Carmageddon

The Good
As you can see from my nickname, I love the game. I'll try to tell you why.

Nowadays if you look at Carmageddon, you can't see anything remarkable in it. It has completely out-of-date graphics engine, ear-ripping sound effects and, being a DOS game, it takes some doing to get it work.

If you get past the point of disgust(No, I didn't need to pass it as I played the game right after it was published, but the current players with all the hyper GeForce cards might have to) you really start to see the sheer brilliance of the game. After you get into the game, you can't stop until it's been played from beginning to end. And suddenly you don't care about the graphics or the sounds.

The first point of brilliance is the playability of the game. The physics model is absolutely fantastic! The cars have a realistic amount of grip which alters on the change of the material you drive in. The jumps are realistic, and the car flies around and whether you land or your wheels or not depends on one thing: The laws of physics. The cars handle like a dream. The cars differ from one another, while Max Damage's car is quite easy to drive and still quite fast, Vlad's funny car is deadly fast but a true nightmare on corners. The damage model is also quite good, in fact it was one of the best at it's time but the time as made it obsolete. Still, it's good enough for the game.

Second point is the levels. There are some levels at least I don't like(like the mine and the industrial complex), but most of them are very alive. There are hundreds of pedestrians in the streets and many things you can interact with. For example you can hit a street light so hard that it falls down and then you can throw it at the pedestrians. But there's one thing that makes the levels the best: The freedom. Sure, you can race on the track, but why the hell to do that, if you can drive wherever you want?

The last point is the brilliant idea. The designers took one of the first moves to the direction that has encouraged the makers of GTA and such games to use the level of violence they use. Carmageddon was one of the first violent hits. The fact that you get points for demolishing your enemies and killing pedestrians still sounds like a good idea. SCI had the skills to make a good game out of the idea, which made Carmageddon a legend.

The Bad
The graphics, sound, and damage engines are outdated. No more critics from me.

The Bottom Line
SCI made a legendary game. It's a great shame that they couldn't keep up the quality in the sequels. Carmageddon is and seems like it's going to be the best wreck-o-rama game around for a long time to come.

The Good
Carmageddon is a fun game. Think about the movie DeathRace 2000 or the old Steve Jackson game Autoduel, Put it in a 3-Dimensional environment and you get the idea of this game.

The Graphics, in low-res are good, but not superb. Running the came on my P233 with low-res is fast. And I mean FAST. The sensation of speed in remarkable. Running the game in High-Res is very nice looking, but on my 233 is a but lagged on the frame rate.

The Gameplay is great. 17 different tracks (each unlocked as you increase in your ranking), Over 30 power-ups (such as turbo, mega-turbo, instant handbrake, and "Pinball Mode"), plenty of cars to unlock make this a game your need to work at to unlock all the secrets. You can upgrade your cars with better Armor, Engine and Tires, so as you progress through the game, your car get better and faster. The "feel" of each of the cars are different. For instance the Cop car handles a lot differently than the Electric Blue car. Another great feature of the game is "Instant Repair". Basically, it allows you to make repairs while driving at full throttle. No hassles of pitstops or repair screens in between races.

The Physics model is good. Just when you think you can make a jump and land it right, the physics engine shines! You see the car tipping just like in real life. It's pretty cool.

The Sound is good for game. It's great when you hit a jump at the right speed and the guy lets out a cool sounding yell. Unfortunately, my sound card isn't able to play the MIDI files during the game, although I can play them outside the game. But considering I can't listen to the music while playing the game, I can't give an objective opinion on it.

The AI, depending on the level of difficulty you select, is either really easy or downright impossible. On the easy settings, scoring points and credits is easy, wrecking other cars is really simple and the game is ok. On the Most difficult setting, You're lucky if you get within 100 feet of the starting line before getting the snot kicked out of you. Progressing is much harder, and wrecking cars is a long procedure.

The Bad
The Control of the cars is real touchy. I've played with a joystick, but I prefer the keyboard for control purposes. The joystick controls are very loose - it's very difficult to make turns. The keyboard is also a bit difficult to manage, but much easier to control.

The Bottom Line
It's a great game. Mindless fun - and I think each one of us who has driven down the road and played the "points" game (you know... 5 points for cones, 15 points for runners, etc.) will appreciate the game.

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.