Carmageddon
Harder Than French Kissing a Cobra
What happens when
you combine the arcade insanity of Midtown Madness with the lust for
blood of GTA? Basically Twisted Metal for the PC (Even though that game
had been ported from the PlayStation to the PC as well)! A arcade game
for those that want to paint the streets red with blood. It's Midtown
Madness for those who love Itchy And Scratchy.
I played a lot of Carmageddon back in the day. It was very intense. With that said, their isn't that much to say about the game plot-wise. It's basically a vehicular combat game where you destroy over vehicles and run over pedestrians for points. Their plenty of violence, but it's way over the top and unrealistic, like that of 80's action movies.
Carmageddon was developed by Stainless Software, and published by SCI and Interplay. The Wikipedia page about SCI revealed a very interesting origin story about Carmageddon. Stainless Software started working on a game similar to what would become Demolition Derby which was published by Psygnosis. SCI liked the idea of publishing a vehicular combat game, so they contracted Stainless Software to make it. However, one of the conditions of the deal was that they had to secure a movie license for marketing reasons. SCI originally petitioned for the Mad Max movie license, but they were unable to find out owned it. Eventually the license for Death Race 2000 was secured.
Death Race 2000, released in 1975, was a movie based around a trans-continental race filled with mayhem, with the drivers scoring points for running over pedestrians. Roger Ebert gave the movie 0 stars when he reviewed it. Since then, Death Race 2000 has gained a cult following, and is a direct inspiration of Carmageddon. To differentiate the game from Destruction Derby, which became a massive hit on the PlayStation, the developers of Stainless allowed the ability for the driver to run over pedestrians as well for points. This was done to arouse controversy as well.
Even though the Death Race license wasn't used, SCI was so impressed with Stainless Software's work that they decided to market and release the game anyway under the Carmageddon name. It's often said that controversy is the best free publicity, as it insures notoriety, and thus, sales. This game attracted a lot of attention at release. Carmageddon would have been forgotten at the time if it wasn't for the controversy that it stirred. Because of the attention that it got, many who otherwise wouldn't have heard about the game were curious now, insuring its sales. This should be a lesson for parents to take. If you make a massive stink and uproar about something, your giving that game far more exposure than it wouldn't have gotten. It's counter-productive!
Carmageddon was released in 1997 for MS-DOS, Windows, and MacOS, and released shortly thereafter on the PlayStation and N64 as well. The MS-DOS port of the game was one of the few DOS games that supported the 3DFX Voodoo graphics accelerator. Not surprisingly, the game caused a lot of controversy at release, along with contemporaries like GTA. The game was censored in Germany and the UK. In some versions, the pedestrians were replaced with zombies with green blood or robots that leak motor oil when hit. The game was banned entirely in Brazil. It was released here and in Australia with the "M" rating.
With the Internet proliferating during this time, for those living in other countries that had the censored version of the game, it was possible to download a "Blood Pack" that restored the human pedestrians and the red blood effects as in the original retail PC version.
I played a lot of Carmageddon back in the day. It was very intense. With that said, their isn't that much to say about the game plot-wise. It's basically a vehicular combat game where you destroy over vehicles and run over pedestrians for points. Their plenty of violence, but it's way over the top and unrealistic, like that of 80's action movies.
Carmageddon was developed by Stainless Software, and published by SCI and Interplay. The Wikipedia page about SCI revealed a very interesting origin story about Carmageddon. Stainless Software started working on a game similar to what would become Demolition Derby which was published by Psygnosis. SCI liked the idea of publishing a vehicular combat game, so they contracted Stainless Software to make it. However, one of the conditions of the deal was that they had to secure a movie license for marketing reasons. SCI originally petitioned for the Mad Max movie license, but they were unable to find out owned it. Eventually the license for Death Race 2000 was secured.
Death Race 2000, released in 1975, was a movie based around a trans-continental race filled with mayhem, with the drivers scoring points for running over pedestrians. Roger Ebert gave the movie 0 stars when he reviewed it. Since then, Death Race 2000 has gained a cult following, and is a direct inspiration of Carmageddon. To differentiate the game from Destruction Derby, which became a massive hit on the PlayStation, the developers of Stainless allowed the ability for the driver to run over pedestrians as well for points. This was done to arouse controversy as well.
Even though the Death Race license wasn't used, SCI was so impressed with Stainless Software's work that they decided to market and release the game anyway under the Carmageddon name. It's often said that controversy is the best free publicity, as it insures notoriety, and thus, sales. This game attracted a lot of attention at release. Carmageddon would have been forgotten at the time if it wasn't for the controversy that it stirred. Because of the attention that it got, many who otherwise wouldn't have heard about the game were curious now, insuring its sales. This should be a lesson for parents to take. If you make a massive stink and uproar about something, your giving that game far more exposure than it wouldn't have gotten. It's counter-productive!
Carmageddon was released in 1997 for MS-DOS, Windows, and MacOS, and released shortly thereafter on the PlayStation and N64 as well. The MS-DOS port of the game was one of the few DOS games that supported the 3DFX Voodoo graphics accelerator. Not surprisingly, the game caused a lot of controversy at release, along with contemporaries like GTA. The game was censored in Germany and the UK. In some versions, the pedestrians were replaced with zombies with green blood or robots that leak motor oil when hit. The game was banned entirely in Brazil. It was released here and in Australia with the "M" rating.
With the Internet proliferating during this time, for those living in other countries that had the censored version of the game, it was possible to download a "Blood Pack" that restored the human pedestrians and the red blood effects as in the original retail PC version.
Carmageddon
is a open-world driving game where their are various levels for the
player to traverse in. Their are several ways that one can play this
game. One could play the game as a traditional racing game, beating the
other drivers and reaching first. One can also destroy the opponents in
vehicular combat as well, similar to games like Twisted Metal. The final
way to win is just mowing down as many pedestrians as possible. Not surprisingly, several areas have large numbers of pedestrians in.
You can play either as the male character "Max Damage" or the female character "Die Anna". The top left corner of the game screen shows the image likeness of the driver with their facial expressions. Very entertaining. The stages are very large (for their time), and their their is plenty of opportunity to spread mayhem at your own choosing. In the city stage, their is a stadium with a football game about to start. Things are about to suck for the New England Patriots!
Their are multiple difficulty settings, which are listed in the following order:
You can play either as the male character "Max Damage" or the female character "Die Anna". The top left corner of the game screen shows the image likeness of the driver with their facial expressions. Very entertaining. The stages are very large (for their time), and their their is plenty of opportunity to spread mayhem at your own choosing. In the city stage, their is a stadium with a football game about to start. Things are about to suck for the New England Patriots!
Their are multiple difficulty settings, which are listed in the following order:
- As easy as killing bunnies with axes
- Normal everyday carnage
- Harder than French kissing a cobra
I decided to
play the DOS port of the game. I used the DOSBOX SVN Daum fork as it has
support for a emulated 3DFX Voodoo graphics accelerator. I quickly got
the game running under it in no time. It runs at full performance on my
rig (AMD FX Quad-Core running at 3.8GHz). More than fast enough for this
1997 classic. The game originally supported software rendering as well.
It was essential as most computers in the late 90's didn't have 3D
acceleration capabilities. Times sure have changed!
In this day and age though, one doesn't need software rendering. Once
one gets use to the keyboard controls, their is no problem controlling
the car. Controlling my mayhem was a different story though!
Retrospective
I had a lot of fun
with the game back in the day. As time passed by though, the game had
become something of a "forgotten title" Forgotten in that while it was
designed to fulfill those 15 minute burst of fun, it didn't have
involving gameplay. This was very typical of many of these open-world
driving game pre-GTA III. They drew heavy inspiration from arcade
elements, and were deigned to fulfill those burst of fun, but nothing
more beyond that. Are their story-lines in many of these games? Well
yes. At the same time, the story line is just a small frame to provide a
basic structure for the player to embark on their pursuit of speed. The
famous quote from John Carmack regarding Doom could be applied to these
pre-GTA III open world driving games as well: Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important.
The difference of the open-world driving games pre-GTA III and post are as different as night and day. Games that just existed just for pure entertainment that's based off of arcade elements would not age well. Despite this though, Carmageddon is still loads of fun, and a game definitely worth playing.
The difference of the open-world driving games pre-GTA III and post are as different as night and day. Games that just existed just for pure entertainment that's based off of arcade elements would not age well. Despite this though, Carmageddon is still loads of fun, and a game definitely worth playing.
Carmageddon
Wikipedia
WWW.WIKIPEDIA.ORG
WWW.WIKIPEDIA.ORG
Death Race 2000
Wikipedia
WWW.WIKIPEDIA.ORG
Carmageddon
Fandom
CARMAGEDDON.FANDOM.COM
Carmageddon: Diffuculty
Fandom
CARMAGEDDON.FANDOM.COM
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