Carmageddon Max Damage Review
Playing in traffic.The Carmageddon games belong to an exclusive club of interactive media that became popular in the 90s. Alongside titles like Doom and Mortal Kombat, this series was known for its shock value. Running over pedestrians and just being over the top in the violence category. Unlike those other titles though, Carmageddon fell off; most people simply forgot it existed outside of a few hardcore PC players that still have the nostalgia for the series.Fast forward to today, when Kickstarter is bringing back some of the most beloved (and obscure) titles that ever existed.
TheXboxHub reviews Carmageddon: Max Damage on Xbox One. Gameplay in Carmageddon: Max Damage relies quite heavily on the use of PUP’s to succeed in events and whilst success is possible without. Jul 08, 2016 Carmageddon: Max Damage for the PS4 and Xbox One is an enhanced version of Carmageddon: Reincarnation, which released for PCs last year thanks to a mix of crowdfunding and independent investors.
Carmageddon: Max Damage is a product of nostalgia. Bringing back a series that most gamers today were not even alive to remember is a tricky proposition, and one that comes away with extremely mixed results.MSRP: $39.99Platforms: XB1, PS4, PCPrice I’d Pay: $29.99Taking control of the cars in Carmageddon is a learning experience. These cars are floaty and heavy at the same time.
For arcade veterans, think the Rush series and you will get the idea. Cars take turns very wide, and it is likely designed this way to instigate more carnage on the tracks because I was certainly slamming into everyone and everything on every track.This meshes with the modes in the game as most of them don’t require pinpoint controls to finish. Instead they focus on other objectives such as destroying other cars and of course running over pedestrians. The game focuses on offensive humor lifted directly out of the 90s.
Running over larger pedestrians invokes an award referring to bacon; you get the idea.Let’s start with the single player portion of the game. There are a series of events, each consisting of races taking place over the various modes. Classic Carmageddon is by far the most interesting.
It takes all the possible ways to win and allows players to decide which one to achieve. So for example they can finish the series of checkpoints, mow down the specific number of pedestrians, or just wreck every other car. This allows for exploration of the levels, and is by far the most fun mode to play.The rest of the modes are much more strict, and limited.
I would have preferred if they had just allowed for Classic Carmageddon on every map. Points are earned which unlock new events, and thus new areas and races. There is certainly a hefty amount of content to unlock. Getting new cars is as simple as wrecking the specific one in a race, which then adds it to my garage. There are also skins and such to purchase. There is a lot to see and do.Of course the idea of playing Carmageddon online with friends was a big draw for me.
Unfortunately this mode has more than its fair share of problems. Let’s start with the fact that there are no pedestrians in the online modes. This is not Carmageddon. Sure it is shallow and stupid, but when you base your game around a gimmick, and then remove said gimmick, it defeats the purpose.It is also worth noting that while there is a party system, there are no private matches. So if players want to just play with their friends, it isn’t possible. There is a party system, which is good, but in our tests online, we never managed to fill the match, and it is only six players online. Also did I mention there are no pedestrians, so people just race, which is not why I come to Carmageddon.The visuals in Max Damage leave a little to be desired.
It definitely looks like a budget title, but does at least run relatively smooth. There is a weird filter in the game though, that makes it look blurry most of the time, and not quite as sharp as I was expecting. The music is generic, with some trulyinteresting titles. Just Google the track list and you will see what I mean.Carmageddon: Max Damage is fun when it accomplishes what it sets out to do, but the disappointing online and limited modes really drag it down. If it had launched a little cheaper it would be an easy recommendation for fans of the original games. As it stands though, it needs a little more polish to be worth checking out.Review copy of game provided by publisher.
IntroductionDeveloper: Stainless GamesGame: Carmageddon Max DamagePrice: (at time of review)The original Carmageddon is famous for its controversy. It was censored in Germany turning the pedestrians into zombies, here in the UK there was the removal of the blood and gore just to get a release And was trying to stir up controversy at a time when video gaming was seen as a problem.Carmageddon Max Damage is a game that embraces those roots. Maps are strewn with pedestrians to hit and barrels to collect, even the cars are the same. If you’ve played any of the other entries in the series then it’s familiar, sometimes a little too familiar, but we’ll get to that eventually.Racing is not the focus of Carmageddon, even though it’s technically a racing game. There’s a race grid formation and positions, but outside of the specific racing mode it’s never that important. It’s just a way to line yourself up by the car you can steal. Destroying your opponents to steal their cars is as satisfying as ever, plowing into them head-first or running them into walls, but it’s all available in other games that offer far more now.The in race upgrade system has been replaced with the current industry standard permanent unlock method.
Even the unlocks are the same things, wheels, armour and engine. It’s all so pedestrian, which is sad for a game that prided itself on doing new things. Outside of the upgrade screen there is no indication that anything has been done to your car. Upgrade information doesn’t update across anywhere else.I found myself experiencing a profound sense of deja-vu, the tracks, cars, even sound effects all felt like I’d played these before. So I booted up the original and, well look for yourselves:-It’s the exact same thing, only with better graphics and draw distance. Pedestrians are even in the same places, although a few more have been added.
There are new tracks amongst the originals, but the drip feeding of tracks feels worse than the original so you will spend a lot of time playing Maim Street. Why Maim Street? It’s the best one for grinding out the track unlocks. The very tracks you’ll play a couple of times then go back to Maim Street to unlock more tracks.This sense of nothing changing is everywhere. Even the attempts at shock seem quaint in a world with.GTA V. and other open world games and multiple first person war shooters. But they are also lifted verbatim from the original release. If you quit you are asked “Do you want to return to a life where you don’t get internal organs in your hair?”.What’s most disappointing is the lack of care. There seems to have been no thought put into this release, and that is the sad thing, the spark that made the first so anarchic is dead.
The maps are sparse, features such as the head-cam have been cut, it’s feels lethargic and lifeless, a cash grab using nostalgia. It’s just all so disappointing.
Performance Computer setup:CPU: Intel, i7-4770k @ 4.4ghzMotherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD5H-CFRAM: 16GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3 @ 1866MHzGPU: Sapphire 290x Tri-X 4gbPSU: Corsair CX750mCarmageddon Max Damage is effectively the patched version of Carmageddon Reincarnation. It’s so similar that Stainless have removed Reincarnation from sale. Let’s see if things have improved from that unoptimised mess.Firstly, there are a few options but the slider once again covers things nicely. On our test machine running the city track, 1080p Ultra was a perfect 60fps lock. Moving up to 1440p produced an almost 60fps lock. In high demand scenes there would be a momentary drop to 58, but these were still unusual, knocking down any setting a notch gave another rock solid framerate.4k, my preferred resolution, was where the framerate finally fell. Ultra proved far too demanding crashing down to the a low of 27.
Reducing shadow quality and translucency made a playable 30. To reach 60fps we had to go down to medium, a trade-off that was not worth making as 1440p ultra looks far better.Reincarnation had terrible loading times, it could take minutes to start a race if you were at 4k, even loading from SSD. Thankfully things have improved drastically in Carmageddon Max Damage. Running our benchmarks on Maim Street the load times never exceeded 30 seconds.It’s an impressive turnaround from Reincarnation, however the over aggressive depth of field ruins the image by blurring everything far too much. Final ThoughtsIt’s the exact same 1997 game with a facelift and a progression system that locks you to a limited number of tracks far more than the original. There are however a smattering of new modes to play, kill a certain pedestrian, actually race, collect checkpoints, etc.
But if you don’t want to do that you can still just destroy your opponents to gain the laps they’ve completed. Multiplayer has no pedestrians, arguably a large point of Carmageddon generally. At time of review Stainless have not promised their inclusion.Like Duke Nukem Forever, Carmageddon Max Damage tries so hard to be the original release, but with a new coat of paint. Sadly, that extends to how good it is generally.
Games have moved on, what once was new, exciting and horrifying is normal, or even boring. Unlike DNF, it’s still nice to boot up occasionally and just run over everything in sight.I wanted to love Carmageddon Max Damage, I have fond memories of the original release. It’s the game that made me finally get a graphics accelerator, the game I drilled a hole in my wall to play multiplayer with my brother. Instead we have a caricature of the original.
An attempt to relive glory days, but it fails to even live up to that in it’s execution. Stainless bought the IP to “bring back Carmageddon”, if only they’d updated it too.If you have fond memories of Carmageddon then wait for a large sale. Otherwise, just leave it alone.