Carmageddon

aka: Carmageddon 3D, Carmageddon: Fahr zur Hölle!, Hole Hege
Moby ID: 367
Windows Specs
Add-on (official) Add-on (unofficial) Included in Special Edition See Also

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 ×”×’×” - Hebrew spelling

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Credits (DOS version)

106 People (101 developers, 5 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 81% (based on 33 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 154 ratings with 11 reviews)

One of the best network racers around

The Good
Forget the single player game, coz it gets dull pretty quick.

As a network game, this is brilliant. Don't bother with the destruction games - they take forever to play. Stick to Checkpoint Stampede, Fox and Hounds and Terminal Tag.You'll need at least 3 players to make it work, preferably more (there's a limit of 6). What you have then is more fun than should be legal - it's fun, fast, manic, laugh-out-loud funny, gut-wrenchingly-tense, and highly addictive.

The Bad
The single player game really is quite poor - the SVGA graphics mode needs at least 600MHz to play (on a game released when the P166 was king of the hill) - the sounds are poor (but you can import your own) - the game physics are really bad - the cars handling is awful - there's little sensation of speed...

I could go on, but none of these actually matter when you're running for you life in a game of Fox and Hounds.

Additionally, the network game crashes often in Windows, so you need to play it in DOS. And even then it sometimes crashes.

The Bottom Line
Got a network? Get this game. It is outstanding, and probably the most fun you'll have with your mates. Haven't got a network? Don't bother.

DOS · by Steve Hall (329) · 2000

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

The first and best Carmageddon

The Good
I hope you don't mind if I make a list...

*1)Free movement: you can drive the track backwards, over hills, or on roof tops - its up to you.

*2)All opponents defeated win scenerio: You don't have to win the game by running the race. I've been playing this game for over 5 years and I still haven't completed a race. Your opponents won't run the race if you don't, so you don't have to worry about them winning while you're mowing over pedestrians. They will eventually find their way back to you if you get distracted. And you can actually win the race by destroying all of your opponents vehicles, which is a good way to earn credits and time bonuses.

*3)All pedestrians murdered win scenerio: It takes time and effort to run over 400+ pedestrians, but the 50,000 credit completion bonus sure is worth it.

*4)The artistic impression bonus for running over peds in a creative manner. ;)

*5)You can use your hard-earned credits to upgrade your car: Armor, Power, and Offense.

*6)You can destroy cop cars. (Though you should probably avoid them until you've upgraded your car a couple times.)

*7)You can 'steal' your opponents vehicles. That is, you can obtain certain cars/trucks after destroying them. Note: This does not apply to all of your opponents, and the chance of getting one of these vehicles is small - you usually won't get your opponent's vehicle the first time you wreck it, though it is possible.

*8)Good physics engine. The physical contraints governing the behavior of vehicles is pretty realistic, though not perfect.

9)Real time repairs. You don't really have to worry about loosing the race, because you can always repair your car as it gets damaged. However, repairing costs credits, and if you don't accumulate enough credits during a race, you will not advance in rank.

The Bad*
Pinball mode. Only fun when you have plenty of credits to spare... :)

The game is slightly unstable in windows, and may occasionally crash during gameplay.

The Bottom Line
This is one of the most entertaining games I've ever played. It does have outdated graphics, but I don't even notice. If you can't get it to run in a dos box under Win2K or XP, try downloading and installing VDMSound at:

http://ntvdm.cjb.net/

Once installed, right click on the executionable file (Carma.exe) and select 'run with VDMS'. It's a DOS emulator that is capable of running many DOS applications that Win2k and XP can't.

DOS · by Gutter Snipe (21) · 2003

[ View all 11 player reviews ]

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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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by robotriot.

Android added by GTramp. iPad, iPhone 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.