My favorite games of all time, the story of Carmageddon part 2...

When the final version of Carmageddon was released in February 1997 it was so much greater than I could have anticipated. I brought the box purchased from CompUSA (ask your parents) into the computer lab early on a Saturday. I didn’t normally work weekends, thankfully we were only open for a half day. After we rushed the last student out we locked the lab doors, and fired it up, sitting through the opening cinema and getting hyped. The intro animation was burned into the memories of a generation. So much so that a fan recreated the opening using the in game camera of the latest version of the game. You can watch the original intro below, be forewarned, it mirrors the dark violence of the series.  

 

It turned out that not all of the cars, and features were available from the start. Which bummed us out, we were ready for multiplayer madness out of the box. It made sense from a game play standpoint. What was the point of playing if you had access to every level, and every car right away? You had to earn everything, as it was with all great games. It made me appreciate having to grind through the experience, and sharing everything I earned with the staff. I would gladly go through the game on breaks, and after work. Mastering every stage, and vehicle along the way. I even wrote up a 70-page strategy guide for my coworkers by taking screenshots, and writing tips for each level. I even included bios, and maps. I’m sure it’s saved on some Zip drives in my garage (again, ask you parents). If you’ve never played we should begin with the stars of the game. The biggest titles always had some sort of main character, or mascot that they could build a franchise around. Carmageddon was no different. Even though it was about vehicle combat the game had two stars; Max Damage, and Die Anna. Each with own signature car, the Hawk, and Eagle respectively. Think of the relationship between the characters, and their cars just like the stars in the Twisted Metal series. They were interconnected.

Max, and Die Anna were seen on the “Prat Cam” it was supposed to be the drivers in the cockpit reacting to the race. The two would laugh like maniacs as they ran over people, whip their head around after getting in a wreck, scream as they fell off of a building, and even swear under their breath. It gave a lot of personality to the characters, and added another layer of dark humor to an already absurd premise. At the start of the game the cars were nowhere near as fast, or as powerful as they were in the demo. They were easy to wreck, and could be pushed around by opponents, and police cars alike. Earning enough credits to power up the vehicles, and unlock opponents would test my patience. It turned out that the demo stage, and cars were approximately where the cars would have been at about 90% through the game. Their armor, their offense, and their engines had been heavily upgraded by that point. There were many miles of virtual racing to actually get to this point in the full release.

The game began with you ranked 99th in a tournament. Your goal was to finish every race in the series, and become #1. There were almost 40 levels in the game in which to accomplish your goal. Players could skip ranks depending on how many points were earned during each level. It was not uncommon to jump 7 ranks or more for a particularly violent contest. The specific how, and why the Carmageddon tournament was created was never fully explained. This was perfectly fine, as audiences were left to fill in the blanks. Between the opening cinema, and clues picked up from the races we could gather all the information we needed. The tournament was held all around the world, and only the most dangerous racers were invited. These included murderers, celebrities, gang members, cops, and even robots. When races took place in a city, the outskirts, and main roads were walled off. Anyone that remained inside was left to fend for themselves. Other stages were set on an island, or enclosed circuit. This was also not a post-apocalyptic race for survival. You could never mistake the locations for the wastelands of the Mad Max universe. The Carma world was set in living, breathing factories, towns, and vacation resorts. The tournament was a violent satire of the real world. Take it as a futuristic gladiator battle, broadcast to the masses to appease their blood lust.

The rules for the tournament were simple. Each race could be won in three ways, you could complete the required laps, destroy all of the opponents, or kill every pedestrian on the map. The third was the most difficult, but also potentially worth the most points, and prestige. The opponents themselves were a cross section of archetypes, and stereotypes from pop culture. You can imagine that the Black community did not like the representation in the game. There was the pimp-coded Otis P. Jivefunk, and his leopard print top “Caddy Fat Cat.” To be fair the Caddy Fat Cat was the car I used most often in the game. It was fast, heavy, and could take a lot of damage. Then there was the former football star-turned-murderer OK Stimpson, driving a “Fraud Broko.” For those that don’t know the story he was based on; former pro football star O.J. Simpson killed his ex-wife, and her boyfriend in 1994. He was caught in a Ford Bronco during a slow speed pursuit as he tried to flee the country. I would argue that Stainless Games wasn’t making fun of one ethnic group as much as every person in the game was an ugly parody. Also Stainless admits that they pre-censored themselves. They had men, women, cops, and elderly people that you could run over in the game. Artist Terry Lane put his foot down when they said pregnant women should be pedestrians too. They were also mindful that if they had Black pedestrians the racists would go out of their way to only run them over. So they made all the pedestrians white in the first game. They wanted audiences to know that all pedestrians were equal targets in their world. Black, and brown pedestrians, as well as better Black driver archetypes would appear in the sequel.

These drivers, as offensive as they were, and their respective vehicles did not all show up right away. As with all great game design, the opponent rides were equal to, or slightly better than the Hawk, and Eagle at the start of the game. Early races were long, drawn out battles. Opponents smothered players at every turn. Throw in the police which were randomly dispersed through each stage, and the car battles became harder. Only by winning races and increasing your stats could you hope to make the later stages any easier. To balance out the game more difficult opponents would join the tournament as players increased in rank, and as their car became faster, and stronger. Every opponent vehicle had its own strengths and weaknesses. Some were blindingly fast, some were heavily armored, but all could potentially be unlocked. In order to do so you had to outrank your opponents, and destroy them in the level. Once acquired you could drive that specific car, and also increase its armor, offense, and engine. Every vehicle in the game was unique with the exception of Halfwit Harry, and his sister Burly Shirley. Harry, and Shirley had a respective green, or pink Hummer-type off roader. In any instance the diversity of vehicle types, the way they controlled, and benefits really gave Carmageddon a lot of replay value. Some of the cars were labeled Cheat, not necessarily because they had an outright advantage, but because unlocking them seemed to be more random than other cars.

The full version of the game also meant that we had a soundtrack to play along with. Original music was one one of my elements of great game design. Carma did not disappoint. So what kind of music went well with all of that mayhem? We needed something that could get the adrenaline pumping right away. So it was heavy metal of course! Not just any type of metal, but industrial, and electronic. The tempo, and riffs hit like a punch to the chest. They seemed to go very well to create an aggressive, yet also futuristic atmosphere. The biggest name on the soundtrack was Fear Factory. Three of their songs appeared in the game, including Zero Signal, which was also on the Mortal Kombat movie soundtrack. Composer Lee Groves had several tracks as well, which complimented the themes of the major areas of the games. These included “industrial, coastal, desert, and winter wonderland.” Stainless sound designer, and composer Chris Melchior had a few tracks, including music on the expansion as well. The music, screaming peds, explosions, and collisions all blended perfectly. They audibly brought audiences much deeper into this world.

The sudden increase in car types, and multiplayer game modes went over great at work. The other lab techs also began using their break time to get better at Carma, and learn which cars were most advantageous. We began setting parameters on which vehicles were allowed in certain game modes. Some cars were banned outright because they were simply too powerful, or because they had some other unfair property. Stella Stunna for example, a rubber-clad sadist, drove “Electric Blue.” Her car had a built in Electro-Bastard Ray. This was normally a power up that only lasted for a few seconds in other cars. For Stella it was permanently enabled, and could zap pedestrians with a bolt of lighting from up to 10 meters away. This meant that she could easily rack up points in multiplayer games, and power up her vehicle on the fly. This left no pedestrians for the rest of the players.

The other car that was banned from competition was The Suppressor. In the game, as in real life, the cops had access to the biggest and baddest vehicles. The squad car in Carmageddon weighed almost 3 tons, and could go 150mph. It much closer to a supercharged armored personnel carrier rather than the traditional cop car. A group of them could turn any stage into a nightmare, With about 90% of the game complete players would have earned heavy-hitters that could eventually take out a squad car. However the supreme heavy hitter in the game was called The Suppressor, piloted by Police Chief Biggun. It weighed 5 tons, and could reach 250mph. The first time I saw it was actually on the stage featured in the demo. You can imagine my surprise. I was going through the route that I had raced hundreds of times before. I reached the top of a skyscraper, and it was waiting where no cops were previously. I had a fraction of a second to ask myself “what the hell is that?” Before it ran me off the roof and destroyed me with a couple of hits.

I fought tooth and nail against the Suppressor again, and again with different rides until I was able to unlock it. My favorite heavy-hitter was the Plow, a four wheel drive bulldozer formally piloted by Don Dumpster. I used that to great effect against the cops in the game. In LAN matches when using the Plow I would sign in as El Don. Once the Suppressor was in the garage the rest of the game played relatively easily. Again traditional game design dictated that the best weapons were only accessible near the end of the title, otherwise the experience would have felt cheap. The team at Stainless Games knew what they were doing. They even went so far as to highlight it as the vehicle you were rewarded with in the final game cinema. During the awards ceremony the organizers of the tournament are presenting a trophy to an unknown driver. Then in the dark a six-wheeled beast rides up the podium, and flattens everyone, including the cup. I suppose the lesson for Carma was never was about becoming the best, it was about the enemies killed along the way... We were having an absolute blast at work. With the exception of Stella, and Chief Biggun, all of the cars were fair game in multiplayer modes. Depending on my competition I would choose the car that would be the biggest nightmare for them. This frustrated my coworkers to no end. For every one game they won I would often win the next eight. 

   

The end of the semester tournaments were even more exciting now. Not only that, but as our computer lab expanded, we had more hires that were becoming solid players. The bigger labs also meant that we were getting more attention from other departments looking to create their own computer labs. Carol was our Dean, and would show our labs off to other college admins. This included the VP, and President Carol stopped by for the end of the semester party one year. She was always a bubbly presence, and welcome whenever she visited. She wanted to sit in on our tournament, and see what the fuss was about. The boss lady Alison wasn’t too sure about it, but I insisted. Carol gasped when she found out the game was about racing, and running over pedestrians. After the initial shock wore off she asked, “is it okay if I try it?” We had her sit down, and watched as she drove around the virtual block a few times. She screamed when she began running over pedestrians, “oh no, oh no!” Then she began giggling as she started running into other drivers. After a few minutes she was red in the face from laughing at the mayhem she had participated in. She assured Alison, and even Phyllis our department head, that the game was as much fun as advertised. From that moment on we would be sure to invite her to the tournament each semester. She would decline, but asked that we enjoy ourselves. I can’t imagine that any other college had an administrator that was half as cool. Carol eventually became a Dean at an even bigger college. She retired years ago, but we stay in touch on Facebook.

It turned out that as other departments opened up their own computer labs they were eager to hire our staff. In a few instances they had poached talent from our labs. Carol, Phyllis, and Alison met with the other departments. They said they did not mind sharing talent, or having lab techs train alongside us for a few weeks so they could get up to speed. Poaching our team was not a good look. I remained with our department because as I discovered from my friends in IT that the other labs had far more restrictions than we had. They had their computers on lock down. No games, no demos, no fun. The IT department mostly left us to our own devices because we were good at maintaining our own systems, updates, and security. When I wasn’t playing the game I was researching it. I learned lots about Carma from the game forums, including how it was made. It turned out that there was a huge challenge in trying to get it published. It made me appreciate it that much more. We’re going to look at why nobody was willing to sell Stainless a license in the next entry. 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 1...

I was reminded about one of my favorite games of all time recently, and I decided to do a blog about it. As I started to think about what to say it dawned on me that the game deserved so much more than a single post. A lifetime ago I created a series on 1UP covering my favorite games. Each Friday for 20 weeks I unveiled the most important games to me. The criteria was simple. If I was stuck on a deserted island, and could only play one game for the rest of my days which one would it be? Most of my friends, and family knew what the number one game was. The fun part was guessing what the other nineteen would be. Instead of just reposting the series here, as I had with other classic entries, I decided to review the list. Perhaps it was time to rewrite it, change the order of games, or even replace some entirely. I would be starting in the middle of my list, game #5 to be precise. It was important to do a deep dive, and put this game in context rather than just highlight a few points with some screen shots. I think that is something that is missing with a lot of games journalism. Many are quick to drop a review, or do a making-of series, but they don’t put the game in context. I think it’s important that people know about the market, what their contemporaries were doing, or even what was happening in the world at the time. I plan on doing the same for all the other games that I consider my favorites. So let’s get into it.

Chances are you’ve heard of the game Carmageddon. Maybe you’ve played it, maybe you even have a mobile version on your phone right now. Or maybe you weren’t even born when the series came out. Anything is possible, so let me try to explain why this game was special to me. I have a list of Four Elements that make a great game, if you can hit all four points simultaneously then you have the perfect title. My four rules are: Control is king, Create an Immersive World, Make this an Original Experience, and the Music must be icing on the cake. The first rule is simple, you can have a game with so-so graphics, and art design, but if the control is rock solid then I am in 100%. The visuals aren’t as important to me. Creating an immersive world means just that. Show, and don’t tell me about this world. Can I pick up clues about this world just by looking, and exploring? What shaped it, how long has it been there? If the game can do this without having it explained in lengthy cut scenes then I’ll fall right into it.

Another important question I ask about the title. Is this an original experience? Is the game doing something that has rarely, if ever, been attempted? To put it in other words, does this have original game play? Lots of games try new material, and fail. It’s hard to get publishers to take a risk on a new idea, rather than a sequel. When the studio tries something new, and gets it right however, the whole world pays attention. Lastly, does the music, and does the sound design help with the experience? Having a bunch of songs from pop artists, or celebrity voice actors in a game does nothing for me really. Sometimes original music, or non-mainstream music gets the most effective response. Every game on my favorites list has these four elements, the degree of how much each element comes through helps make a good game become excellent. Carmageddon does a smashing job (no pun intended) of getting all of the elements right.

I would have laughed if you told me while I was growing up that one of my favorite games of all time would be on the PC. It was an impossible idea. Nobody in my family, or extended family owned one. Computers were for rich people. My brothers, and I were mostly console players. Our parents made just enough to afford a small apartment, and get a console every few years, and a handful of games which we all had to share. Like many Gen-Xers we grew up at the literal dawn of the console. Our first system was the Atari 2600. This was followed by the NES, Genesis, SuperNintendo, Nintendo64, Saturn, GameCube, Dreamcast, Playstation, Xbox, Wii… well you get the idea. We had almost all of the major consoles at one point, or another, including several portable systems. We also had a local arcade so we considered ourselves well-rounded game players. The one thing we never had was a PC. Those were for our rich friends. A $1000 PC was simply out of the question for a family of modest means. Thankfully when we visited our friends in middle school, and high school we got a chance to try out the hottest PC games. When we entered college it was the first time that computers were freely accessible to us. That was the moment that everything changed for me as a game player.

I spent a lot of time in the computer lab doing tons of writing for my history, English, journalism, anthropology, and creative writing classes. The lab techs were mostly in the university, and working part-time in the computer lab as well. They showed me how to use the PC, and Mac computers. Each day my head was overflowing with new ideas. My teachers were amazing in class, but I’d learn a lot of new things from the computer techs as well. The lab coordinator was an amazing lady named Alison. She would see me there every day doing homework, and she noticed that I’d help the people that came into the lab that didn’t know how to work a computer. I had such a natural calm disposition that she offered me a job. I thought she was joking, until a few months later when she asked me again to work for her. I couldn’t believe I was being offered a part-time job to essentially do my homework, and help the occasional student with questions. I accepted, and it was a crash course in learning the other programs on the Mac, and PC that I would have to help with. Over time my brothers were also hired in the labs. One of my favorite resources was a magazine called MacAddict. It wasn’t as stuffy as the other Mac magazines. It was definitely written for my demographic. It helped me learn the ins-and-outs of the system. Plus it came with a demo CD. Each month I’d get to check out some tools, and apps. Some were useful for work, most were garbage. Of course the best part were the game demos.

My world of gaming had expanded exponentially thanks to the lab. Mac, and PC demos were now available to my brothers, and I. We learned of new titles months in advance, we got hands-on time with games that helped shape various genres. Including what we thought were smaller studios that would eventually change the world. One of those was a company called Bungie. People were familiar with the first person shooter (FPS) thanks to games by id studio. Titles like Wolfenstein 3D (1992), and Doom (1993) were familiar to us. My brothers, and I got to play the PC versions when we visited our friends in high school. After high school, as the FPS genre evolved we were able to try out demos, and eventually full titles for games like Marathon (1994), and Quake (1996) in the college computer lab. Sometimes we’d get the console version, and sometimes we were content that we got to experience the computer-exclusive. Our friends that were console purists had no idea what they were missing out on. We had friends that swore up, and down that Nintendo was the only company that could make great games. We had Playstation fans that pledged allegiance to Sony, even though they had barely entered the market. My brothers knew that the world of gaming was so much bigger than they could have known, if only they tried out all of these awesome games. Oni, also by Bungi was one of the last demos we played. Most of the lab techs finished university, by 2001 or had transferred. Halo was originally announced for the Mac, which made us happy. When Microsoft bought out Bungie, and made Halo an Xbox exclusive we knew the console wars of our adult years would never be the same.

In the mid ‘90s there wasn’t a Steam Store, the internet was restricted to dial-up modems at home. Rich kids maybe had fiber, or ISDN so their dad could work at home. So there was not really a way to download game demos. Physical media was important, and demos came on CD which were included with most magazines. This was true for console games as well. I remember when the college was connected to the internet, starting with the library, our building. That was another momentous change for my gaming experience. But I digress… One of the MacAddict issues had a demo for something called Carmageddon. I ran it on one of our computers after the lab closed, and I was hooked right away. As a console player the game pad was everything. I was never used to keyboards to control the action. Even games that used a joystick connected to the computer seemed awkward to me. In a matter of moments I got familiar with driving the car in the game, and even moving the camera around without a game pad. The 3D in the game was revolutionary at the time. Yes, the Playstation, N64, and Saturn were already out. They were doing decent 3D games, but the Mac, and PC were on another level. The complexity of the models, the textures, physics, lighting, and effects were well above what home consoles could do at the time. As much fun as I was having it was also maddening playing the demo. Like most demos it was timed. After 4 minutes the game would exit back to the main menu. I reloaded the demo again, and again, hour after hour, day after day. I played the demo more than any other preview we had gotten at the time. I got my brothers, and coworkers hooked on it as well. We all knew that when the game was officially released we would be getting it.

It seemed like forever until the final game did come out. Until then I scoured the internet for anything I could find on the game. Thankfully there was a website, and news on the game. I researched everything I could about the title, about the studios creating it. I had never heard of the developer Stainless Software, or the publisher SCi. I began visiting game forums, and seeing the reaction of other players. It seemed that those lucky enough to get the demo were having a blast as well. There were many countries that hadn’t gotten it yet, because of the violent content. They were eager to see what the fuss was about. One the forums I found showed players how to make an image of the demo off of the CD, and save it to the computer. Even better there was a way to disable the time lock. With this knowledge I ended up making copies of the demo for my coworkers, and they happily installed it on all the systems in the lab. Now we could play on any computer we wanted, as much as we wanted.

The demo gave players just enough time to do a lap on “Blood on the Rooftops.” One of the latter stages in the game. I got to the point where I could run the entire course very quickly, and didn’t have to waste my 4 minutes. Without a time limit I ended up exploring every square inch of the map. Learning where all the streets, and alleys intersected. I learned which ramps could take me to the tops of every skyscraper. I managed to reach the elevated train track, that I had thought was impossible to access before. I memorized every group of pedestrians, every power up on that map. These were important because in the actual game you only started with a minute, or two on the countdown clock. The only way to earn more time was to run over pedestrians, about 15 seconds per person. The old joke between teenagers driving, and saying that running over this person was worth so many points had come true. Wiping out a group earned a bonus multiplier, as did creative ways of splatting pedestrians. Dropping on them from above, smearing them against a wall, scaring them with a horn honk before the kill were all rewarded behavior. It was raucous, and everyone in the lab that tried it loved it despite the dark material.

The control was rock solid, capturing one of the important elements that I had talked about earlier. If I had to describe the actual game play I would say that Carmageddon was the definition of the impossible racer. The physics were groundbreaking. The cars acted as if they had weight, and heft, especially at speed. They all handled realistically, more or less. It was what the cars that were capable of that made the game so much fun. The vehicles were almost indestructible. In any other game a car that hits a wall at 300 mph would explode. In Carmageddon it might just crumple the body a little. The vehicles behaved like Hot Wheel toys being thrown around a freshly mopped kitchen floor. Ram them as hard as you want, and they’ll keep coming back for more. Instead of orange plastic tracks, or a stack of books acting as a ramp the game featured some of the most fantastic levels ever designed. These courses had tunnels, massive jumps, chicanes, and drop offs. The cars could even operate under water, in acid, toxic waste, snow, and lava. Some stages 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 in the air was 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, many fans shortened it to “Carma,” is something that seems to be universally appreciated by people that tried it. The more people you could get to join the game the better it became. Within a few minutes any person that I introduced the game to was shouting "holy shit" at every crazed jump, and high speed wipeout. People often say that Carma would be perfect if only it had weapons, like the Twisted Metal series by Sony. I say they are missing the point. The cars are the weapons, the diversity of cars you can drive, are akin to the different guns in any first person shooter (FPS). In Twisted Metal the vehicles didn’t behave like cars at all, they acted like FPS characters. They bounced around the screen, automatically flipped themselves over, and did lots of impossible things. The mass and momentum of real cars took a literal back seat, and that was fine. The designers at SingleTrac didn’t want to slow down the game play with the experience they wanted to capture. Carmageddon is more focused on the vehicles. The car destruction is everything, but not the only thing. There is no more rewarding experience than catching up to a race in progress and wiping out the opponents with a runaway plow. Or dropping down on an unsuspecting rival that is hobbling on its last three wheels.

There was much more to Carma than a demolition derby. There were the power ups to learn about. Scattered all over the stage were red, blue, yellow, and black barrels. If you ran over them they rewarded you with a random power up. Some only gave you extra points, or time. Some made pedestrians explode, or go blind temporarily. Other barrels changed the physics, and behavior of your car. For example some made it so your wheels had no traction, as if they were coated in oil. Some made your car as dense as granite so that even the smallest car could send opponents flying. Other power ups changed the physics of the world, so all of the cars floated as if they were on the moon, or they scraped the ground as if they were rolling on the surface of Jupiter. Again, these power ups lasted only a few seconds so that they wouldn’t kill the experience. Even better, they would regenerate after several minutes. Learning the placement of specific barrels would become critical in multiplayer games. The original game did not support online play, like most of its PC predecessors multiplay was achieved via local area network (LAN).

I ended up hosting Carmageddon LAN parties in our computer lab even before the final game was released. I would buy little prizes through the semester, and at the end of the quarter would host a tournament. Using the demo we would  go to one of the available computers, and all start at the same time. We would have a race to complete the required laps. I would run my computer on the projector, so everyone could see where I was at any point. Later on as the technology in the lab changed I could broadcast random players on the screen. The winners would get a gift card, music CD, or Hot Wheels car to celebrate the occasion. This was on top of the soda, and pizza provided by Alison. Did I forget to mention what a great boss she was? It was a great way to let off steam after a season of hard work, as well dealing with rude teachers, and students. I often took myself out of the competition because I was too good at the game. All that extra time I put in with it really paid off. My coworkers said that would change once the final version was released. I looked forward to the challenge.

Our world was about to change when the full version was released. Would our boss, and even department head allow one of the most controversial games of all time continue to be played at school? What would happen when the Dean of the college found out what we were up to? I will talk about all that 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!