Posted May 10, 2015
Carmageddon Max Pack
Damn, that took a while. My only previous experience with the first Carmageddon were some minutes that I had played it back in 1998 after I had originally played the sequel. The low resolution of the game killed my interest pretty quick then (that, and the lack of Iron Maiden :P). 17 years later, I own both games, and while it is tempting to just go for the sequel, I decided to play both games in order to find out which is the superior one.
One of the really cool things about Carmageddon are the large and varied open stages. Whether you want something industrial, a beach or a plain city, Carmageddon is here to cover you. Sure, you can play it like a racing game with a designated part of the stage acting like a race track, with checkpoints, laps and everything, but where is the fun in that? Go search the stage for crazy power-ups, lots and lots of pedestrians to run over, and enemies to destroy by either colliding with them, or tossing them off a cliff or in deep waters for a cheap, but quick victory. Needless to say, Carmageddon can be a very cathartic game to just mess around and can get even better if you end up playing it with some friends. Having said that, I do have some objections to the game.
For starters, the controls aren't really the best. Trying to make a turn without losing control of the car can be impossible, so you'll end up running slower than usual, which I find it counterproductive to what the game is all about. It doesn't help that the car has an annoying tendency of skidding way too much at times and flying high when you are either running down a street or colliding with a vehicle. These effects can be further exaggerated by the power-ups, which leave you shaking your head/fist as you wait for the game to allow you to regain control of the car. Thankfully, you can use a recovery function (which costs some money) to reposition yourself, but that's still no guarantee that it won't position you next to an enemy. Finally, you can't bind acceleration/brake to W/S or Up/Down, so have fun learning to either use the numpad or some other keyboard buttons.
Another gripe with the game is the single-player progression. For starters, you only have access to one car. "That's not too bad", you might think. "I could always buy more with the money I gain from killing pedestrians/destroying enemies/collecting power-ups/passing checkpoints, right?" Nope. The only way you can get more cars is by having a specific rank or higher (more on that below) and then, you need to destroy a specific car and hope that you'll then be able to unlock it. Considering that it can be entirely random what kind of enemies you'll encounter, you might not end up unlocking too many cars. You'll also not be able to unlock all the cars, anyway, as a good number of them are locked until you finish the game and at this point, it's a bit too little, too late.
As I mentioned above, the game has a ranking system. You begin at 99, and you need to reach rank 1, at which point the final stage is unlocked, which you must beat to complete the game. You can raise your rank by collecting money, which can be gained by killing pedestrians, destroying enemy cars, passing the correct checkpoints, etc. As your rank gets higher, you'll unlock more stages to play, more upgrades for your car, as well as getting a chance to unlock some specific cars for your own usage by destroying them. I didn't really like the ranking system, though. For starters, raising your rank requires a substantial amount of cash, and it is possible that you may complete the stage without gaining enough, even for a single point, while unlocking a new level requires at least 3 ranks. Thus, you must grind in each stage by collecting more and more cash and it gets worse when you realise that not all stages are good for grinding, thus forcing you to replay some specific stages over and over again. Make no mistake, you will repeat them, because as you progress the game, you don't necessarily find new levels to play, oh no. Instead, you end up returning to the same levels, with their only differences being a name, taking part in a different hour of the day (night instead of day), and having a different part of the stage as a designated race track.
All this applies equally both to the base game and to the expansion, Splat Pack. While it's nice that the expansion introduces new stages and new cars, it doesn't really bother with new music (which was kinda lackluster in the base game to begin with), and it ends up worsening the ranking progression by unlocking a new stage every 5-6 ranks, instead of 3 (and yes, it also ends up repeating some of its levels later on. Ugh...)
In conclusion, Carmageddon can be great fun, but only in multiplayer, or in small single-player doses, or after you have completed the damn game, when it allows you to select any stage and vehicle that you want, instead of being restricted by the crappy ranking system.
Full list can be found here.
Damn, that took a while. My only previous experience with the first Carmageddon were some minutes that I had played it back in 1998 after I had originally played the sequel. The low resolution of the game killed my interest pretty quick then (that, and the lack of Iron Maiden :P). 17 years later, I own both games, and while it is tempting to just go for the sequel, I decided to play both games in order to find out which is the superior one.
One of the really cool things about Carmageddon are the large and varied open stages. Whether you want something industrial, a beach or a plain city, Carmageddon is here to cover you. Sure, you can play it like a racing game with a designated part of the stage acting like a race track, with checkpoints, laps and everything, but where is the fun in that? Go search the stage for crazy power-ups, lots and lots of pedestrians to run over, and enemies to destroy by either colliding with them, or tossing them off a cliff or in deep waters for a cheap, but quick victory. Needless to say, Carmageddon can be a very cathartic game to just mess around and can get even better if you end up playing it with some friends. Having said that, I do have some objections to the game.
For starters, the controls aren't really the best. Trying to make a turn without losing control of the car can be impossible, so you'll end up running slower than usual, which I find it counterproductive to what the game is all about. It doesn't help that the car has an annoying tendency of skidding way too much at times and flying high when you are either running down a street or colliding with a vehicle. These effects can be further exaggerated by the power-ups, which leave you shaking your head/fist as you wait for the game to allow you to regain control of the car. Thankfully, you can use a recovery function (which costs some money) to reposition yourself, but that's still no guarantee that it won't position you next to an enemy. Finally, you can't bind acceleration/brake to W/S or Up/Down, so have fun learning to either use the numpad or some other keyboard buttons.
Another gripe with the game is the single-player progression. For starters, you only have access to one car. "That's not too bad", you might think. "I could always buy more with the money I gain from killing pedestrians/destroying enemies/collecting power-ups/passing checkpoints, right?" Nope. The only way you can get more cars is by having a specific rank or higher (more on that below) and then, you need to destroy a specific car and hope that you'll then be able to unlock it. Considering that it can be entirely random what kind of enemies you'll encounter, you might not end up unlocking too many cars. You'll also not be able to unlock all the cars, anyway, as a good number of them are locked until you finish the game and at this point, it's a bit too little, too late.
As I mentioned above, the game has a ranking system. You begin at 99, and you need to reach rank 1, at which point the final stage is unlocked, which you must beat to complete the game. You can raise your rank by collecting money, which can be gained by killing pedestrians, destroying enemy cars, passing the correct checkpoints, etc. As your rank gets higher, you'll unlock more stages to play, more upgrades for your car, as well as getting a chance to unlock some specific cars for your own usage by destroying them. I didn't really like the ranking system, though. For starters, raising your rank requires a substantial amount of cash, and it is possible that you may complete the stage without gaining enough, even for a single point, while unlocking a new level requires at least 3 ranks. Thus, you must grind in each stage by collecting more and more cash and it gets worse when you realise that not all stages are good for grinding, thus forcing you to replay some specific stages over and over again. Make no mistake, you will repeat them, because as you progress the game, you don't necessarily find new levels to play, oh no. Instead, you end up returning to the same levels, with their only differences being a name, taking part in a different hour of the day (night instead of day), and having a different part of the stage as a designated race track.
All this applies equally both to the base game and to the expansion, Splat Pack. While it's nice that the expansion introduces new stages and new cars, it doesn't really bother with new music (which was kinda lackluster in the base game to begin with), and it ends up worsening the ranking progression by unlocking a new stage every 5-6 ranks, instead of 3 (and yes, it also ends up repeating some of its levels later on. Ugh...)
In conclusion, Carmageddon can be great fun, but only in multiplayer, or in small single-player doses, or after you have completed the damn game, when it allows you to select any stage and vehicle that you want, instead of being restricted by the crappy ranking system.
Full list can be found here.
Post edited May 22, 2015 by Grargar
