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You may think you’re a valuable human being, with thoughts, emotions, ambitions and desires, but as far as that oncoming vehicle is concerned, you’re just a big bag of blood. Hit hard enough, you’ll burst like an offal balloon, transformed from a blinking, thinking being into a sickening whirlwind of spiralling innards and marrowbone shrapnel.
Roads are heartless tarmac racetracks ruled by four-wheeled metal boxes driven by barely sentient sales reps whose rationale for speeding rests entirely on the fact that they haven’t suffered a fatal head-on crash And who can blame them, since they’re scarcely aware they’re driving at all?
They’ve got one ear tuned to Rubbish FM, and the other plugged into a mobile phone, and both sides of the road are littered with eye-catching hoardings designed to make passing motorists stop thinking about driving and start thinking about buying a new kind of breakfast cereal instead. Step out in front of one of these motorised sleepwalkers and your sole contribution to our national heritage is likely to amount to little more than just another harrowing statistic in an eerie public information film.
Still, at least no-one’s deliberately trying to mow you down touch wood. When you think about it, simply using a zebra crossing involves an incredible amount of trust on the part of the pedestrian. Would you feel safe walking in front of a man with a loaded gun? Of course not – yet a car could kill you just as easily. God be praised we’re not living in the world of Carmageddon. Carmageddon has made Stainless Software rich, an observation authenticated by the flash cars parked outside their increasingly cramped offices housed on the Isle of Wight.
Carmageddon is a game in which you crash cars and run over pedestrians to score points. It’s also incredibly gory. As anyone with a passing interest in gaming is aware, it ran into trouble with the BBFC British Board of Film Censors , and was released in censored form. Fortunately for psychopaths everywhere, the BBFC’s decision was subsequently overturned, and the game was restored to its full gory glory.
And they did it all for a laugh. According to lead artist Neil Barnden: “It was a case of thinking of all the things you’d really like to do in a driving game – where you’d play something and think ‘yeah, but if only you could do that then it would be fucking ace’ – and then making it. Particularly when they’re demonstrating Carmageddon II -Carpocalypse Now, their current work in progress. They laugh out loud, and they’re not simply putting on a show for the benefit of PC. They’re laughing because Carmageddon II is almost unbearably funny.
The talented development team behind Carmageddon II is headed by three main players. First there’s Patrick Buckland, lead programmer, and the aforementioned Neil Barnden.
For computer boffins, they’re an unlikely looking duo. Patrick sports a lengthy wizard’s beard; if he put on enough weight he could pose as a malevolent Santa Claus. Neil is stocky and shaven-headed. If they turned up together on your doorstep i n the middle of a thunderstorm, you could be forgiven for anticipating an ugly incident involving a claw hammer.
Fortunately, the only atrocities they commit are restricted to the small screen. Anyone whose education was enlivened by the occasional illicit laugh at an obscene doodle scrawled on the back of an exercise book would get on well with Patrick and Neil. Naughty schoolboy giggling abounds as the pair demonstrate their latest meisterwork. A recent change to the code has enabled the team to start placing ‘jointed’ objects, such as articulated lorries, into the game.
It sounds like a minor change, but it means that, for example, you can open the car door while driving, hence the current hilarity – Patrick weeps with laughter as he takes a pedestrian’s arm off with a well-aimed swipe. So, guys, how does it feel to be responsible for probably the most tasteless game of all time?
Patrick takes offence: “Probably the most? I should hope it’s the most tasteless game of all time, or else I’ll be damned annoyed. Neil points out the inclusion of extra animals, including elephants. Patrick goes even further. Looking on is big cheese number three, development manager Mat Sullivan, an ex-Bultfrog employee and bona fide games enthusiast.
During our visit, he enthuses at length about a variety of PC titles and is eager to hear our opinions on recent releases. Aside from appreciating the games themselves, he clearly likes to keep an eye on the competition. So what did he make of similarly anarchic car ’em up Grand Theft Auto? If there’s time, we’ll be having missions in Carmageddon Mot because GTA did, but because it would enable us to add features at a slower pace, rather than revealing everything the game has to offer on the first level.
Missions, eh? So what else is new? Are there loads more cars? My personal favourite is the very small car driven by a giant cow. It beggars belief. You can knock out an engine, and in rare cases even tear the entire car in half. So, being car crash aficionados, do they enjoy watching those Police, Camera, Action-style ‘rubberneck’ TV programmes? Neil grins: “The best was one I saw in the States recently. One of the factors that made the original title such a joy to play was the attentive emulation of’real world’ physics.
Not surprisingly, the technology behind it has been improved for the sequel. You could push a pedestrian in front of your car, then brake, and the pedestrian would carry on sliding; then, say, hit another pedestrian and smash them both through a glass window.
Which should cheer us all up. Speaking of pedestrians, there are a whole bunch of improvements here. But first let’s ask about the multi-player options. The original Carmageddon deathmatch mode was a tad flawed in that department. Otherwise, they tended to get lost, and I can see how it could’ve been frustrating.
Carma going to have much tighter deathmatch arenas. So, they may be responsible for the goriest game in history, but are they at all squeamish? Patrick looks contemplative; “I love good splatter movies – Bad Taste and Brain Dead are some of the best pieces of cinema ever made.
Bui I can’t stand real blood -particularly my own, which belongs inside my body where I can’t see it. Got any particular favourites? Patrick brightens up considerably: “Jeffrey Dahmer’s my man! He had style: eating his victims, drilling into diem while they were alive Woah, horsey!
Does the fact that you live on an island contribute to this nihilistic sense of humour? Is everyone on the Isle of Wight like this?
Patrick shrugs: “Well, there was a bit of witchcraft going on here a couple of years ago – people sacrificing goats and things. Everybody in the room laughs out loud. But we wouldn’t like to give odds on whether or not he was joking There’s still a long way to go before Carmageddon II is ready for the nation’s disapproval.
At the time of our visit, the team was beavering away in an attempt to get a special preview version ready for the E3 show in Atlanta. But you’ll be able to savour the game in its full, glass-smashing, limb-wrenching, vehicle-buckling, gore-sodden glory later this year when we bring you an exclusive demo. On the evidence we’ve seen thus far, Stainless just might manage the double. If the censors decide, in their infinite wisdom, to clamp down on Caima IPs bloodfest, there’s always Plan B, as Stainless reveal.
The version of Carmageddon IIwe saw was the ‘full-blooded’, uncensored version. At the time of writing, no decision had been made regarding its UK release. Obviously, while SCI are keen to avoid another confrontation with the BfiFC, they’d prefer to see the deep red ‘director’s cut’ on the shelves.
And so would we Past examples from the worfd of cinema suggest that the BBFC is capable of seeing the joke when It comes to ‘comedic’ gore – witness the aforementioned Brain Dead, which escaped uncut, or Paul Verhoeven’s splatterific Starship Troopers, which was passed with a 15 certificate Like those films, Carmageddon II sets out to amuse rather than appal. But just in case the game falls foul of the censors, Stainless can adopt Plan B, as Mat Sullivan explains.
They’ll behave exactly the same as the humans, but with different animations and green blood. Fingers crossed for the full-on, gristle-packed incarnation. If you thought pedestrians had a raw deal In the first game, you’re in for a shock with the second installment.
For the sequel, each ‘ped’ is constructed from around 70 polygons -these are proper, three-dimensional people. And since Stainless are no longer dealing with dumb sprites, they are free to bless their creations with more realistic behaviour patterns: the new Improved peds can walk, swagger, trot or flee in a mad, arm-waving panic. Sometimes they even get down on their knees and beg for mercy. The naive fools. Want more? Well, here’s another leap forward for stomach-churning technology: detachable body parts.
Strike a glancing blow and you can tear somebody’s leg clean off. Or send both their arms bouncing across your bonnet Or hurl them into a nearby lamp-post with enough force to decapitate them. A multiple pile-up in the centre of a crowded pavement often results in a swarm of bloodied limbs being tossed around like numbered balls in a lottery machine. But wait, It gets better the victims don’t always die outright Yep, sometimes the unfortunate peds will pick themselves up off the ground – missing limbs and all – and desperately start hopping away, their severed veins spewing goblets of blood from the freshly tom stumps, just like the Black Knight from Monty Python And The Holy Grail.
We wouldn’t believe it If we hadn’t seen It with our own eyes. It’s a nightmare of ghoulish obscenity. The story behind Carmageddon 2 involves a Just get in your car and do whatever it takes to win the futuristic road rally..
Carmageddon Download | GameFabrique.Carmageddon
You’re sitting at the starting line, waiting for the checkered flag to drop. Engines race as each driver waits for the race to begin. Suddenly the car next to you surges forward, slamming the starter’s body into the wall. You and the other drivers take off in fast pursuit, careening up onto the sidewalks, sending spectators running for cover. If you’ve ever seen Deathrace you have a good idea of the story in Carmageddon. There are no rules; it’s just you and your car against everyone.
Your goal is to climb from 99th in the rankings to number one and if, along the way, you have to crush the opposition literally , that’s just fine. And if you’re also willing to take out any pedestrians that don’t run fast enough, that’s even better. This is one racing game where your position in the pack doesn’t matter as much as how much damage you do. Each race does have a set course and you can successfully complete a race by going through the checkpoints and finishing the required laps, but you’ll miss most of the fun if you do.
You can also win by knocking the competition out of the race, and we’re not talking about a wimpy game where you blast away at the enemy with guns — in this race, it’s just you and the car slamming into stuff while doing 95 mph. And if that’s not violent enough, there is a third way to win: run over every pedestrian on the streets. Carmageddon is less of a racing game than a destruction derby and while the premise is pretty straightforward, there are many extra touches that make it a lot of fun to play.
Each race pits you against 5 of the 25 opponents who have their own car and style. The AI behind the drivers is fantastic.
Not only do they take advantage of their car’s abilities and quirks, they also remember how you’ve treated them in previous races. If you trash one driver too many times, he’ll be after your throat the next time he sees you.
And when you manage to waste another racer completely, there is a chance that their car will be stolen, making it available for you to use in future races. The best thing about all the cars is that each one handles differently. Driving a tricked-out sports car feels vastly different from driving a monster truck, and Carmageddon has captured the essence of the various cars extremely well.
Every vehicle has a different response to acceleration, braking and cornering, making each one a challenge to drive. But after a little practice you can do quick handbrake turns and spins in almost all of them. You can even do stunts like jumps and flips that can earn you bonuses.
There are over thirty tracks and each one is a complete 3D environment. You’re not tied to the set race course; in fact, most of the powerups and many of the pedestrians can only be found by leaving the set track.
One course will have you roaring through the streets of a big city, and in the next you will be cruising along a coastal highway. Each track is unique and has secret areas to find and exploit. The points earned from mowing down pedestrians, skillful maneuvers, style, combo collisions and powerups can be used to make on-the-fly repairs or recover the car if it is stuck upside-down. The 3D environment in Carmageddon is top-notch. The car animations are smooth and damage to your car shows up clearly — it will even catch fire and spew black clouds of smoke.
Sparks fly from collisions, pedestrians run screaming from oncoming vehicles, and light poles, trees and other scenic objects break off and bounce across the landscape when you smash into them. The default screen mode is x and most systems will perform best at that resolution.
There is a x high-res mode, but even on a top-end Pentium it was too choppy for comfortable play. A 3Dfx patch is promised soon, which should provide smoother high-res graphics. The audio ranges from good to really annoying. The various engine noises and crashes, bangs, screams, and crunches of the cars smashing into walls, pedestrians, and each other are very realistic.
They even fade in and out and shift in pitch as the cars race past each other at top speed. If the effects had been left here, they would have been fantastic. Unfortunately, there is a small inset animation of “you” that reacts to your driving with screams and swearing that became annoying after a short time. This can be turned off, but the game doesn’t remember the setting between sessions, so you have to toggle it off over and over again.
The game also has a pulse-pounding rock soundtrack that provides the perfect background to the mayhem, but to hear it you must do a full installation, which requires MB of drive space this isn’t mentioned during the install process. Carmageddon’s multi-player options are fantastic. The game supports up to six players on an IPX network, and there are several modes ranging from a free-for-all destruction derby to complicated games of tag.
You can set the game so that all players are using similar cars, have the computer randomly assign cars for each race, or allow each player to select from the available cars.
I personally like the free-for-all mode with randomly selected cars. It can be a real challenge to take out someone in a huge front-end loader when you’re driving a dune buggy, but it makes for great gameplay. There are even special multi-player tracks, including one where the race takes place on the top of a plateau — it’s lots of fun to push your opponents off and watch them fall. The only drawback to the multi-player options is the lack of support for modem or Internet play.
Carmageddon’s documentation provides a solid overview of the game, including background information on the opponents you will face. It also covers tips and tricks for the unsafe driving practices you’ll need to develop to win the game. Multiplayer play requires an IPX network.
Carmageddon has been rated M Mature, ages 17 and up for violence, gore, and language. Unlike some other violent games, there is no parental lockout mode that turns off the blood — this game is simply not intended for kids. This is one fantastic game — it’s demolition derby with a body count. If you’re looking for a racing game that tosses the rulebook away, this is it.
The variety of tracks and opponents, combined with the freedom to go anywhere and run over anything, makes this game a great stress reliever. The only drawback is the lack of modem or Internet support for multi-player games. This has quickly become one of my favorites — I would definitely recommend Carmageddon to anyone looking for a little uncontrolled mayhem. Game In The World Indeed, it’s a boast that still bears examination today, as for sheer gratuitous nastiness few games have come close, before or since.
Even fewer have been as funny, and Carmageddon occupies a rare position of being deeply immoral yet highly amusing. That it managed this largely through the medium of wholesale pedestrian slaughter is no small achievement. After all, running people over isn’t funny, is it?
Is it? Black humour is one of the things that keeps us all sane,” claims co-designer Patrick Buckland. Also, driving is something that most of us do. And we’ve all seen that bloody stupid old bloke hobbling across the road in front of us and shouted, ‘F-k off you coffin-dodging old XXXX! Get out of my f–king way! I don’t care what fking war you fought in you whingeing wanker.
I’ve got a f–king pub to get to. Something of an extreme attitude, perhaps, but one that clearly infused itself into the game. Apart from an irrational hatred of slow-moving war veterans. Patrick claims that the idea for Carmageddon also came from me hating driving games.
Every time I played them, I got bored after half a lap, turned my car around and tried to head-on the pack coming the other way. Due to shite collision detection and zero physics in the games at that time, this was rarely satisfying, so I set out to write a game where this was the actual core gameplay mechanic.
I was into some pretty banzai Banger Racing at the time, specialising in yanks, Jags and ’60s British classics. I decided to try to capture some of the excitement of this in the game.
It was signed up as 3D Destruction Derby. SCi then tried to procure the Mad Max licence for it, and when this failed they tried for Death Race Eventually this fell through as well, so we all thought. Co-designer Neil Barnden has similar memories of the game’s original inception: “We put together a very basic demo for 3D Destruction Derby, which had three different cars trundling round a very basic oval track.
The player was able to chase ’em in their car and twat ’em. The demo featured the ‘PratCam’, where you got to see the driver – in this case, me – reacting to the impacts, which helped add the humour we wanted to convey. On the strength of touting this demo around ECTS we got some publisher interest, but it was SCi that most quickly signed on the dotted line.
Given the final content of the game, it was a brave move by SCi. However, far from attempt to tone down the violence, it seems that SCi actively encouraged it.
According to Patrick, Early on in the development you actually lost points for hitting pedestrians, but it was Rob Henderson of SCi – now boss of Smoking Gun – who said, F k- it, let’s just go the whole hog and reward the player for killing people. The pedestrian collisions were an aspect of the game that the team set about recreating with some gusto, as Neil recalls: In order that our sprite-based pedestrians be made to look incredibly lifelike ahem , we based them on video frame grabs of ourselves ‘in action’ in the lorry car park outside our office.
As part of this highly technical process, we enlisted the help of our friend Tony – who was also the in-game face of Max Damage – as stuntman. Wearing professional stuntman padding cardboard boxes stuffed up his jumper and using Patrick’s Chevrolet Caprice station wagon as stunt vehicle, we proceeded to run Tony over.
Many times. While my colleague filmed from the passenger seat, Tony encouraged me to drive into him at higher and higher speeds, as he was determined to roll completely over the roof of the car. That’s the kind of guy Tony is.
In the end, I drove at him fast enough that he crashed straight through the windscreen. This, and the office workers in the building overlooking the car park calling the police, signalled that we’d ‘got it in the can’ for the reference material. Which I then drove up to the local windscreen repair shop with this bloody great person-sized dent in the glass. As Patrick casually lists, There was the shooting of the chandelier. First with air guns, and then with a homemade rocket launcher.
And the way we got the footage for whiplash on the PratCam – belting Tony around the back of the neck with the thick end of a pool cue.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation – Download.Carmageddon II: Carpocalypse Now
You’re sitting at the starting line, waiting for the checkered flag to drop. Engines race as each driver waits for the race to begin.
Suddenly the car next to you surges forward, slamming the starter’s body into the wall. You and the other drivers take off in fast pursuit, careening up onto the sidewalks, sending spectators running for cover. If you’ve ever seen Deathrace you have a good idea of the story in Carmageddon. There are no rules; it’s just you and your car against everyone. Your goal is to climb from 99th in the rankings to number one and if, along the way, you have to crush the opposition literally , that’s just fine.
And if you’re also willing to take out any pedestrians that don’t run fast enough, that’s even better. This is one racing game where your position in the pack doesn’t matter as much as how much damage you do.
Each race does have a set course and you can successfully complete a race by going through the checkpoints and finishing the required laps, but you’ll miss most of the fun if you do.
You can also win by knocking the competition out of the race, and we’re not talking about a wimpy game where you blast away at the enemy with guns — in this race, it’s just you and the car slamming into stuff while doing 95 mph. And if that’s not violent enough, there is a third way to win: run over every pedestrian on the streets.
Carmageddon is less of a racing game than a destruction derby and while the premise is pretty straightforward, there are many extra touches that make it a lot of fun to play. Each race pits you against 5 of the 25 opponents who have their own car and style. The AI behind the drivers is fantastic.
Not only do they take advantage of their car’s abilities and quirks, they also remember how you’ve treated them in previous races. If you trash one driver too many times, he’ll be after your throat the next time he sees you. And when you manage to waste another racer completely, there is a chance that their car will be stolen, making it available for you to use in future races. The best thing about all the cars is that each one handles differently.
Driving a tricked-out sports car feels vastly different from driving a monster truck, and Carmageddon has captured the essence of the various cars extremely well. Every vehicle has a different response to acceleration, braking and cornering, making each one a challenge to drive.
But after a little practice you can do quick handbrake turns and spins in almost all of them. You can even do stunts like jumps and flips that can earn you bonuses. There are over thirty tracks and each one is a complete 3D environment. You’re not tied to the set race course; in fact, most of the powerups and many of the pedestrians can only be found by leaving the set track. One course will have you roaring through the streets of a big city, and in the next you will be cruising along a coastal highway.
Each track is unique and has secret areas to find and exploit. The points earned from mowing down pedestrians, skillful maneuvers, style, combo collisions and powerups can be used to make on-the-fly repairs or recover the car if it is stuck upside-down.
The 3D environment in Carmageddon is top-notch. The car animations are smooth and damage to your car shows up clearly — it will even catch fire and spew black clouds of smoke. Sparks fly from collisions, pedestrians run screaming from oncoming vehicles, and light poles, trees and other scenic objects break off and bounce across the landscape when you smash into them. The default screen mode is x and most systems will perform best at that resolution.
There is a x high-res mode, but even on a top-end Pentium it was too choppy for comfortable play. A 3Dfx patch is promised soon, which should provide smoother high-res graphics. The audio ranges from good to really annoying.
The various engine noises and crashes, bangs, screams, and crunches of the cars smashing into walls, pedestrians, and each other are very realistic. They even fade in and out and shift in pitch as the cars race past each other at top speed. If the effects had been left here, they would have been fantastic. Unfortunately, there is a small inset animation of “you” that reacts to your driving with screams and swearing that became annoying after a short time. This can be turned off, but the game doesn’t remember the setting between sessions, so you have to toggle it off over and over again.
The game also has a pulse-pounding rock soundtrack that provides the perfect background to the mayhem, but to hear it you must do a full installation, which requires MB of drive space this isn’t mentioned during the install process. Carmageddon’s multi-player options are fantastic. The game supports up to six players on an IPX network, and there are several modes ranging from a free-for-all destruction derby to complicated games of tag.
You can set the game so that all players are using similar cars, have the computer randomly assign cars for each race, or allow each player to select from the available cars. I personally like the free-for-all mode with randomly selected cars. It can be a real challenge to take out someone in a huge front-end loader when you’re driving a dune buggy, but it makes for great gameplay.
There are even special multi-player tracks, including one where the race takes place on the top of a plateau — it’s lots of fun to push your opponents off and watch them fall. The only drawback to the multi-player options is the lack of support for modem or Internet play.
Carmageddon’s documentation provides a solid overview of the game, including background information on the opponents you will face. It also covers tips and tricks for the unsafe driving practices you’ll need to develop to win the game. Multiplayer play requires an IPX network.
Carmageddon has been rated M Mature, ages 17 and up for violence, gore, and language. Unlike some other violent games, there is no parental lockout mode that turns off the blood — this game is simply not intended for kids.
This is one fantastic game — it’s demolition derby with a body count. If you’re looking for a racing game that tosses the rulebook away, this is it. The variety of tracks and opponents, combined with the freedom to go anywhere and run over anything, makes this game a great stress reliever. The only drawback is the lack of modem or Internet support for multi-player games. This has quickly become one of my favorites — I would definitely recommend Carmageddon to anyone looking for a little uncontrolled mayhem.
Game In The World Indeed, it’s a boast that still bears examination today, as for sheer gratuitous nastiness few games have come close, before or since. Even fewer have been as funny, and Carmageddon occupies a rare position of being deeply immoral yet highly amusing.
That it managed this largely through the medium of wholesale pedestrian slaughter is no small achievement. After all, running people over isn’t funny, is it? Is it? Black humour is one of the things that keeps us all sane,” claims co-designer Patrick Buckland.
Also, driving is something that most of us do. And we’ve all seen that bloody stupid old bloke hobbling across the road in front of us and shouted, ‘F-k off you coffin-dodging old XXXX! Get out of my f–king way! I don’t care what fking war you fought in you whingeing wanker. I’ve got a f–king pub to get to.
Something of an extreme attitude, perhaps, but one that clearly infused itself into the game. Apart from an irrational hatred of slow-moving war veterans.
Patrick claims that the idea for Carmageddon also came from me hating driving games. Every time I played them, I got bored after half a lap, turned my car around and tried to head-on the pack coming the other way.
Due to shite collision detection and zero physics in the games at that time, this was rarely satisfying, so I set out to write a game where this was the actual core gameplay mechanic. I was into some pretty banzai Banger Racing at the time, specialising in yanks, Jags and ’60s British classics.
I decided to try to capture some of the excitement of this in the game. It was signed up as 3D Destruction Derby. SCi then tried to procure the Mad Max licence for it, and when this failed they tried for Death Race Eventually this fell through as well, so we all thought. Co-designer Neil Barnden has similar memories of the game’s original inception: “We put together a very basic demo for 3D Destruction Derby, which had three different cars trundling round a very basic oval track.
The player was able to chase ’em in their car and twat ’em. The demo featured the ‘PratCam’, where you got to see the driver – in this case, me – reacting to the impacts, which helped add the humour we wanted to convey.
On the strength of touting this demo around ECTS we got some publisher interest, but it was SCi that most quickly signed on the dotted line. Given the final content of the game, it was a brave move by SCi. However, far from attempt to tone down the violence, it seems that SCi actively encouraged it. According to Patrick, Early on in the development you actually lost points for hitting pedestrians, but it was Rob Henderson of SCi – now boss of Smoking Gun – who said, F k- it, let’s just go the whole hog and reward the player for killing people.
The pedestrian collisions were an aspect of the game that the team set about recreating with some gusto, as Neil recalls: In order that our sprite-based pedestrians be made to look incredibly lifelike ahem , we based them on video frame grabs of ourselves ‘in action’ in the lorry car park outside our office.
As part of this highly technical process, we enlisted the help of our friend Tony – who was also the in-game face of Max Damage – as stuntman. Wearing professional stuntman padding cardboard boxes stuffed up his jumper and using Patrick’s Chevrolet Caprice station wagon as stunt vehicle, we proceeded to run Tony over. Many times. While my colleague filmed from the passenger seat, Tony encouraged me to drive into him at higher and higher speeds, as he was determined to roll completely over the roof of the car.
That’s the kind of guy Tony is. In the end, I drove at him fast enough that he crashed straight through the windscreen. This, and the office workers in the building overlooking the car park calling the police, signalled that we’d ‘got it in the can’ for the reference material.
Which I then drove up to the local windscreen repair shop with this bloody great person-sized dent in the glass. As Patrick casually lists, There was the shooting of the chandelier. First with air guns, and then with a homemade rocket launcher. And the way we got the footage for whiplash on the PratCam – belting Tony around the back of the neck with the thick end of a pool cue. And the computer equipment thrown over balconies while working late at night.
And the placing of a microwave oven on top of a car that we’d set fire to the week before, filling the microwave with petrol and camping gas cylinders, taping oxyacetylene-filled balloons to it, and turning it on.
But we re a perfectly normal, sensible development company. Amazingly, the game did actually make it to completion, but getting it on the shelves was to provide an even greater challenge in the shape of the notorious British Board of Film Classification.
I had to attend a meeting at their London office with the late James Ferman, the man whose signature famously graced the BBFC certificate for many years, recalls Neil. When the game was submitted to them, they refused to allow it to be released. I admit my recollection of the details of the meeting is hazy. As we were about to go into Ferman’s office, I noticed my flies were completely open, and spent the whole meeting preoccupied with whether the Great Man would notice this too and assume I was making some sort of grand gesture.
This, and what followed, made it a surreal occasion. They asserted that the idea of gaining reward for killing innocent people was unacceptable. In order to make their point that the game was morally bankrupt, they had one of their staff, a young guy, play the game in front of us all. He was clearly having a whale of a time, going for ‘artistic impression’ bonuses, giggling gleefully as old ladies exploded across his bonnet. James Ferman stood with us behind him, straight-faced, explaining to us how this man was being ‘corrupted’ by the experience.
And the young man agreed: ‘Yes, it’s really not Our explanation that the game was meant to be a surreal comedy experience fell on deaf ears,” recalls Neil. Without changes that would deal with their central objection, the game could not be given a certificate, and so would not be released. It was perhaps for the best that Patrick Buckland wasn’t at the meeting.
As he says, Neil did all that stuff, which suited me fine, as I would probably have driven a large vehicle through their building had I been directly on the receiving end of their double standards. We once got a hard time from them because Ferman had spent ‘all morning having to watch hardcore gay pornography’. Poor dear. I bet the twat was just embarrassed because it gave him a hard-on the size of a policeman’s truncheon Back to the matter in hand, and both Stainless and SCi were faced with a problem, namely the lack of a game.
A compromise had to be reached and the concerned parties eventually agreed to replace the pedestrians with zombies, replete with censor-pleasing green blood. According to Neil, The zombies were created over the course of one long angst-ridden weekend as the solution to this impasse with the BBFC.
Already dead, and filled with nothing more offensive than pus, the zombies were deemed acceptable victims for the young homicidal racing-game fans of Great Britain. As Patrick remembers. They took out an injunction on us. The zombies were bloody irritating. If red blood is good enough for The Holy Grail, it’s good enough for us. Carmageddon was finally released to critical and commercial acclaim and. Other more low-rent publications were less complimentary though, and the inevitable lazy tabloid backlash promptly ensued, something that Patrick found absolutely bloody hilarious!
One of the funniest was that Age Concern officially complained to us because we were depicting the running-over of old people”. Similarly, Neil thought that the tabloid coverage was great! Uninformed, bandwagon-jumping rubbish. Just the stuff to shift more units”. And shift units it did, with the game hogging the number one spot like a blood-soaked Bryan Adams if only. Carmageddon also received the ultimate accolade, picking up the coveted Game Of The Year, as voted for by the readers.
At a gala occasion at London’s Camden Palace, the Stainless team joyously lifted the trophy, and were spotted revelling late into the night, drunk on success and cheap wine. Even Tony the stuntman got involved, doing a passable impression of Mel Gibson, who he has actually doubled for in the movies or so he claimed. There was a third Carmageddon game in the shape of TDR Or, as Patrick puts it, Absolutely f But you really shouldn’t print that.
He still has fond memories of the original world-changing game though, claiming: It has brought violence more into the mainstream. It has also shown that videogames can be genuinely hilarious – I’m not sure that any game before Carmageddon could reduce an entire room of onlookers to tears of laughter.
I’m very proud of that. Overall though, the thing I’m really most proud of is that millions of people around the world have had a laugh because of what I’ve done. Not many people can go to their grave with that claim. As for Neil, he is similarly full of pride. I was talking to a friend recently about the idea of seeing something that someone else has made, he says.
Whether it’s a piece of art or a book, a videogame, a film, a television series, whatever, and being so taken with their achievement that you can see no point in continuing doing what you do. They’ve done such a perfect job, there’s really nowhere left to go. I think you can be struck with this feeling, even if this achievement is in a field other than your own.
I was discussing this, and told him that’s what I expect to happen when Half-Life 2 is released. At that point, I said, I will finally be able to give up making games, because there won’t be any need any more.
My friend’s response was totally unexpected, and left me with a warm glow for the rest of the day. He said: ‘But that’s exactly what I felt like when I played Carmageddon?
It was as natural as cottage cheese. If you’d ever played a driving game that included humans, you will at some point have tried to run one of them over. If there’s time, we’ll be having missions in Carmageddon Mot because GTA did, but because it would enable us to add features at a slower pace, rather than revealing everything the game has to offer on the first level. Missions, eh? So what else is new? Are there loads more cars? My personal favourite is the very small car driven by a giant cow.
It beggars belief. You can knock out an engine, and in rare cases even tear the entire car in half. So, being car crash aficionados, do they enjoy watching those Police, Camera, Action-style ‘rubberneck’ TV programmes? Neil grins: “The best was one I saw in the States recently. One of the factors that made the original title such a joy to play was the attentive emulation of’real world’ physics. Not surprisingly, the technology behind it has been improved for the sequel.
You could push a pedestrian in front of your car, then brake, and the pedestrian would carry on sliding; then, say, hit another pedestrian and smash them both through a glass window. Which should cheer us all up. Speaking of pedestrians, there are a whole bunch of improvements here. But first let’s ask about the multi-player options. The original Carmageddon deathmatch mode was a tad flawed in that department.
Otherwise, they tended to get lost, and I can see how it could’ve been frustrating. Carma going to have much tighter deathmatch arenas. So, they may be responsible for the goriest game in history, but are they at all squeamish?
Patrick looks contemplative; “I love good splatter movies – Bad Taste and Brain Dead are some of the best pieces of cinema ever made.
Bui I can’t stand real blood -particularly my own, which belongs inside my body where I can’t see it. Got any particular favourites? Patrick brightens up considerably: “Jeffrey Dahmer’s my man! He had style: eating his victims, drilling into diem while they were alive Woah, horsey!
Does the fact that you live on an island contribute to this nihilistic sense of humour? Is everyone on the Isle of Wight like this? Patrick shrugs: “Well, there was a bit of witchcraft going on here a couple of years ago – people sacrificing goats and things. Everybody in the room laughs out loud. But we wouldn’t like to give odds on whether or not he was joking There’s still a long way to go before Carmageddon II is ready for the nation’s disapproval.
At the time of our visit, the team was beavering away in an attempt to get a special preview version ready for the E3 show in Atlanta. But you’ll be able to savour the game in its full, glass-smashing, limb-wrenching, vehicle-buckling, gore-sodden glory later this year when we bring you an exclusive demo. On the evidence we’ve seen thus far, Stainless just might manage the double. If the censors decide, in their infinite wisdom, to clamp down on Caima IPs bloodfest, there’s always Plan B, as Stainless reveal.
The version of Carmageddon IIwe saw was the ‘full-blooded’, uncensored version. At the time of writing, no decision had been made regarding its UK release. Obviously, while SCI are keen to avoid another confrontation with the BfiFC, they’d prefer to see the deep red ‘director’s cut’ on the shelves. And so would we Past examples from the worfd of cinema suggest that the BBFC is capable of seeing the joke when It comes to ‘comedic’ gore – witness the aforementioned Brain Dead, which escaped uncut, or Paul Verhoeven’s splatterific Starship Troopers, which was passed with a 15 certificate Like those films, Carmageddon II sets out to amuse rather than appal.
But just in case the game falls foul of the censors, Stainless can adopt Plan B, as Mat Sullivan explains. They’ll behave exactly the same as the humans, but with different animations and green blood. Fingers crossed for the full-on, gristle-packed incarnation. If you thought pedestrians had a raw deal In the first game, you’re in for a shock with the second installment. For the sequel, each ‘ped’ is constructed from around 70 polygons -these are proper, three-dimensional people.
And since Stainless are no longer dealing with dumb sprites, they are free to bless their creations with more realistic behaviour patterns: the new Improved peds can walk, swagger, trot or flee in a mad, arm-waving panic. Sometimes they even get down on their knees and beg for mercy. The naive fools. Want more? Well, here’s another leap forward for stomach-churning technology: detachable body parts. Strike a glancing blow and you can tear somebody’s leg clean off. Or send both their arms bouncing across your bonnet Or hurl them into a nearby lamp-post with enough force to decapitate them.
A multiple pile-up in the centre of a crowded pavement often results in a swarm of bloodied limbs being tossed around like numbered balls in a lottery machine. But wait, It gets better the victims don’t always die outright Yep, sometimes the unfortunate peds will pick themselves up off the ground – missing limbs and all – and desperately start hopping away, their severed veins spewing goblets of blood from the freshly tom stumps, just like the Black Knight from Monty Python And The Holy Grail.
We wouldn’t believe it If we hadn’t seen It with our own eyes. It’s a nightmare of ghoulish obscenity. The story behind Carmageddon 2 involves a Just get in your car and do whatever it takes to win the futuristic road rally.. This time, those pedestrians are fully polygonal; they’ll jump, dance, flee, even beg for mercy–and their limbs fly off when you strike them at high speeds.
You can plow into them with 40 different cars, which now feature windshields that shatter and doors that fly open. Watch for 90 different power-ups, particle effects, huge levels including an airport a ski resort and an amusement park and native 3D card support The repetitive sounds and graphic pop-up, however, need work before this road warrior is ready to roll.
This ultra-violent racing game places you in the driver’s seat against opponents with only one thing on their minds — win at any cost.
All the pedestrian-splattering action of the original Carmageddon is here, with additional carnage-enhancing features that will leave you either screaming for mercy or screaming for more.
Blood and gore — that’s what it’s all about. There’s not a socially redeeming quality to be found. But if you want fast-paced racing action that doesn’t care about rules of the road, Carpocalypse Now will give it to you.
Everything that made the original Carmageddon such a wonderful and demented game is still present. The physics model is among the best found in arcade racing games — only high-end racing simulators can match it. Enemy drivers react to your actions, hold grudges and even anticipate your moves, rather than just roaring along at top speed. Pedestrians run screaming when you approach. Bits of cars and scenery go careening away from collisions. All the carnage Carmageddon fans expect is here, and everything is stepped up a notch.
There are lots of cool racing environments in the game, ranging from ski slopes and amusement parks to an aircraft carrier called the USS Lewinsky.
Each area has unique features. I particularly enjoyed racing around the airport runways, trying to take out a Each environment is visited several times throughout the game, but each time the track layout or goals are different.