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 Out now on PS4/Xbone/PC Carmageddon: Max Damage, developed by UK studio Stainless Games, is an updated re-release of last year's Carmageddon: Reincarnation with more cars, tracks, pedestrians and powerups. Basically a director's cut of that game, which itself was a reboot of the old Carmageddon games from the 90s by the original developers. If you didn't care for Reincarnation's gameplay, this will do nothing to convert you, but those who would've enjoyed Reincarnation if it had just run decently should find plenty to like here as the framerate is now a lot more solid (30 fps on both consoles, locked 60 fps at "best quality" preset on my slightly aging PC). The game in general is more polished, and feels like what they should've released in the first place as that would have prevented a lot of the (valid) complaints about performance that Reincarnation has been getting over the last couple of years. Owners of Reincarnation get the PC version for free on Steam.  Since this is the first time a real Carmageddon is released on consoles (the old PSX and N64 releases had nothing to do with the first two PC games and are utter dreck, we don't talk about those) and non-PC gaming folks may be unfamiliar with the series, here's something resembling a FAQ even though nobody has asked any of this: What's a Carmageddon? Carmageddon is Death Race 2000: the video game. You crash into opponents and run over pedestrians, and the more spectacularly you do these things the more money you earn. You can also follow the actual race track and hit all the checkpoints instead of exploring the map and smashing everything to bits, but who does that.  There are other game modes like Ped Chase (kill ten special target pedestrians before your opponents do) and Checkpoint Stampede (same thing with checkpoints), but if you don't want to play by the rules you can always wreck your opponents to steal their points. All the modes except Ped Chase and Classic Carma can be played online, those two are excluded because multiplayer doesn't have pedestrians.  Is it like Twisted Metal? No. Well, kind of, in the sense that both can be considered vehicular combat games. While Twisted Metal is a shooter with cars that turn on a dime, Carmageddon started life as a demolition derby sim (before all the death race stuff was put in during development) and focuses on the crashes and physics stuff, with a far more involved handling model. Are there weapons? Some, but they are temporary powerups you can find scattered around the levels. The weapons you can find range from the relatively sensible (mines, mortar) to the completely ludicrous (anvil launcher, "repulsificator" which is a giant spring that shoots nearby opponents into space or at least the nearest building). You can also spend money to buy powerups during races. Not all of the powerups are really powerups per se, as a lot of them are silly ones that mess with the physics or cause weird effects in pedestrians (or just blow up your car in some ridiculous fashion). The game in general is very silly despite the bloody exterior, and has always been.  I saw some reviews, isn't this game poo poo? No, I don't think so. It's not a masterpiece by any means and there are plenty of legitimate flaws I can point out as a longtime fan of the Carmageddon series (the design mimics the original Carma games to a fault, so things like AI cars ganging up on you are unchanged and can be extremely frustrating, and the load times can be a pain especially on consoles), but some of the criticism I've seen has made me wonder if the reviewer played the same game as I did. I don't expect this kind of game to appeal to everyone but most reviews seem to be going with the "yeah Carmageddon was never good and people only liked it for the gore" narrative, which is complete nonsense because Carmageddon had such good crash physics and damage modeling that it would've been an excellent demo derby game without a single pedestrian to mow down.  The most common complaints are about the graphics (which are kinda crummy but hardly game-breaking, and the actual damage model is better than ever) and the handling. The handling model does take some getting used to and the cars like to slide around, but it's certainly not something that warrants a 3 out of 10 or something ridiculous like that. If you're halfway decent at driving games, you should have no real issues driving the cars here (you will definitely spin and crash a lot, but that's just something that happens in these races and part of the fun) and you can pull off some pretty fancy driving once you  , and each of the vehicles has a different feel so try them out and see which suits you (I like the Shredlight myself). Just don't try to play Carmageddon as a serious racing game, it was always designed as the antithesis to those and if you're taking it too seriously you're doing it wrong. I want videos! Here's one showing off the new vehicles in Carmageddon: Max Damage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjdeAbITcSo And here's a review of the initial release of Reincarnation by Lazy Game Reviews: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFXzJeEOans Digital Foundry's analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eddeIredsD8 --- DMorbid fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Nov 7, 2016 |
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Jul 8, 2016 19:58
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Bloodsplattered ground floor Got 42 hours in (pc) Reincarnation and while the AI is indeed annoying as poo poo, the game is still a ton of fun. E; That new snowmobile looks cool
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Jul 8, 2016 20:12
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I think I almost wrote this off based on negative reviews. However, I'll give it a go when I can. Also, are custom music playlists in? Because I kinda want to play a level in Carmageddon to the instrumental of Zero Signal.
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Jul 8, 2016 20:19
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Is there a list of changes between the 2 pc versions? Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZnZF2pUb8c
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Jul 8, 2016 20:25
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The PC version plays Zero Signal by default and looking at some steam thread, it says you can replace the original music files: 
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Jul 8, 2016 20:25
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Zero Signal instrumental should still be in the game, it definitely was in Reincarnation. You can customize the music on PC by replacing the files, the console versions obviously don't let you do that kind of thing but if you have Spotify on PS4 you can just use that. Not sure about the Bone, the last time I tried using its music app was... unpleasant.
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Jul 8, 2016 20:26
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Fuckin' sweet. I'll probably buy it today then, and wait on the update.
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Jul 8, 2016 20:31
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Just driving around smashing poo poo up in the Towmeister or the Panzerfaust is super chill. Sometimes i pick the planecar which is just ridiculous. Can't drive 10 feet without turning yourself into a high velocity piece of scrap.
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Jul 8, 2016 20:36
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I bought the game without even thinking about it, and only then did I think about reading the reviews. The scores are bad, but every single fault could also be said about the original Carma, so it looks like I'll be coming home to a prettier Carma1, which is pretty much all I've been asking for since 1998.
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Jul 8, 2016 22:15
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Way to link in the old thread ya jackass! IBETYOUCANTPRINTCUNT
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Jul 9, 2016 00:00
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Dark_Swordmaster posted:Way to link in the old thread ya jackass! 
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Jul 9, 2016 00:06
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CordlessPen posted:I bought the game without even thinking about it, and only then did I think about reading the reviews. The scores are bad, but every single fault could also be said about the original Carma, so it looks like I'll be coming home to a prettier Carma1, which is pretty much all I've been asking for since 1998. This is basically what I wanted from Reincarnation and what I got, right down to the terrible British sex puns. The only thing I really miss is Max or Die Anna yelling when I get a power up. I'm not sure how much it is everywhere but €39 is pretty decent
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Jul 9, 2016 08:25
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I got it preordered on Xbox One, it's fun but there feels like a huge lack of speed early on, maybe it's just the maps not giving enough space to build up speed and ram someone. Also is there any trick to dealing with Screwy Louie or Ivan? They both just seem to soak up massive amounts of punishment. Though I did end up stealing the Twister by using an opponent launcher in a narrow street. My only big complaint is the upgrade system, I wish they'd either make it tokens that upgrade every car or have you spend points to upgrade individual cars. Anime_Otaku fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Jul 9, 2016 |
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Jul 9, 2016 14:53
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Anime_Otaku posted:My only big complaint is the upgrade system, I wish they'd either make it tokens that upgrade every car or have you spend points to upgrade individual cars.  You spend tokens to upgrade individual cars..?CordlessPen posted:I bought the game without even thinking about it, and only then did I think about reading the reviews. The scores are bad, but every single fault could also be said about the original Carma, so it looks like I'll be coming home to a prettier Carma1, which is pretty much all I've been asking for since 1998. Driving is more enjoyable in this one imo
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Jul 9, 2016 15:22
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Humans Among Us posted:
Yeah, you find tokens hidden on the maps then spend them on upgrading one vehicle, upgrades are also locked until you get to certain points in career mode.
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Jul 9, 2016 15:51
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Had no idea this was coming, a pleasant surprise! I kickstarted ReinCARnation but yeah that game had problems. A re-launch with some of those fixed would be nice. A PC that can play Witcher 3 flawlessly should not have had problems with that game.
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Jul 9, 2016 16:02
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As a lot of people have already said, this looks like the game we were promised but didn't get with the Kickstarter. I was a Kickstarter backer, but Reincarnation was such a sloppy slog of a mess that I barely played it. Each "new version" that came out felt like a beta revision every time, nothing ever felt like a real finished commercially-released game. Can't wait until it comes out on PC so that I can actually play the game I paid for over two years ago! 
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Jul 9, 2016 16:18
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Is there a pink Caddy with leopard-print convertible top?
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Jul 9, 2016 18:29
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:Is there a pink Caddy with leopard-print convertible top? 
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Jul 9, 2016 18:34
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Doc Morbid posted:Sure is, and it's got a bunch of different colors as well. All vehicles in the game except the cop cars have several color schemes to choose from, so if you ever wanted to drive a pink Mercedes with tank treads you totally can! Just remember: with sufficient driving, everyone's gonna have red paint jobs. 
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Jul 9, 2016 18:42
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I played all the way through the original release and yeah, although it was enjoyable enough, I had no desire to go back for more action because of how much of a mess the whole thing was. So now I also have high hopes that they fixed everything up and with a couple of new cars or tracks it just might be what we needed.
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Jul 9, 2016 18:53
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widespread posted:Just remember: with sufficient driving, everyone's gonna have red paint jobs. New red outfits for all grannies 
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Jul 9, 2016 19:02
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King Vidiot posted:As a lot of people have already said, this looks like the game we were promised but didn't get with the Kickstarter. I was a Kickstarter backer, but Reincarnation was such a sloppy slog of a mess that I barely played it. Each "new version" that came out felt like a beta revision every time, nothing ever felt like a real finished commercially-released game. What was wrong with Reincarnation? I thought it was pretty good apart from the load times Then again, all I was expecting was Carmageddon 2 with better graphics
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Jul 9, 2016 19:53
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I do miss the Carma 2 city. But Reincarnation lets me drive around on a half sunken container ship and that is rad as hell.
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Jul 9, 2016 21:19
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I found the Super-Suppressor.  That thing takes something like fifteen repulsificators and a solid granite car powerup to go down, and when it does you'll get so many credits that the counter keeps going up for the rest of the event.
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Jul 9, 2016 21:47
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I bought the one and only Xbox copy at my local Best Buy earlier today since I've been waiting for this to come out, but I haven't cracked its seal yet. A few reviews I've seen made me consider taking it back but the previous posts here are convincing me to hang onto it. So the consensus so far is a slightly prettier combination of the first two games? If so, that's fine by me.
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Jul 10, 2016 03:55
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That is exactly what it is. If you like Carmageddon, I don't see any reason why you wouldn't like this one.
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Jul 10, 2016 03:58
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I am glad people are seeing this for what it is. I've already seen plenty of whining about the physics and graphics like they are the only thing a game should be rated on...
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Jul 10, 2016 07:03
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I can survive with poo poo graphics but physics are kind of crucial for a game like this though, and while the first two games were hardly realistic in that aspect, they had a certain feel to it that i think was somewhat off in Reincarnation. Not necessarily bad, but different enough to feel a bit wrong.
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Jul 10, 2016 15:30
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What about Solid Granite Car? Does it have Solid Granite Car?
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Jul 10, 2016 20:44
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Did the new version add wheel support? Would like cockpit view, but I think the new version adds that?
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Jul 10, 2016 20:53
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mobby_6kl posted:I can survive with poo poo graphics but physics are kind of crucial for a game like this though, and while the first two games were hardly realistic in that aspect, they had a certain feel to it that i think was somewhat off in Reincarnation. Not necessarily bad, but different enough to feel a bit wrong. Problem with physics? Just turn on Pinball Mode.
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Jul 10, 2016 20:57
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:What about Solid Granite Car? Does it have Solid Granite Car? SPACE HOMOS posted:Did the new version add wheel support? Would like cockpit view, but I think the new version adds that? DMorbid fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Jul 10, 2016 |
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Jul 10, 2016 21:15
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I kickstarted reincarnation ages ago and then when it was released it ran like horse poo poo on my PC, did they make it run any better?
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Jul 10, 2016 21:19
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BeanpolePeckerwood posted:What about Solid Granite Car? Does it have Solid Granite Car? It does, and now it makes your car look like granite. Maybe this isn't new, but I've never played TDR. I haven't found any "Peds with stupd heads", I think it's gone... 
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Jul 10, 2016 21:26
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Megadyptes posted:I kickstarted reincarnation ages ago and then when it was released it ran like horse poo poo on my PC, did they make it run any better? ).And yeah, the solid granite car texture first showed up in TDR. It had been planned for Carma 2, but didn't make it in for whatever reason. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Jul 10, 2016 |
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Jul 10, 2016 21:37
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If you run Carma 2 in software mod the texture is there!
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Jul 10, 2016 22:19
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Huh, didn't know that. I actually ran Carma 2 in software mode for a while when I first got it, because for some reason hardware mode just didn't work until I finally reinstalled on a different drive. 90s PC gaming!
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Jul 10, 2016 22:43
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Does this game have the Electro Bastard Ray? I remember that from the first game, and it was my favorite thing.
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Jul 11, 2016 00:40
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Morby posted:Does this game have the Electro Bastard Ray? I remember that from the first game, and it was my favorite thing. 
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Jul 11, 2016 02:50
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