Carmageddon: Max Damage

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.

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.

My childhood series in a new coat of paint. If you played and enjoyed old Carmageddon games you'll feel right at home. Destruction model is the best it's ever been and the overall formula is still just tons of dumb, mindless fun.

At first I thought it was one of the run of the mill Racing Games, but no this is a Very Satisfying Car Combat Game, when you or your opponent's Vehicle get Smashed you can see the Quality of the Destruction Physics like when you get hit from the sides front or back you can see the Details of the Damage making some Nice Battle Scars, giving me Twisted Metal Vibes, good way to get Adrenaline I'm not much of a Racer I'm more of a Fighter I Love to use Cars as Weapons and this Game gives me that Satisfaction, Not really a Fan of running over People and Animals but it is what it is, I would Recommend getting your Music Player while playing this Game put on some Heavy Metal or Music that gets you Fired up, it is a Good Substitute for Twisted Metal.
Good Game for Twisted Metal Fans like me.

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.

This is a pretty good reboot of sorts for Camageddon. The cars are slippery but it's pretty consistent of what the older Carmageddon games were like. It's a wacky game about running over pedestrians and it's pretty much a modern version of the classic titles. Even the first track is the same as the first track from the original! If you miss the Carmageddon games and want to relive them, they don't work particularly well on modern machines, but you can get this and feel right at home!