Hot Rod, Virtua Racing, Ridge Racer, Sega Rally, Hydro Thunder, Daytona USA, San Francisco Rush, Cruisin’ USA, and Race Drivin.’ Not to mention the dozens of console games on Nintendo, Sony, Sega, and Microsoft. RC Pro Am, Gran Turismo, Forza, DIRT, MotorStorm, Burnout, F-Zero, Blood Wake, Twisted Metal, Full Auto, etc. Plus tons of games on the Mac, and PC like Intersate ’76, AutoDuel, Need for Speed, TrackMania, Deathtrak, and Hi-Octane. I’d like to think I am qualified to talk about whether a vehicle game is good or not.

Let’s talk about the complaints that people have. The first was that the vehicles were hard to control, that the physics were floaty. I don't agree at all. I’ve played, and mastered games with very hard control, poor physics, and handling. Max Damage was nothing like that. The cars in Max Damage responded accurately to their design, power, and weight. One of my favorite cars is the Annihilator, a top fuel funny car that has so much horsepower that it flips over if you mash the throttle. It is possibly the hardest car to use in the game, that is if you try to handle it like the rest. To get a 10,000 horsepower car to go where you want to you have to have the a feather-light touch on the throttle. In first gear it accelerates slowly, but by the time you get into second gear you’re already going over 100 mph, you can hit 300 mph an instant after that, and blast through any opponent. Not every car requires that much concentration to keep in a straight line. Additionally the game itself was fun on the very first race. It didn’t kill the enjoyment of just smashing cars into each other right from the get-go, unlike say Burnout Paradise, which has you go through tutorials for minutes before you can even get into the game itself. Stainless treats their audience like adults. They trust players can figure out the gas pedal, and brake as soon as the game begins. With that said there is a tutorial built in, if you need it. 

The majority of the vehicles in Max Damage are easy to handle. That is because Stainless Games was able to recreate the arcade feel of the original. It was designed to be easy to pick up, and play. It was not supposed to be a hyper detailed simulation. After a few minutes with each new car I could get them to do exactly what I wanted. I could do spinouts, sharp turns, drifts, and even save the car from flipping over while balancing on two wheels. Basic driving, and advanced techniques applied differently, as they should with the vehicle selection. With that said every car handled every bit as well as they had in the other games in the series. I’m not sure why there was so much push back from reviewers. I have a feeling however that the harshest critics were used to the controls, and physics from their favorite racing, or sandbox game. They wanted the throttle, and brakes to be just like FlatOut, Rocket League, or GTA. They couldn’t get the understeer, or oversteer to match what they were used to, and therefore it was broken in their eyes. Those that remember the control in the first two numbered Carmageddon games could say that Max Damage was fairly on point.

There were people complaining about the soundtrack. How the music didn’t fit the experience. The first few games had metal, electronic, and industrial soundtracks. Why would this game not keep that tradition going? Plus Maximum Sexy Pigeon, and Morgue really had some great songs in the game. I can't say enough good things about the sound design in the game. The sounds of cars, and tanks rolling on metal grates, grass, asphalt, sand, and concrete all sound unique. Engine sounds are unique whether you are driving a supercharged V8, an electric, or even diesel motor. Stages have ambient sounds from nature, machinery, vehicles, and anything else that happens to be out on a stage. Add on top people screaming, yelling, and begging for their lives, and the game really comes alive. Then there were people complaining that the levels were bare. I think that those people mistook what the genre was about. The best vehicle combat games took place on a closed course. The world that Stainless created was anything but bare. I mentioned previously the level of detail applied to the environments, pedestrians, and the levels themselves. I’m not sure what would make critics think the stages were lacking. I went back through the original Carmageddon, the Splat Pack, and Carmageddon II just to confirm there was much more happening in the stages of Max Damage than in all the previous games combined.

To clarify my point of the level designs, think of the Carma environments like arenas in a first person shooter. It wouldn’t make sense to have a world that was 100 square miles. You’d spent 20 minutes just looking for an opponent. Also, there are no snipers in Carma. The fights had to be up close. Look at the most memorable multiplayer stages in Team Fortress 2, Fortnight, Halo, Gears of War, or Call of Duty. They were detailed but compact. There were plenty of ways to get in, and out of the action. A portion of a city was more than enough for a handful of cars to fight through. Plus when your focus is on your opponents you don’t really check to see if pedestrians are evenly distributed on the map. They tend to be concentrated in the open areas where the cars are likely to collide. Again, it made sense from a design, and game play perspective.

The visuals on the PS4 were good, they weren’t poor quality PS3 graphics like some people say. Could they have been better? Could they have used more polish? Probably, but what game with a relatively short development cycle couldn't also benefit from that? I will admit that the Xbox One graphics were much better, and the PC best of all. The level load times seemed a bit long, however once loaded I’ve had marathon matches lasting an hour or more with no slowdown, or buffering. That’s a small price to pay for uninterrupted game play. The single player campaigns were good, but Carmageddon has always worked best with multiplayer. Online matches were a good start, as were the multitude of match types. Waiting for random players to show up was a waste of time. Many people wanted to see LAN support, or at the very least two-player split screen. This is usually where detractors find fault. They ignored the great elements in the game, and began tearing it down by what it lacked. Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. The thing that critics rarely bring up. PC games adapted for home consoles rarely held up to the original platform. Carmageddon has never sold well on home consoles because of terrible ports by third parties. This was the first time it was presented as closely to the PC as possible. Reviewers complained that it looked, played, sounded, and offended like the original Carmageddon. Doesn't that mean that the studio did the remake correctly? 

Many reviewers made the off-hand comment that games like this had evolved since the '90s. I had a feeling what these critics wanted was a slow-burn, dramatic adventure. One where you play as Max Damage, a shell of a man, and no longer a racer. He washes dishes in the back of a cafe in Bleak City. Burdened with guilt he raises money for the families of those killed in the Carmageddon tournament. He regains his humanity by making amends to the people he's wronged. He doesn't actually get behind the wheel of the Eagle until the last 10 minutes of an 18 hour game when his adopted daughter / puppy / robot wife is killed. If that's the kind of mature storytelling the game needed then count me out. Let's be honest here. Being upset that Stainless captured the spirit of the classic was like being mad at Capcom because Street Fighter V brought back the feel of Street Fighter III. I cannot think of another example of where a studio recreated a title while updating everything in the game, and then got dragged for it. It certainly didn't apply to Zelda, Doom, Mario, or Halo did it? Stainless pretty much created a new genre, then came back a generation later to show that it still held up. They updated all of their original selling points. They managed to draw an audience, and build a community that still wanted more of this type of experience. Their reward for this was being told their game was old, and dumb.

Stainless Games was not founded as a console developer. They would never claim to be the best at it. They cut their teeth making games for the Mac. They also adapted some games from PC, to the Mac. That was a lifetime ago, when they developed for SCi rather than themselves. Max Damage was a chance for them to take control of the IP. They believed that they could self-publish for the PC, and took a gamble on doing the adaptation for the consoles as well. This would be a monumental task for a major studio. Large publishers usually brought in a partner to help make a console version. Stainless Games managed to do all of this with a tiny staff, on a rarely short development cycle. If I remember correctly the company had about two dozen full-time staffers. They wore many hats, took on lots of roles, and somehow shaped a part of the industry. Other PC developers were three, or four times that size, and console developers had teams 10 times larger. The fact that this small company got all of this done without the backing of a major publisher should get some credit. But again, it was never brought up in the heavy-handed reviews.

If you really want to criticize Stainless for what was missing in Max Damage it would be everything they wanted to incorporate, but simply ran out of time, and money. The Carmageddon series was good, but it had the framework of something phenomenal as well. It was apparent in the original game. Such as the flying car proposed for Ed 101. No other game had mixed flying technology, with vehicle combat. Those elements would appear in the Twisted Metal series many years later. Tanka would have been the first trailer truck to be featured in a 3D vehicle combat game. Only to have the trailer half cut at the last minute before going gold. Again, the complete idea would appear later on in Twisted Metal. Stainless made sure to put an elevated train track in Bleak City. It helped break up the skyline, and gave the illusion that the world extended beyond the borders of the stage. They put a lot of forethought into world building, even if it lacked the animation that they wanted. The studio had planned for all sorts of animated set pieces. Carmageddon II got a lot of their wishlist items done, working trains, and planes in full 3D. This was back when GTA was still a top-down game. Fans, and community members would mod Carma to help fulfill the remaining plans. Stainless was finally able to put a working monorail, and many other details into the series 17 years later in Reincarnation. They were also able to get trailers working for every car in the game. Part of the reason they circled back was because they were finally working for themselves, on their own schedule, rather than for another publisher.

The studio could have added many more things to Carmageddon Max Damage. Again if only they had more time, and money. The framework was already there. For example you get to purchase Armor, Power (engine), and Offense upgrades for your car. They have an associated picture, and name for each upgrade, but the cars themselves never changed. Visually a level one car looks identical to a level five. This was not always the plan. As you purchased new items to make your car faster, or stronger, it was supposed to change the ride. At the start of the game you were supposed to get either the basic Eagle R, or Hawk R, and watch it evolve along the way. More blades were added to the frame. Wings, and air splitters became wider. Bumpers became sturdier. Fenders changed the shape, and body kits smoothed out the aerodynamics. Each item helped change the performance in different categories. Making it look faster, or tougher, or more lethal. Even a fully balanced version was possible.

This type of visual change was supposed to apply to every car in the game. It was actually seen in the mobile game Carmageddon Crashers in 2017. Stainless used the assets they had created in Max Damage, and continued shaping where they wanted to go with the series. It took the studio an additional two years of development to get to that point. They showed audiences what the base-model Eagle, Hawk, or any other car looked like in Crashers. The majority actually looked like street cars, or construction vehicles, and not the killing machines we know them as. The versions we were used to in the main series were considered mid-level in Crashers. The fully upgraded rides looked even more fantastic than we ever could have imagined. Stainless showed us what the top tier Eagle R, and Hawk R looked like. Much sportier, and more aggressive than the standard models. We certainly would have loved to see those in Max Damage. Even better the studio gave us the fully upgraded Iron (Tez) Eagle, and Iron Hawk to drool over. Of course audiences would not have waited three years after the debut of Reincarnation to get a more complete version of Max Damage. These things, and much more had always been in the plans.

The studio did not lack new ideas, they just lacked the resources to publish what they wanted. Bad press, and controversy made it so that the game would never get all the funding, and support it deserved. PC audiences had a sense of this, but console players had no idea. As such their perception of the franchise was skewed. Especially by reviewers who mostly focused on console games. Many assumed the game was all shock, and no substance. They never bothered doing their research, seeing how the previous entries stacked up to their contemporaries, if there even were any. The critics never bothered looking into the developers, and being amazed at everything they had contributed to the industry. As a fan knowing that Carmageddon could have been even greater was the hardest pill to swallow. Even today publisher THQ Nordic sits on the Carmageddon license, as they have been for years. In that time they have not announced another sequel. If you visit their company site, as of June 2021, there is no mention of Carmageddon in their games section. The only news you will find is the press release from 2018 when they announced their acquisition. Chances are THQ will not actually fund another sequel. It is simply too violent, and too controversial for the current climate. 

I contend that Max Damage was to the Carmageddon franchise, as Fury Road was to the Mad Max film series. George Miller broke new ground with his low budget Mad Max film in 1979. He had ideas that would elevate the character, and universe with each sequel. Even if Hollywood didn’t always understand it. Miller never stopped being a great director. He took on all sorts of projects for the past 30 years to pay the bills. All the time he kept refining what he wanted to do with his original idea. When the opportunity came he seized it. Practical, and special effects got to the point where his storyboards became reality. He let all his crazy ideas fly, and audiences took notice. The times may had changed, but there were still fans of this type of action. More important, new fans were drawn to this type of visual storytelling. Stainless actually gave audiences a more complete vision of what the original Carmageddon was about with Max Damage. They made no concessions. They did not tone it down, or make it more palatable for mainstream audiences. 

The studio did however have to wait 18 years, and develop a lot of smaller games before they could return to the series. In that time other companies came, and went. Many franchises grew. Stainless kept on rolling in obscurity. When the opportunity arose they got the crew back together, and gave it another go. Technology had finally caught up with their vision, they were able to push the limits on everything they had always wanted. I was not a fan of how the Kickstarter campaign was handled. I will not forgive the studio for their lack of transparency during that period. Yet at the same time I was satisfied with the final result. To this day fans, and community members keep modding, fixing, and tweaking the title. They hope that there might be another game on the horizon. They do this because no other game gives you the Carmageddon experience. Not GTA, not Burnout, not BeamNG Drive, and not Rocket League. I’d suggest that critics go back, and take a closer look. Max Damage deserves respect. It certainly deserves a new sequel. Credit is owed to Stainless Games for their contribution to the vehicle combat genre. They held true to their vision, and got lambasted by the critics for doing so. In a world where any remake is met with a suspicious eye Stainless Games never blinked.

I wish that reviewers would do more than blurt out a critical first impression. I wish that other game studios were as brave with their IP. Most important, I wish nothing but success to the people at Stainless Games. Here's to your continued success! Thank you for visiting this series. I greatly appreciate it. Do you have a favorite vehicle combat game? If so I'd like to hear about it in the comments. 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!

My favorite games of all time, the story of Carmageddon part 11...

When I got Carmageddon Max Damage my expectations were kind of low. They were pretty much nonexistent. I was thinking that it was going to look, and play as poorly as the reviewers had said. I thought to try it for a little bit, and if it was truly bad then I’d let the franchise go. I played through the PS4 version first, for about two months, then I got the Xbox One version. Of those two the Xbox One was superior, it ran at a faster frame rate, and it had better graphics all around. Of course I understand that the PC version runs much faster, and has the best graphics. But I took it for what it was; this was an attempt for Stainless Games to release a more complete Carmageddon Reincarnation for the home market. In case you enjoyed the original PC games, and have been thinking about picking it up let’s get you caught up. Most of the drivers, and their cars from the original game have returned. Absent are Burly Shirley, Agent Orange, Wanda Lust, OK Stimpson, and the Mech Maniac. Nora Virus represents the Auto Scum gang, she is driving the Razorbill. 

From the Splat Pack we had Rusk in the Degoryun, Mother Trucker and her Rig O’Mortis. Sadly none of the vehicles from Carmageddon II returned. Then there are the new faces; Roman and the futuristic Crazor truck, Twig N. Berries driving the Trope-Kill minivan, Nutkenz and the exotic Snaky Bastard, Ed Lesgar with the sporty KVN Toucan, and the Terrible Twins driving the jet-engine Siamese Dream. Of course you start the game with either Max Damage, or Die Anna in the Eagle, or Hawk. This time around you can freely switch between drivers. Destroying opponents still allows you to unlock their cars. Except for the police APC, which has to be earned by completing all the objectives for each main race. The PS4 version does not feature the angular Tez Eagle (much to my disappointment), or the Iron Hawk, which is sort of the Tez version for Die Anna. Both are in the Xbox One version. Besides that you can see that the latest versions of the main cars have a familiar look to them. They’re not numbered but instead have the “R” badge, I guess it stands for Racing edition, or is it Reincarnated? 

You can also tell that the studio continues the tradition to make each car look distinct. The Eagle being a heavier fighter, with the engine upfront, and the Hawk being more of a mid-engine speed machine. All of the cars were completely redone, but have the familiar paint job, look, and feel of the classics. The details on each ride is obscene. I’ve mentioned the working transmission, and suspension in the previous blogs. But the engines, and interiors are also just as detailed. I'm talking about spinning belts, and spark plug cables! Every car can be pulled apart completely, and of course restored on the fly. The little things really stand out from a physics perspective. At speed both the Eagle, and Hawk (plus a few other cars) have active aerodynamics. That is their tail fins rise up to give them more traction when they’re going fast, and can even act as air brakes to help them slow down. You would think this doesn’t actually cause drag, or affect aerodynamics in the game until you are in the middle of a jump. I discovered that popping open the doors, or activating the plow on Don Dumpsters ride, actually causes the vehicles to slow down, or change direction mid air. That is some fancy programming for sure!

Great physics aside. What actually surprised me at first was listening to the game. As soon as I started playing I had the eeriest sense of deja vu. In fact several stages in the game gave me the feeling that I had travelled back in time. The sounds of the menu, the announcer doing the countdown, saying “checkpoint,” the sounds of the car recovering were all pulled from the very first game. They instantly set the tone for the experience. I think the sound design really works best if you wear good headphones while playing. You can hear the ambient sounds of the stages. The different engine sounds, especially when they hit higher RPM's while using the Turbo, or Hot Rod power up. Even the sounds of tires deflating, the clank of metal treads, versus hard rubber for different rides. The people at Stainless Games made sure that every audible sound told the story alongside the visuals. This was going to be a classic game made brand new. It was not going to be an HD remake of the original. That was more or less what the iOS version was from a few years back. Everything in Max Damage was something different, yet familiar. Anything that was missing from the eyes of die-hard fans would be addressed by the modding community, such as the return of some classic big rigs.

Speaking of sounds, the music for the game was pretty on brand. I actually didn’t pay attention to it for the first month that I played the game. For whatever reason the mixing on the PS4 was terrible. Even when I went into the settings and turned down all the other sounds, and set the music to 100% I couldn’t really get the details of the soundtrack to come through. Eventually I went to YouTube to listen to it. I was blown away by what I heard. I certainly would have enjoyed the game much more if I could have heard it cranking on my speakers. Like the original Carmageddon the songs were mostly metal, and industrial tracks done by two groups; Morgue from Finland, and Maximum Sexy Pigeon from Australia. Big and Clever, Halls of Morgue, Revenge of the Titanic, and the Pig Welder are standout tracks. I enjoyed the music so much I jumped on BandCamp and bought their albums. I paid much more than the dollar or two they were asking for. The musicians certainly deserved some love seeing as how Sony didn’t bother to get them mixed right in the game. Everything sounded much better on the Xbox One, again especially with good headphones.

I found myself driving the first course through Bleak City almost by memory. The layout, buildings, locations, and distinct neighborhoods had all returned. Everything looked a thousand times better than before. Granted the placement of certain buildings was a bit different, but the studio had essentially remastered the stage. They added multiple side streets, and alleys which would be critical in escaping opponents, but certain power up barrels were in the exact same spot in the new game, as they were in the original. Long-time fans should remember which corner the pedestrian zapper power up was in the Bleak City Stadium. It made me appreciate all the details that Stainless was putting into the experience. Having an immersive world was one of the four elements that I consider makes a great game. The sheer variety of architecture really brought Bleak City to life. Pizza shops, restaurants, gas stations, factories, and even adult clubs were all represented. Understandably the limitations for PCs 20+ years ago made it so that cities lacked depth. They were mostly different polygon shapes, with a handful of textures applied to them. It could be easy to get lost looking at the same buildings over, and over. A good developer like Stainless could figure out how to make basic blocks appear like skyscrapers, and entire neighborhoods to race in.

The new Bleak City had a layer of wear that underscored the realism Stainless was shooting for. This was important to help pull audiences into the world of Carmageddon. In other sandbox environments the players could get out of the cars, and interact with the world. We don’t have that luxury in the tournament, but we can still explore. Not that it would make sense to get out of your car in the first place. Stainless was said to have contemplated that at some point during development. That’s great for GTA, but that’s not what this game is about. In order to put drivers in the moment Stainless had to convince them that these worlds were living. The devil was definitely in the details. There were weeds, and crab grass in the parks, which got churned up by tires as you drove over them. There were bags of trash, newspapers, cardboard boxes, plastic bottles, sofas, and appliances dumped in alley ways. Everything seemed destructible, even the cardboard boxes tore down, and folded flat under the cars as they plowed through. Water shot up if you sheared off a fire hydrant, traffic lights, and crossing signs lit up. Cans of soda fell off the hot dog carts when you bumped them. Street signs had unique names. In fact the street lights were different in different neighborhoods. They were Art Deco in the ritzy part of town, and rusty old poles in the industrial part of town. They shorted out if you ran over them, could be broken off, and the bulbs would even shatter when they hit the ground.

Bleak City had a completely different mood depending on what part of the map you were going through. The atmosphere, and visual effects were much better on the Xbox, and PC. With that said I was still happy with the graphics on the PS4. Again, remember that I said that frame rate, and graphics to me were not as important as the control, and game play. Familiar paths, and outlets returned for each stage, but with a ton of new ideas. Working bridges, shipping cranes, and elevators were added to the MagNuChem (sometimes written as Magnachem) Acid Ocean Reprocessing plant. New tunnels, secret paths, and ramps opened up the possibilities for combat, especially with multiplayer matches. Each of the returning locations filled me with a sense of nostalgia, but also with a sense of awe at all of the new material that Stainless had crammed into the world. The studio was very self-aware. They wanted audiences to recognize the callbacks they were doing to the first game. Little details like the name of the gas station (Gasso), the sponsors of the tournament CLANG, MAIM, and VLAD’s speed shop made me appreciate what Stainless had done. In a couple of stages you could actually find the original polygon models for several of the cars. Whether they were frozen in ice, or being window dressing in the 4x4 shop, Stainless never forgot where they came from.

There were many different levels returning for the game, including the arctic, and desert environments. Each filled with tons of new content, and details. The world building was tremendous in the game, as was the stage storytelling. Look for the "At the Mountains of Madness" inspiration in the arctic stage for proof. As for the game play itself. It still felt like Carmageddon. It took me only a moment to get used to the game pad instead of the keyboard. I learned how to fitness the triggers for the gas pedal, and the analog steering was on point. I was able to juggle between different power ups, and activate them on the fly using the shoulder buttons. The cars handled somewhere in between the Splat Pack, and Carmageddon II versions. The physics were improved, and the damage, and collision details were through the roof. If you want to get a sense to how violent the collisions were in this version try playing the game from the driver’s POV. To help get players to explore the maps Stainless put upgrade tokens throughout the stages. It was reminiscent of the hidden upgrades in Carma II. The difference was that you got to choose what you wanted to upgrade with your virtual tokens. Also there were “Smelly Bushes” hidden on the stages as well. These were supposed to be like the pine tree shaped air fresheners you might hang in your car, but of course they took on a sexual overtone in this game. Collecting these helped unlock the different skins for the vehicles. The one thing I didn’t appreciate was that some of the skins, and different wheels, could only be unlocked if you played online multiplayer. I never went online, and could imagine how frustrating it was for players that didn’t even have a decent internet connection.

Carmageddon Max Damage had already checked off the four criteria I had for a favorite game. It gave me an immersive world. The control was easy to use. The gameplay was original, and the music was icing on the cake. I hadn’t even mentioned the obscene amount of damage you could do to the pedestrians in the game. Stainless was in rare form as they set out to offend everyone equally. There were fat people, elderly people, athletic, skinny, homeless, and regular citizens of every shade. There were people riding bikes, or putting around on personal mobility scooters. There were even people using wheelchairs. Before you ask, yes, you could knock a person out of their wheelchair, and they would crawl on their arms trying to get away from you. You could also blow off their limbs, and watch them wriggle on the ground before bleeding to death. If the thought of that offends you then I shouldn’t bring up the penguins, coyotes, bears, sheep, and other animals that you could also do this too. The only thing off limits were kids. If there’s one thing that GTA, and Carmageddon had in common it was the lack of kids. I’m paraphrasing the President of Rockstar games when he said “kids should be in school during the daytime, and at home during the night. They should never be found wandering the streets.”

Pedestrians ran for their lives. Those that avoided getting hit were often soaked in the blood of those not as lucky. Carma now allowed you to commit war crimes as you could use poison gas against pedestrians. If you ran over ones having a breakdown, or were injured, you'd get a Mercy Killing bonus. It was truly compassionate for Stainless to do so. There was no kink shaming in the game either, as some people walked around in their lingerie, or danced with cows at the the strip club “Saggy Maggies.” Everybody had finally become an equal target in the universe. Although I don't remember seeing any nuns in the PS4 version. I did see them in the Xbox One. If this game had two steadfast rules those were; it was made in poor taste, and it was never meant for kids. To stick to its controversial reputation in 2016 the studio released the US Election Nightmare Special Edition. Which turned the pedestrians into Donald Trump, or Hilary Clinton. Each exploded in pools of either red blood, or blue blood depending on party affiliation. Even the Brits knew that the US was dealing with the least popular candidates in our history. Many of us would rather run them both over than let them run the country. 

The lessons learned from the first three games were visible in Max Damage. Capturing the look, and feel of the original Carmageddon was of course the goal. It was dark, futuristic, funny, naughty, and filled with mayhem. The studio just had to update the look, features, and control to match modern games. I believe that was accomplished for the most part in Reincarnation. From the Splat Pack they learned that multiplayer stages should be compact, have multiple escape routes, and be filled with lots of random power ups, those were in Max Damage. Also from the Splat Pack we saw that exotic, or even occult details on the stages, helped bring an element of the supernatural into this science fiction world. From Carmageddon II Stainless learned that cars could actually be too big. The rides had to be able to explore just about every inch of the stages. The Big Dump, and the Loggerhead from Carma II (as awesome as they were) would have had problems accessing many areas in Max Damage. There were still callouts to those massive rides in a couple of stages. The Rig O’Mortis diesel truck, towing a trailer was the measuring stick for every tight corner, and blind alley. Anything bigger than that would have broken the experience.

The studio also learned from Carma II that you could overpower your car, and kill the challenge. So they scaled back the upgrade purchases from 90 total slots to 15. It was much more like the original. To keep cars from being OP the studio put a cap in the Armor, Power, and Offense categories. They allowed for a maximum of 12 points to be spent on the cars, even though there were 5 slots available in each category. If you wanted the best engine, or armor, or offense, then you had to sacrifice points in a different slot. Not only that but each car required you to spend upgrade tokens on it. The upgrades didn’t transfer just because you stole a new car. Your prize money also didn’t count towards upgrades. It could however be used to purchase an in-game power up, and assign one of four d-pad buttons for easy access. There was a lot of replaying the stages, and seeking out hidden items to help earn the best parts for each ride. All of these things helped increase the replay value.

Stainless eliminated the mission objectives from Carma II as well. Instead each level was the host to a different type of game. Some had you chasing down certain pedestrians. Some had you going after checkpoints, destroying opponents, or completing laps first. The difficulty could be challenging at times, with opponents, and cops smashing you from all directions. It could be hard to get away, but that was also the reality of many fights in the original. I didn’t find any of the stages too difficult to complete on the normal setting. It had just the right challenge for long-time fans. I had previously mentioned the APC, and Subpressor were in the game. I’m not sure how the Subpressor control got past QA testing. or whether it was made intentionally hard to stop. The car skids like it’s on ice. It is impossible to stop on a dime, or do handbrake turns with. Even then it’s still fun to drive. The best surprise I had was learning that there were more than two types of police cars to unlock. A tiny little car known as the CU:NT (Compact Unit: Nil Threat) was added to the police arsenal. The car was about the size of a personal mobility scooter, and designed for community liaisons. It was included because Nobby was loaned a Smart car while his actual car was in the shop. He hated it so much that he insisted something as useless be added so that every player could have fun kicking it around. Using the car in the game was extremely difficult, and yet also fun. It was the equivalent of trying to beat a first person shooting game while using only a knife. 

The other vehicle was the BFG of the series. The Super Suppressor was absolutely massive. Imagine a rolling roadblock, towing a tank trailer! It added another strong female to the lineup, Agent Debbie O’Nuts. The first time I ran across it I had the same reaction to it as I did the Suppressor some 20+ years ago. I thought “what the hell is that?” before getting flattened by it. As with the original game, you couldn’t access the heaviest hitters until the final stages of the game. Even then beating them was a challenge all to itself. Carmageddon Max Damage was a fantastic game, but it was not without its perceived flaws. We will talk about those in the next, and final entry in this series. 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!

My favorite games of all time, the story of Carmageddon part 10...

For the Kickstarter backers there had been a growing sense of unease about the things they had been promised. Audiences knew that it might take weeks before they got their physical rewards. Some things had to be ordered from a local business, or from China where they would be manufactured, and shipped months later. Whether it was a survival kit, a card game, tee shirt, or other ephemera. These weeks turned into months, eventually stretched into years. Patrons began leaving queries on each Kickstarter update without getting too many responses from the studio. Of course some electronic rewards were available right away. People could access the beta trial, they could turn in their codes for games from Steam. One of the nice surprises came in the form of a comic book for certain backers. Concept artist Daniel Tejnicky had originally done a series of fan comics years ago. He was contacted by the studio to produce the art on an official comic. It was scripted by Neil (Nobby) Barnden. It filled in a lot of the back story for the new tournament, and helped flesh out the world of Carmageddon. Many of the details that audiences were noticing in the game levels were explained in the comics. The art was top-notch, and the comic was filled with gore, nudity, and crass humor. It was everything audiences could ask for. Unfortunately, the comic was not what thousands of sponsors had paid for.

A handful of concerned sponsors turned into dozens upon dozens calling out the studio with every Kickstarter post. Many had not gotten the physical rewards they had paid for. They were looking to get their money back, and many complained to both Kickstarter, and Stainless about it. It got to the point where Nobby had to post an update, and say they were going to look into the delays, and apologized for not being more proactive with physical rewards. The studio was running on a razor-thin budget, and crew. All hands were cranking on getting Reincarnation finished, and out the door. What the studio needed was a full time person handling the PR, and following up with all the clients. They didn’t have anybody for that, and as such many queries were left unanswered. Stainless completely ignored the backers asking about the Linux, and Mac ports that were promised. People still went to the Kickstarter page almost a decade after the campaign ended to call out the studio. The lack of transparency only served to build distrust in the studio, and the Kickstarter process.

There were many things that were out of Stainless’ control. For example one of the tiers was to receive a 3D printed model of the classic Eagle, and the TEZ Eagle. That was the one I had signed up for. Some people, mostly in England, posted that they had received their model. They said when it arrived it was tiny, and brittle, like a dry cracker. Very few received one that wasn’t misshapen. It turned out that the company responsible for printing them went out of business. They dumped a bunch off at Stainless after their promised date, and then disappeared. I never received the ones that I had paid for. It seemed that people outside of the UK, or the EU were out of luck as well. Other reward packages had gotten out. My wife’s with a tee shirt, and post cards did arrive eventually. There was no 100% guarantee for any sponsor, and Kickstarter had a policy asking that clients reach out to the publisher first to remedy any complaints. I knew that Kickstarter campaigns could sometimes be a gamble. I’d rather have my cash go into guaranteeing a new game, if it meant I might not get my physical rewards. I was willing to bite the bullet, but I knew that thousands of backers did not have that luxury.

Stainless Games moved forward as if backers weren’t growing despondent. The studio launched a website in 2012; Carmageddon.com, which is now closed. They posted news, new builds, hosted a forum, and shared links to mod updates. They proceeded with their business as if there wasn’t a problem for backers. It was disheartening knowing that hundreds of long-time fans were getting nowhere with the company. While at the same time the game was earning a new audience. We may never know if the studio didn’t actually care, or because they were advised by their lawyers not to say anything about the crowd funding. The Kickstarter campaign ended in May 2012, and Carmageddon Reincarnation came out for Steam in May 2015. In May 2013 Bullfrog studios founder Les Edgar invested an additional $3.5 million into the game to help with console development. He was rewarded with a playable character Ed Lesgar driving the KVN Toucan, a play on the TVR Tuscan. It was an incredibly tight development cycle, from a very small team. The title was also a flop in the eyes of critics, and audiences. Despite all of the advances in technology, and a return to form it seemed like too little, too late for the franchise. The studio redoubled their efforts, and released a version for the Xbox One, and Playstation 4 in July 2016. This version was a free update for PC’s called Carmageddon Max Damage. It added approximately 40% more content to Reincarnation. It too was snubbed by the gaming community. It seemed that they had moved on.

The studio seemed undeterred from the cold reception. They did not want to waste all of the work they had poured into rebuilding the franchise. There were literally thousands of assets that could be used to create new games on other platforms. One of those was Carmageddon Crashers, a mobile game that came out in August 2017. The mobile game featured the rides from Max Damage, with simple controls, and new gameplay. Instead of an open world game the title had players going head-to-head in drag races. This was not the type of drag racing where cars were side by side, the cars were literally heading at each other. What else could you expect from the franchise? The graphics were brilliant, with lots of details, cars to unlock, and upgrade. There was tremendous replay value here. Like many mobile games, it was the perfect way to spend time while waiting in a queue. The one thing Stainless did not say was when there would be another sequel. Things were quiet for about a year when THQ Nordic announced that they had acquired the rights to Carmageddon from Stainless in 2018. That news came to a shock for many in the community. They knew how hard the company had fought to build a franchise, lose it, get it back, only to have to see it go again.

Kickstarter backer Mikko Rasa summed up the theory for Stainless ghosting patrons, and then selling the IP. “I still suspect that the name change from Reincarnation from Max Damage was done so that somewhere down the line they can just drop the promises of delivering physical rewards and ports. After all, those were promised for Reincarnation, which at some point will be obsolete and no longer supported. Max Damage is a different game and no such promises have been made for it.” I’m not sure if there is any legal standing for Mikko’s assumptions. If THQ is on the hook for any broken promises, or what else might happen in the future because of the sale.

I did remember hearing something about the success of the original game, and how Stainless never hit the big time. The first Carmageddon sold about two million copies. Which was not bad for a developer that nobody had ever heard of. We did get the award-winning Splat Pack, and Carmageddon II, both of which also sold well. The studio was nebulous about what happened when they lost the rights. Whether they were contractual, legal, or other issues, it turned out that nobody on the team struck it rich. That was a damn shame. All of the bad press following Reincarnation, plus never getting my pledge rewards left me cold. I steered clear of the series for five years. Then on a whim I picked up Max Damage for the PS4. You couldn't blame me. Four years of dealing with Donald Trump, and an ongoing pandemic brought me to the brink... What I saw gave me a change of heart.

I remember reading things about how difficult the cars were to control, how crap the graphics were, how the physics were broken, how much the music sucked. Some even said this was nothing more than a prettier version of TDR 2000. After I actually sat down, and played through it I’m not sure what those people were griping about. Carmageddon Max Damage was so much better than they gave it credit for. I’m going to give my impressions on it 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!