Carmageddon
- Carmageddon (1999 on Game Boy Color)
- Carmageddon (1999 on PlayStation)
- Carmageddon (2005 on J2ME)
Description official descriptions
Carmageddon is a violent car racing game where the racing element can be equally important as wrecking opponents' cars or gathering kills by ramming into pedestrians. At the beginning the player has only one car and is ranked at #99. The overall objective is to race all the way to the top, collecting the opponents' cars on the way as trophies (and possibly replacements to one's vehicle). In the race itself the player tries to damage opponents by driving into them, and can also kill pedestrians.
Damage, kills and spectacular moves earn credits for upgrades and even making repairs to the car at anytime during the race. If a specific opponent's car is wrecked multiple times in successive races, it is added to the choice of available vehicles. There are many power-ups strewn around the courses that range from useful (more speed, instant brake) to fun and downright absurd. Though the player can win a race by finishing first, wrecking everything in sight is encouraged. The game offers open environments where exploration away from the racing course is encouraged.
Spellings
- חולה הגה - Hebrew spelling
Groups +
- 3D Engine: BRender
- BPjS / BPjM indexed games
- Carmageddon series
- Gameplay feature: Recordable replays
- Games made into comics
- Genre: Car / motorcycle combat
- Genre: Open world driving
- Green Pepper releases
- Protagonist: Female (option)
- Replay (GT / Infogrames / Atari) releases
- Setting: 2020s
- Theme: Future sports / Brutal sports
- Theme: Zombies
Screenshots
Promos
Credits (DOS version)
106 People (101 developers, 5 thanks) · View all
Arcade Director | |
Producer | |
Line Producers | |
Manual Design and Layout | |
Marketing Manager | |
PR Manager | |
Director of QA | |
Assistant Director of QA | |
IS Technician | |
Lead Tester | |
Temp Warden | |
Testers | |
[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 81% (based on 33 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 154 ratings with 11 reviews)
The Good
**The Bad**
**The Bottom Line**
In 1975, a film called "Death Race 2000," starring the late but great David Carradine (Best known for the legendary "Kung Fu" television series and the more recent "Kill Bill" films) was released into theatres. The concept was basic: A cross country race as a form of entertaining and pacifying rowdy and restless civilians; the twist being that this race isn't about coming in first place, the winner is chosen by how many innocent civilians and other racers are killed in the process. The film wasn't well received, many critics and parents were offended by the films tasteless content. It was excessively gory, almost every female character in the film whipped out their breasts or went stark naked at least once, and the films sense of humour was extremely morbid and bleak, treating vehicular manslaughter and sexism as comedic relief. The film did gather a cult following (Including my wife & I) and whether you like it or not, it is arguably the prototypical "Blood Sport Opiate" film, appearing over a decade before "The Running Man," which is the film most people think of when dealing with a premise involving a blood sport as pacifying entertainment. You're probably asking yourself, "What the hell does this have to do with Carmageddon?" Well, it has a lot to do with it. Carmageddon is clearly inspired by the film, in fact during its development process, it was going to be titled "Death Race 2020" and presented as a tie in with the comic book of the same name, intended as a sequel to the film. However, they could not keep the rights to the franchise and the name was dropped but in truth it can still be called a Death Race video game. Save for a complete lack of breasts (Sorry, nudie fans), the game mimics the film exactly, from its tasteless sense of humour to its ridiculous amounts of gore and disregard for the laws of physics. Unfortunately, this lack of tact might turn a lot of people off which is a shame because if you look past this element, its one of the most entertaining games ever made and it would easily make my top 10 games of all time and there's almost no competition when it comes to being my favourite racing game, the closest being
DOS · by Kaddy B. (777) · 2010
Ey, whassat on me windshield? Meh, just someone's intrails!
The Good
Carmegeddon is a game I heard a lot about before playing it. It was after watching an episode from Lazy Game Reviews (check out his YouTube channel, it is very cool) that I eventually decided to buy the game along with its expansion pack and sequel from Good Old Games and after spending some hours with it, I discovered that this game is much more than just plain controversy.
And oh boy, was this game controversial. It already starts the moment you boot the game up. After an awesome intro movie, you get to the main menu and your cursor is nothing less than a severed hand with blood dripping from it! Yeah, that already tells you that this game is not for people with weak stomachs. And it just gets better from there on!
In Carmageddon, you compete in races all around the USA. You can win the contest in one of three ways. Passing all the checkpoints just like in a usual racing game, eliminating all the other racers by ramming into them or killing all pedestrians! Obviously, it is very tempting to just give the racing rules the middle finger and go out on a macabre, all-consuming rampage.
This game is extremely violent and has a ton of black humor. When you drive over pedestrians, they will scream out in pain and you will hear their flesh getting torn off their bodies. Slam into them with enough speed and they will swing towards your screen with chunks of man meat flying everywhere. Your wheels smear their guts over the concrete and you can keep on driving over their ripped open carcasses while looking around for your next victim. And if that wasn't enough, your driver dryly comments to the events that "shit happens" or sarcastically says "sorry" after driving over someone at speeds over 100 km an hour.
In addition, Carmageddon is about as addicting as it is bloody. As you complete races, kill pedestrians and ram your competitors out of commission, you gain credits which you can use to rank up. Unlocking new tracks and better equipment. You start at level 99 and you will have a lot of driving and slaughtering to do in order to reach the coveted level 1 rank.
When it comes to locations, you have city streets, countryside, industrial zones, mines, snow covered mountains and more! The game's timer is very generous and it is quite easy to get your timer well over ten minutes. It certainly encourages you to explore the entire map because the race track itself is just the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty of more locations to visit and people to kill when you go off the track and just drive around like a freaking maniac! Go to the beach and watch people in swimming trunks running for their lives. Visit the fields and mountains and see cows shit all over the place (literally) just before your turn them into raw steak saignant! Mmmm!
When exploring the maps, you will also find plenty of power ups and game changers. These power ups vary to extra time or credits all up to turning your ride into a bouncing machine or making it shoot electricity to zap everything you come across into a cooking, bleeding mess! Just make sure to avoid the cops, because they will ferociously hunt you down. And in case your car gets beat up or turned upside down, no worry! You can always have your car fully repaired or recovered as long as you pay for it (and you can even get into debt in case you're out of cash).
Music and sound effects are excellent. The music consists of industrial and thrash metal music with tracks made by Fear Factory as well as originally composed tracks. The soundtrack is fast, aggressive and agitating and perfectly sets the game's atmosphere. Finally, the sound effects are gruesomely crisp. Driving over someone who is already dead or about to be dead makes a painfully squishing sound and cars make screeching, ear piercing noises as they crash into walls or into each other.
The game's graphics aren't bad but not much to write home about. Much of the game is in 3D except for the pedestrians which are sprites. It definitely adds to the gory beauty of the game as polygon pedestrians would have looked awful given the time this game was released.
One last thing I want to mention is how great the game controls are. I personally never expected a pc racing game to control so smoothly. You only need to use the num pad and a few more buttons to handbrake, repair and recover your ride. That is all. No controller or steering wheel needed, just a good old keyboard.
The Bad
One thing I miss in this game is a genuine commentator. It would certainly be fun to have a game host making fun remarks about whatever ridiculous stuff you do in the game. For example, a good line after running over someone would be "Let's hope he enjoys his new tattoo" or "don't worry, you'll get a full life insurance refund for that."
Some customization for your car would have been great. Although you can unlock cars, you cannot change anything when it comes to aesthetics. It is therefore impossible to change your car's color or to add cool gadgets like spikes, hooks or other hardcore equipment.
Speaking of unlocking cars, you may think that you use credits to unlock your opponent's cars but no. You have to thrash your opponent's car an unknown random number of times in order for it to unlock. The game offers no requirements to meet in order to unlock a particular car is a matter of patience and dumb luck. And if that wasn't enough, you cannot unlock every car you see in the game. Yeah, talk about some unnecessary car teasing.
And of course, do not play Carmageddon if you dislike violent and politically-incorrect entertainment. Then it would be easier to French kiss a cobra rather than enjoying this game! But if you have even a little dark, sadistic edge, than you will enjoy this game as much as I enjoy killing bunnies with axes. Ok, just kidding, I kill them with chainsaws after driving over them with my monster truck while wearing nothing but a pigs mask on my head! Yeah, talk about bunny genocide!
The Bottom Line
A true classic in the racing genre, Carmageddon's outrageous, violent gameplay will keep you satisfied for a long time. The pc platform may not have that many racers, but with the Carmageddon series, it certainly has a big pawn on the board of racing franchises. This game definitely belongs to the collection of every self-respecting gamer. Go get it and enjoy that feeling of getting warm internal guts into your hair and face. Let's roll!
DOS · by Stijn Daneels (79) · 2014
One hell of a stress-reliever. Forbidden, sinful fun.
The Good
Carmageddon walks the line of political correctness--you are given bonus points and money for hitting pedestrians. And, I'm ashamed to say, it's incredibly satisfying and fun. Come on--what other game in the world (other than the sequel) lets you pound into those moronic rollerbladers and slow, fat pedestrians with a satisfying thud?
If you enjoy sick humor (and hey, who doesn't?), you'll have much to laugh about, as the game can get pretty sick sometimes. The amount of pure carnage is just amazing. In addition to merely smacking peds silly, you can get special bonuses for things like artistic expression and piledrivers. And don't forget the electro-bastard death ray!
I could not believe how over the top this game was until I played it. I laughed so hard the first ten minutes of gameplay that I had tears streaming down my face. It's that rediculously outrageous and silly.
Of course, you can win races by actually racing them normally and completing all the checkpoints, but that's no fun at all. It's much more fun to unleash metal-crunching power against your other race opponents--preferably by ramming them head-on. The physics engine in Carmageddon is great in this respect; you can ram another car so hard that they'll get pushed backwards, hit an explosive barrel, go flying sideways, smash into a nearby building, and keep going. This is made much more damaging if you have the pinball powerup, which makes every concrete surface act like rubber (except you still hit it very hard, like concrete).
The powerups are worth mentioning, since they provide a lot of laughs as well: Hotrod, for funnycar-like acceleration; lunar gravity, for high jumps; Jupiter gravity, for no jumps and scraping your frame against the ground all the time; solid granite car for maximum destruction; stuck peds, which makes pedestrians stick to your car after you ram them; frozen peds, which freezes them to the spot; the list goes on and on.
The Bad
There is one valid gripe with Carmageddon: The speed of the game engine. Carmageddon follows a physics model that has to account for bouncing and ricocheting off of walls, other cars, etc. This takes a lot of calculations, but I can't help thinking that they might have been able to optimize it just a little bit more. On the recommended hardware, most options have to be turned down and the game played at 320x200 to keep the framerate over 15fps. A high-res option is included, but at 2-3 fps, it's a joke.
Another gripe is actually directed at european countries--they don't get to see the full game! The European version of the game uses "robots" instead of real people with blood, and the German version uses "zombies" with green blood. That just isn't fun at all.
Finally, the gameplay starts to get repetitive after awhile.
The Bottom Line
If you need to relieve some stress, thought that the movie Dead Alive was hilarious, or generally want to smash into everything and everyone: Carmageddon is your game.
DOS · by Trixter (8952) · 1999
Trivia
Death Race 2000
The whole game is reminiscent of the 1975 movie Death Race 2000. The movie's premise is identical to that of Carmageddon. It featured David Carradine and a naive pre-Rocky Sly Stallone. And if you look at the main character's car, it is exactly like the main car in Carmageddon with a different paint job. Exidy's late 70's arcade game Death Race was another descendant of this movie.
German index
On October 31, 1997, the English version of Carmageddon was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. More information about this topic can be found in the game group.
German version
The German version had robots, not people. This was due to Germany's strict legislation regarding violence in computer games. Those robots are also hidden in the standard releases. Calling CARMA.EXE with the "-ROBOTS" parameter will replace pedestrians with robots.
Indian version
The cows in Carmageddon were removed from the Indian release.
O. J. Simpson reference
One of the opponents, "OK Stimpson", is a clear reference to American football celebrity and actor O. J. Simpson in name and likeness. The game also alludes to the murder trial Simpson was involved in, by showing stains of a red liquid on his shirt in Stimpson's portrait picture, as well as having him drive a "Fraud Broko" SUV, similar to the Ford Bronco involved in a police chase in relation to the real-world case. Most likely due to the legally sensitive nature of the topic, some of the references were removed for the US release. The driver was renamed "Juicy Jones" (still a reference to Simpson's nickname, The Juice) and the stains on his shirt recolored to orange.
Sound
The engine noises came from a variety of places. One was my '67 Buick. Another was a guy who happened to come and check my hard drive. He had a rally car replica, so we strapped a minidisc to the back and he drove it around the Isle of Wight at highly illegal speeds! The pedestrian squelching noises were made by my partner Bill, the design director. He refuses to admit how. We think they're some dubious bodily function."
--Patrick Buckland, interviewed in PC Review May 97
Soundtrack
The soundtrack to Carmageddon consisted partially of music by the band Fear Factory, with the songs Body Hammer, Demanufacture, and Zero Signal. These tracks were off their album Demanufacture, but had the vocals removed for the game.
Starship Titanic
Carmageddon is listed in the "thanks" section of the Starship Titanic end credits.
UFO
In the level "Roswell that ends well" it is possible to find a UFO. Go to the top of the big pyramid, and jump into it. After your fall, you will be able to see it.
UK version
The game was only given a release in the UK after a palette change, converting the humans into 'zombies' with green blood (There were also 'zombie' cows, etc). Later, a patch was released, restoring the original palette.
Information also contributed by Emepol, emerging lurker, Floodspectre, hydra9, JayBee, Late, Ola Sverre Bauge, Ummagumma, Xoleras and Yeah No
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Related Sites +
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The Making Of… Carmageddon
article about the game's history, on EDGE (27th June 2008)
Identifiers +
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by robotriot.
Android added by GTramp. iPhone, iPad added by Sciere. Symbian added by Kabushi. Windows added by The cranky hermit. Macintosh added by agaiz.
Additional contributors: Heikki Sairanen, Daniel Saner, tarmo888, Kabushi, formercontrib, Crawly, 1gnition, Patrick Bregger, GTramp.
Game added November 2, 1999. Last modified March 18, 2024.