Reviews// Carmageddon: Max Damage

Carmageddon: Max Damage is so naughty.

It says rude words, references anal sex and lets you hit people in wheelchairs with your broom broom car. The cars you drive have spikes on them and the game has blood in it. If you sit there all offended it's like "WHATEVER! Go suck on a poo poo" and you're like "Oh man, this is all so naughty."

It doesn't give a tooting flip about what you or this politically correct world thinks of it because it's a maverick renegade with no consideration of your feelings and ultimately its goal is to offend you. And offend me it did.

It wasn't the word "Cunt" scrawled across a billboard or running down cheerleaders at a football match that made me turn my nose up. There's a place for offensive humour that takes things to the extreme. What offended me about Carmageddon: Max Damage was the fact that it's been released and has an asking price of £29.99, because this is up there with one of the worst games I've ever played.

The concept should be all a game like this needs to create something fun to play while maintaining the edgy humour it sets out to deliver. It's a racing game that encourages players to crash into opponents, explosion barrels and pedestrians.

As tasteless as some of this is, it's the foundation for a good time. We've all been there in Grand Theft Auto, taking a shortcut across a populated street and letting off a little giggle as a civilian flies off of the bonnet of your car to the sound of a scream and a thud. A more focused driving game should take that moment and encapsulate it, adding what needs to be added to expand it into its own experience.

Instead Carmageddon: Max Damage fails to acknowledge what it is that makes our twisted side come out and instead creates a game lacking in any form of entertainment.

The cars themselves handle terribly, suffering from 'snaking' as you slide from left to right due to over-steering in an effort to straighten up. They're slow, heavy and fall to pieces far too easily. You have no faith in the game when heading towards corners. You can't trust the controller in your hand as sometimes the car will just do what the hell it wants rather than do what you're asking it to.

In a good racing game you need to be able to forget that you're holding a pad altogether and focus on perfecting the vehicles movement. Your goal may be to hug a corner to shave seconds off a time and catch up to the rest of the pack or to make a quick darting movement to hit a pedestrian for extra points, but you're not allowed to do that here and you're left with a frustrating and unsatisfying experience.

Power-ups take the form of exploding barrels but are so random that they can either give you a seemingly pointless strength boost or just instantly explode your car. Because of the unbalanced nature of what you get from crashing into them you'll start to avoid them rather than incorporating them into your gameplay.

What makes things worse is that it's not even a good-looking game. We've all overlooked weak gameplay from time to time if the game is pretty enough to get away with it but Carmageddon: Max Damage doesn't even look fit for a PS3, let alone a PS4.

The levels are poorly designed, the texturing is a mess. It's full of pop-up and fog to try to cover it up. Pedestrians look like they've been ripped out of 2002's State of Emergency but the game fails to take advantage of not overloading your console with graphics as there are far to few of them on the street.

In fact it's a wonder how this game manages to run so badly on a PS4. It suffers from poor framerate despite being a very basic game, it takes an age to load and everything feels so sparse. It's like Goat Simulator, but without any of the wit that managed to give you a reason to play it.

The main focus for solo play is the career mode, offering three events in each setting. Earn enough points and you'll unlock the next batch of races but you'll lose interest way before the game is finished.

Races are too long and filled with driver AI that has the ability of my two-year-old son. Elimination asks you to destroy all other cars by ramming them, but only serves to add to the tedium. The best of the bad bunch - Checkpoint Stampede - asks all players to rush to a randomly spawning checkpoint before anyone else, but it isn't enough to save this game from being anything other than a complete waste of money.

Carmageddon truly is one of the worst games I've ever played and what makes it worse is that it's playing on nostalgia to try to make a quick buck. There are some that will want to play it due to its name, but when there are games like Trackmania on the market for literally half of the asking price of this then you just have to hope that they manage to catch a few reviews before parting with their cash.

I try to look for some good in every game I play. I hate being this negative. It kills me when I come across a game that has the potential to completely kill a series that was once held in high regard, but after playing Carmaggedon Max Damage I can't come to any other conclusion.

The only thing that could have possibly saved this trainwreck is the online mode but as of yet I've failed to get a game. Every time I try to connect to one of the three rooms I've seen available it fails to connect and if I set up a room of my own, I can sit and wait in a lobby all night without a single player joining me.

This game is to be avoided at all costs. Fans of the series will be more than disappointed, newcomers will never touch the series again.

Pros:
+ Nothing

Cons:
- Everything else

SPOnG Score: 2/10