The car combat genre feels like a product of the ’90s that never quite managed to meet the modern era. Even popular titles like Twisted Metal tried to modernize and establish new fans to the series. It didn’t really work out. While car combat games were hugely popular in the same time as heavy metal riffs in hard rock songs, the aesthetic and vibe isn’t usually capable of transferring to 2016. What’s unfortunate about Carmageddon: Max Damage is that it could have easily been one of the better car combat games if it didn’t rely on appealing to only fans of the Carmageddon franchise.
When I first started up Carmageddon: Max Damage, I thought I had been transported back in time, but in a good way. The in-your-face aesthetic of cheesy hard rock riffs and characters named “Die Anna” amplifies the feeling that this is a game from a whole other era. Carmageddon was a series about being offensive in its carnage – blood was never shied away from. In that respect, Max Damage does exactly what its original incarnation set out to do. The heart is there and the game manages to capitalize on its crimson-drenched traditions.
Game modes can have you being forced to hunt out a specific pedestrian to mow down with your car, or to take out other drivers, or even just race. The Classic Carmageddon mode gives players three different ways of defeating it: kill all the pedestrians, kill all the drivers or hit all the checkpoints. In theory, this a great idea. There is a time limit that pushes players to focus on something, but you could hypothetically spread yourself thin and try doing multiple things at once.
If you were to try something so brazen, you might find yourself running into issues, though. As much as I love the game’s bloodlust and potential for experimentation, it is hindered by one very important thing for a car combat game: the driving is not fun. It’s straight up infuriating. Most cars handle terribly and the ones that are manageable require a lot of determination to get them to your goal. Killing pedestrians is no problem really, but trying to take out another car or race on a track is initially pretty difficult. I got accustomed to the clunky handling, but always felt like I was on the verge of losing control.
It also doesn’t help that the game doesn’t offer much in terms of interesting content. There are lots of cars to unlock, and you can even customize them. But it never feels like much of a difference. Unless you go from one of the purposefully frustrating cars to drive to one of the better (but still difficult to handle) cars. When it comes to interesting content, the game has a hard time maintaining itself after a fairly strong start. The career mode quickly introduces you to a couple modes and then later on introduces another one that is kind of interesting, but just like the other modes, gets tiresome after a couple races. There are also “Stealworthy” cars that can be obtained by destroying that specific car during an event, which will help increase the amount of death machines in your garage.
If the driving was fun or if these modes weren’t all introduced so quickly, then that might have helped. But what exacerbates the feeling of torture is how many times the game wants you to play the same game modes. Sure, you could say that all racing games offer the same race over and over. The difference is that progression doesn’t seem to exist in Carmageddon: Max Damage. I unlocked parts, but I never felt like I got better at the game or really deserved them. You unlock things by just getting to a certain point in the campaign. But I frequently felt like I was just grinding through the campaign for no real purpose. The upgrades never feel consequential and the fact that the cars consistently handle poorly makes getting them even less rewarding.
There’s a currency in the game, but it is used for unlocking power ups which can admittedly be pretty fun to use. You also use the currency to repair your car on-the-fly. The animation is smooth and it looks awesome to see your car go from being split in two to being whole again in real-time. There are performance issues that arise from too much happening on the screen, but Max Damage is often able to keep its cool.
If you don’t really want to mess with the Career mode, you do have the option to partake in multiplayer and freeplay events. Freeplay seems like a large waste of time though as unlocks come mostly from Career mode. Multiplayer is a good idea in concept, but when you have cars that all handle like garbage, it’s difficult to find the redeeming qualities.
There is a solid game built on the surface of Carmageddon: Max Damage, but it starts faltering once someone pokes at its foundations. Driving should be fun, but it’s arguably the most infuriating thing in the game besides its front-loaded career mode that fails to maintain entertainment value. A story could have helped. It probably wouldn’t help much, but it at least would hide some of the very ugly seams stitching the game together. It’s in-your-face and abrasive, but without solid gameplay, it fails to be more than another failed attempt at reviving a dead genre.
Carmageddon: Max Damage Review
Pros
- Carmageddon fans will love the aesthetic
- Instant repairs and power up purchases makes for a snappy experience
- Classic Carmageddon mode is a neat idea
Cons
- Driving is absolutely atrocious
- The game front-loads itself with modes, making the back end far too boring
- There is rarely a sense of accomplishment
- Minor performance issues
