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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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No news on the PC release as of yet, except that it "won't be many many months later" (Nobby from Stainless said this on one of their recent Twitch streams). I assume it'll be a separate entry in the library, but who knows.
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Jul 11, 2016 13:46
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Yeah, the Eagle feels weirdly sluggish and fragile in this one. You could totally use it for the entire game in Carma 1 and 2 (in 2 it was the best car for most missions) but here it's just not as good. The Shredlight is probably the best vehicle for every game mode except Car Crusher. Digital Foundry did a performance analysis on the game, there's not too much info in there that isn't already in the OP (it does mention that the PS4 version runs at full 1080p and Xbone at 900p) but it does let you look at the versions side by side: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eddeIredsD8 DMorbid fucked around with this message at 11:41 on Jul 15, 2016 |
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Jul 15, 2016 11:38
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I'm not exactly a fan of the other modes and they can be annoying, but wrecking opponents to steal their points works quite nicely and is more entertaining than playing by the rules. If all else fails, you can always ignore the other events and just replay the Classic Carma levels to earn more points, which of course isn't optimal but still probably more enjoyable than most of the other modes. I also recommend playing on easy (applies to all Carmageddon games, not just this one) because the only difference is that you earn more money. One thing I do absolutely hate are the cop APCs, which will wreck your poo poo until you get a better vehicle. Since you lose money (and a point in the other modes) when you're wrecked and the cops only attack you... yeah, that is straight-up bad design.
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Jul 19, 2016 04:51
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I did always like the mission where you need to destroy the Big Dump, as well as the one with the 12 police cars (knocking them around with The Plow was the best). The rest can gently caress off, though.
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Jul 19, 2016 16:39
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widespread posted:So is the PC version of Max Damage coming out soonish or am I better off picking up the PS4 version? edit: Also, they apparently did end up removing "Zero Signal" from Max Damage, probably because they only licensed it for Reincarnation and would've had to re-license it for this one. Slightly unfortunate, but nothing that custom soundtracks won't fix (unless you really need the instrumental, which isn't on any streaming services). DMorbid fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Aug 9, 2016 |
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Aug 9, 2016 21:50
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  (I'm probably the only person who has played the level, that score is not particularly high)
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Oct 28, 2016 03:03
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The first race took a bit to load, but the load times after that were maybe 10 seconds at most and I didn't even install this on my increasingly cramped SSD. That's just how it worked on my hardware though, someone else might have had a different experience.
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Oct 28, 2016 03:28
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Opponents not getting stunned when you smashed into them really annoyed me in Reincarnation. I know it was like that in Carma 1 as well, but after Carma 2 it felt like a huge step back and I'm glad they sorted that out. I do also miss the status display, though. I still think Carma 2 is the best game in the series despite the godawful missions. I really enjoyed the exploration aspect of it, finding cool powerups and upgrades and just being able to drive around the levels without the entire Bleak City police department harassing you.
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Oct 28, 2016 16:27
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""Let's see how many peds I can kill without Peds Shown on Map or before the last opponent blows himself up" 600, apparently. At some point I started wondering what I was doing with my life, but it was at least a good way to kill a bunch of time while waiting for the F1 race to start. Also, if you haven't driven the Shredlight yet, you should. Easily the best handling car in the game, and takes a hell of a beating too despite being a 50s sports car. I don't think I've been wasted by opponents a single time while driving it on my current playthrough. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Oct 31, 2016 |
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Oct 31, 2016 08:36
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It's better now, crashing into opponents feels more consistent and you'll stun them when you give them a proper whack. When you get wrecked in any kind of a decent vehicle, it generally happens because someone really plowed into you and you don't just blow up from slightly brushing another car. The more fragile cars like Countslash and Snaky Bastard are still completely useless, though. I suppose they're meant for actual racing, but who does that? Certainly not the opponents, who will happily waste you and steal your laps. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 10:01 on Oct 31, 2016 |
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Oct 31, 2016 09:58
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NoneMoreNegative posted:If you're trying to finish a mission by killing all peds and you're not driving Electric Blue, you have too much free time. I unlocked the final vehicle on PS4 (haven't played that far yet on PC) and it's pretty insane. The best part of unlocking it was seeing the score counter going up for the rest of the race after you wrecked the vehicle. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Oct 31, 2016 |
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Oct 31, 2016 13:08
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I genuinely don't mind the handling at all and find it quite enjoyable, but since pretty much everyone else appears to complain about it there clearly is a problem there and I'm in some weird minority. At least they don't make you do precision platforming in this one, I guess.
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Nov 9, 2016 15:49
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