Carmageddon: Max Damage

Due to a lot of shortcomings, Carmageddon Max Damage will not be enjoyed by players who are not familiar with the original projects from the series, nor by those who are familiar with it. They may be reminded of the good old days thanks to the game, but when the enthusiasm for returning to the past subsides, several significant negatives surface.
Carmageddon struck a sentimental chord in me, after a while I understood that this is the only significant positive about the game, i.e. the possibility to remember the old times. It has nothing to offer game-wise or technically.
As you probably know, the core of Carmageddon is not only racing, but brutality plays at least as important a role. You are incentivized to be as aggressive as possible, not only towards other drivers, but also towards innocent pedestrians (and occasionally animals) who are unfortunate enough to be in your range.
In 1997 it was extremely shocking, Carmageddon was even banned in some countries, but today it is nothing short of breathtaking. Yes, it might surprise some that it's allowed to kill elderly people with walkers or disabled people, but I'm guessing 99% of people will just leave it cool.
The line of tolerance for violence has shifted over the years and not a little, so the "shock effect" of the original Carmageddon is simply gone.
I don't know if I'm more disappointed as a series veteran or as a player. As an observer, I consider Carmageddon: Max Damage to be a classic. As a player for a subpar title. 20%

OG Carmageddon is one of the most memorable games of the 90s. This is a time when the violence controversy in video games was reaching its early peak and various moral watchdogs were urging people left and right to think of the poor innocent children. Carmageddon, a game where psychopaths use the streets as racing arenas with no regard for pedestrian safety, waltzed into the limelight. Irreverent, juvenile and comically violent it quickly made a splash becoming one of the first games even my mother could name drop. On top of all that, it was an excellent racing game and tons of fun to play. Now, decades later, in a different world and after several mostly failed sequel attempts, the kickstarter revolution brought us Carmageddon Reincarnation and its updated version Max Damage. Let's see if that game manages to recapture some of that 90s magic.
I will not beat around the bush. This is nostalgia bait at its finest. Max Damage feels incredibly familiar. The same concept, the same protagonist, the same 90s teen humour and lots of violence. Even many of the stages are clear reimaginings of classic stages as are most of the cars. The racing experience remains highly engaging and mostly well executed. Just like the original game you enter an open map with 5 other psychos and your goal is to either destroy all enemy cars, kill all pedestrians, or, for those boring by the book types, finish all laps of the indicated race before time runs out. There are new additions to the mix too, all of them welcome. The game adds a number of additional modes of play, like a proper race mode where you need to finish first, or a simple destruction derby. There is also some very interesting new cars, like a super fast but ridiculously hard to control fighter jet. Even some subtle and funny lore developments when it comes to the backgrounds of returning drivers.
There are of course shortcomings. The most obvious and consequential one is AI. The difficulty of the game is generally lacklustre. The enemy drivers aren't really trying to win. It doesn't help that in the classic mode they can't really win. They can only hinder the player and it is really quite obvious that's all they want to do. They will mostly ignore other racers and focus their ire on the player. Even the rules are haphazardly employed to facilitate that. Enemy racers will teleport nearby to continue their assault for instance. This threw me somewhat. It hurt the illusion. More importantly though, by the endgame it becomes apparent that it wasn't so much the enemies and each unique racing instance that was the key contributor to having fun, but exploring all these beautiful open maps. I can't help but think that with a better AI, it could have been both. There are more things to complain about, for example the way the game locks progress behind score totals can feel grindy. Frankly though, those are minor in comparison.
Max Damage is a fun racer, that really does feel like it belongs to a different era. It's lighthearted and never takes itself too seriously, in a way that our much more morose and politically-charged era doesn't seem to often tolerate. Yet here is a game that even contains a mode replacing all pedestrians with Hillary and Trump clones, one bleeding blue and the other orange. This is a blast from the past and for those that have played and loved the original it is an absolute must. But even newer players, if they are looking for something fun, violent and yes unrepentantly silly, they won't go wrong with this one. Those that take themselves and the world too seriously, likely should look elsewhere.

Pros:
-Physics that are faithful to the older games. There is zero learning curve in regards to the handling if you have played the earlier games. People with no Carma experience coming from Assetto Corsa or whatever are probably gonna have a bad time.
-Everything else there is to love about the older games is still here but shinier: stupid humor, lots of different powerups and powerdowns, fun vehicle designs, neat environments, endless vehicular chaos, squishy peds, etc.
-No missions! The most common criticism of the previous games is gone.
Cons:
-Fox n' Hounds I guess.
Other:
-Cops, including one that can emasculate the Suppressor.
-The majority of the vehicles you can acquire early on are objectively worse than your starting vehicle, and they may be very difficult to control or too weak for combat. I see people in other reviews complaining about it and just don't get it. It is intentional and an extension of the games irreverent humor. Part of the fun is taking these shitboxes into the hardest levels of the game and trying to win.
-The game had pretty poor modding support at start. Access the experimental beta branch to unlock full modding, and then download the Overhaul mod, which notably improves the AI (and they can repair and often powerups now, something I strongly wanted in previous games).
-This game, or rather Reincarnation (Max Damage was a free update for Reincarnation buyers), was a day-one purchase for me. I can only say that about maybe 2 or 3 games in the last two decades. Unfortunately, it didn't do well financially and resulted in the franchise getting sold to THQ Nordic. Let's hope they don't let it rot.

Not a cell phone in sight. Just people living in the moment. Standing next to cows and penguins. While cars with knives attached to them barrel through the streets. Sometimes there are checkpoints.

Vanilla game is quite boring... BUT! With this mod - STShotgun's C:MD Overhaul - it is completely different game. In short, cars are faster, they hit harder, and handle better.

This game has the exact same flaws as in carmageddon 1. The only huge difference is the damage physics, which makes crazy weapons on cars quite intresting. Val hella's wheel spikes for example can easily pop opponents tires. Despite this devs dont really care about applying these little physics gimmicks to balance out gameplay experience. Some cars outright usless, especially light weight cars with static spikes and blades, it seems they dont deal extra damage at all which is kinda boring and you will definetly not use em again(even for race) because of heavier cars which are just better in every aspect.
Gamemodes are insanely long, dull and outdated
and for some reason they decided to use dubstep for soundtrack in this game.
Basically its a remake with more meat on its bones but with worse aesthetics, still wont give this game a negative review, i think devs really tried to make something impressive, and they did an excellent job of capturing and suprassing an original carmageddon experience, its just... outdated and flawed fundamentally...
update: overhaul mod kinda fixes problem that i adressed

Fun although extremely frustrating sometimes. Enemy cars won't let you move and play. Finished the campaign in about 20 hours but all that's left is repeating every track and do every challenge which is very boring.