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 9...

Stainless had already started work on Carmageddon Reincarnation before the Kickstarter campaign in 2012. They needed to have a proof of concept, or at the very least a few renderings, if not a partial engine built in order to get investors on board. The art, and models of the Tez Eagle were just the beginning. The studio wanted to make sure that the next game took advantage of all the processing powers of modern PCs. This included physics, lighting, textures, environments, and other visual flair. Some pre-alpha footage was ready for the campaign kick off. The studio would show off progress, without giving away any real secrets on the Kickstarter updates. Not that they were excluding the backers. They were actually allowed to take part in the beta process. Crowd sourcing some of the QA, and online multiplayer testing in the process was an added benefit of self-publishing.

Speaking of the visuals. The studio had a goal to give every character a complete rebuild from the ground up. Working closely with Doug Telford’s new character art, the studio modeled actual bodies for every driver in the game. The last time the company did this was in 1998. The graphics engine didn’t really support unique driver models in Carmageddon II. The drivers were a universal shape, wrapped in a different texture. The humans in Reincarnation had different builds, from the obese like Don Dumpster, the malformed Stig O’Sore, to the paraplegic Screwie Lewie. Even the robot Ed 101 got an actual metallic body. Each driver was wrapped in high resolution textures, and had basic animations. They really came through if you were playing the game from the driver’s point of view. You could see opponents turn their heads, move their shoulders, and steer in close combat. In a high speed wreck both the player, and their opponent could go sailing through the windshield. It was a violent, yet amazing accomplishment from a technological perspective.

All of the technology for Reincarnation was ground breaking. Stainless Games did shop around for off the shelf physics, or graphics software that they could use. It would help streamline production, and help with budget costs. Unfortunately there was nothing on the market that did what they wanted. So as they had in the past, they built it themselves. From 2012 through 2015 each revision of their physics engine became greater, and greater. The vehicle damage engine was quite amazing. It would be studied, if not used by other studios. The cars themselves were built from individual parts that could be deformed, or even broken off depending on the severity of a hit. It was similar to what the studio had achieved in Carmageddon II. Only this time each car had a thousand times the detail, and complexity. How advanced was this technology? A tire could actually be deflated. It would flex, and fold realistically, spinning on the hub. It could also slide off the rim completely. This would affect the performance of the car in real time. Nothing like that would have been possible 15 years prior.

As if writing the book on vehicle damage wasn’t enough, the studio also rewrote the book on in game suspension. If you were to take a good look at the vehicle suspension for the cast you would be amazed at how realistic they were. This included the tank models. Shock absorbers, and coil springs actually compressed, and extended. The drivetrain rotated, and axels turned in realistically too. To be fair the car physics in other games had been done realistically as well. Yet those cars rarely had exposed suspensions. In this game you would be able to shear off a fender, expose the frame, and see the shock absorbers still working. It was an obscene amount of detail, but one which helped the cars perform better than in any other vehicle combat game. The team seemed to be working from a checklist of things that they always wanted to put in their game. Full 3D driver models? Check! Realistic vehicle deformation? Check! Realistic physics? Check! Working suspension? Check! What else was there on the list that they needed to address? Ah yes, they had always wanted to get trailers working properly. You could almost get a sense of shame from the incomplete Tanka they included in the original release. The studio would avenge themselves.

Not only were trailers supported, but every car could pull almost any trailer that was parked on a side street. Some of these trailers were empty, some were loaded with pipes, and barriers. Some were campers that actually had interiors. These all mirrored the car physics. Their tires could go flat, their panels could be broken off, or deformed. The items they were carrying could call off. To hook one up all a player had to do was back into one. Then whenever they wanted they could detach the trailer with the press of a button. They helped absorb the blows from opponents ramming from behind. They also came in handy when they were swung at opponents, or pedestrians while going at high speed. If only the revised Tanka had been included in the game. Thankfully Toshiba Core created a mod for it so that players could download it, and add it to the lineup. As much progress as the studio made they still had a ways to go before completing the checklist. Some of the things they accomplished in this Reincarnation weren’t really stated outright. They were mentioned as a feature in new car. One of their goals was the inclusion of a functional jet car.

There are three jet-powered rides in Carmageddon Reincarnation, but only one of which completes a dream they had since 1998. Nobby, and the team knew their cars, and their car history. It was how they were able to create a massive library of rides within the first three titles they developed. One of their stated goals in Carmageddon II was a working jet car. The texture of a jet exhaust on the back of Vlad’s Annihilator from the original game didn’t count. The studio was inspired by the atomic age promises of General Motors. Stainless Games said in Carmageddon II you would be able to drive this car by pedestrians, and they would catch fire from the exhaust. They also said that the sonic shockwaves from the Street Machine driven by Wide Boy would blow up pedestrians. I was excited by the possibility. To me it was as interesting as Ed 101’s flying concept car. When I was able to purchase Jenny Taylia’s (oh grow up now!) Jetcar in game the afterburner was negligible. Yes the car really took off like a rocket, and handled as well as a car from the ‘50s would have, but the promises of combusting pedestrians wasn’t there. Whether I drove by the peds quickly, or slowly it didn’t matter. I literally had to back into one in order for anything to happen. Of course it was impossible for victims to just stand around waiting to get run over. Nobby had an absolutely mad idea for Reincarnation. He wanted a huge turbine wedged in between two separate cockpits. To complete the theme there would be two pilots.

In typical Stainless fashion it wasn’t enough that there were two separate fuselages, and pilots. The drivers, the Terrible Twins, were formerly conjoined. They had an operation that had separated them. Yet their flight suits had a zipper to allow them to reconnect. It was bizarre, and yet it fit in perfectly with all the other weird characters in the series. The Siamese Dream was actually based on the Silver Fox concept car by Officina Stampaggio Industriale (OSI). The company wanted to set speed records using their uniquely aerodynamic body. They even wanted to get it into the 24 hours at LeMans in the late ’60s. Nobby never forgot this odd car, and came up with the idea for the Terrible Twins as well. Their disproportioned bodies were mirrored in the actual model. Each fuselage was from a different jet, so that the car was slightly asymmetrical. The ride height was matched by different sized tires, and landing gear. It handled as well as you could imagine a jet car would. It screamed in a straight line, but turning was tricky. You had to learn how to work the throttle, and not give it too much power. The massive intake insured that any pedestrians nearby would be sucked up. They would be cut to pieces by the front splitter, or when they hit the fans. Any close to the exhaust caught fire. You could leave a trail of burning corpses in your wake as you plowed through the streets. I could imagine the satisfaction that the studio had when the Siamese Dream came to life. It was clearly a front-runner for the best new ride in the game. Now if only they could invent a car whose speakers were loud enough to explode nearby pedestrians… but I digress.

Stainless never forgot the demand that fans had for the armored police vehicles from the first game. Carmageddon II had standard police cruisers, and it really wasn’t the same. They didn’t fit in the science fiction future of the series. The newly minted police units for Reincarnation were some of the best updates in an already great library. Something that audiences noticed was that the new heavy hitter did not have six wheel like the original model, not only that but the name had been changed from Suppressor to Subpressor. This was a surprise because from the earliest Carmageddon Reincarnation art the six wheeled version was promised, and now the studio would be cheating fans. The reason for this change was due to the physics engine. According to modding community member Alex Darby “The engine's car physics simulation was initially developed in conjunction with the Pro Drive rally team for a realistic rally simulation. As such the simulation seemed to be designed solely around 4 wheeled vehicles and not having to support arbitrary numbers of wheels obviously made it a lot simpler and more efficient to develop. It was an oversight that it wasn't changed earlier in C:R's development, which Nobby obviously was very annoyed about when he found out as the Suppressor was always in the game's specs.” This news actually made a lot of sense because of how the cars responded in the game. 

Each vehicle was all-wheel drive in Reincarnation. That is to say that all four wheels had the power to move the car. In the original game they were rear wheel drive. Cars could sometimes be stuck trying to climb a steep angle as the rear wheels spun. In Reincarnation if a car was cleanly cut in half, lengthwise or widthwise it would still be able to steer, and drive. Audiences appreciated this update, but they wanted the six-wheeled beast they had known. Once again the modding community came to the rescue. The fantastic render from Alex (TEZ) Tsekot was adapted for the game. The new build of the Suppressor was awe-inspiring. It took more than three years for all of this work to appear in game. During that time backers were trying out new builds in the beta test group. Despite early access, there was a problem rising in the Kickstarter community. Fans were beginning to show displeasure for Stainless Games. Their shouts became louder, and could not be ignored once Reincarnation went live. The studio was accused of defrauding many of the backers. We will talk about the fallout this caused 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!

My favorite games of all time, the story of Carmageddon part 6...

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!

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!