The new Carmageddon offers a bloody good ride, but too often it's a danger to itself.
Key events
29th May 2015
18th March 2015
3rd April 2014
THQ Nordic acquires IP rights to classic combat racer Carmageddon
Crash, bang, wallet.
The seemingly insatiable THQ Nordic has announced the acquisition of yet another beloved, but regrettably dormant gaming IP. This time around, it's classic (and notorious) vehicular smash-'em-up Carmageddon's turn to join the publisher's rapidly swelling ranks.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation review
Driven to destruction.
Much has changed since Carmageddon first crashed onto the scene in the spring of 1997. Back then, damage modelling in your typical racing game involved slapping a few scuffs on the paintwork and maybe a crack in the windshield, while the idea of aiming your car at helpless screaming bystanders and having their viscera sprayed at the screen in exchange for added time was seemingly - if the brief period of tabloid hysteria was anything to go by - beyond all common decency.
These days we expect a game's ability to display impairment to be not just realistic but applied universally, whether it's as a result of a collision between a vehicle and a building, or a bullet and a human skull - and if we can get a lingering slow motion repeat and some kind of award to go with it, so much the better.
More significantly in the context of Carma's 15 year absence, the concept of the vehicle-as-weapon is now so evolved and so commonplace as to be secondary to the immersiveness of the game worlds they occupy. The most recent iterations of Just Cause, Far Cry and Grand Theft Auto all come with advanced vehicular manslaughter fitted as standard, but they are celebrated more for worlds that are coherent and developed enough to put context and consequence to a whole range of players actions and objectives, not just running people over for the fun of it.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation delayed a month to May
Aiming for a hit, and fun.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation was due out next week but now it's due out next month.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation release date announced
Smash 'em up.
Gory vehicle smash 'em-up Carmageddon: Reincarnation leaves Steam Early Access and launches proper on 23rd April 2015, developer Stainless has announced.
The release version of the game includes a career mode, which consists of 16 chapters. Each chapter has three or four events, making for a total of 50. There's also multiplayer for up to eight players.
Here are the event types:
A good measure of a Carmageddon games' success is how quickly it makes you honk with inappropriate laughter. With Carmageddon 2 I think this took about five seconds, although I was a teenager at the time. I'm still waiting for TDR 2000 to give me a giggle.
VideoVideo: Carmageddon: Reincarnation live stream
Streaming from 5pm BST. Win EGX London Saturday early entry tickets!
Splat! Carmageddon is back in a new game, bearing the subtitle Reincarnation, from original Isle of Wight developer Stainless Games. Funded on Kickstarter and now available on Steam Early Access, it's still in a very early pre-alpha state, but so far seems faithful to the series' tasteless renegade spirit.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation Early Access review
Sick and tyred.
It's hard to believe that Carmageddon was once the bête noire of gaming. Back in the innocent halcyon days of the 1990s, when Mortal Kombat's crudely digitised dismemberment was enough to ruffle the feathers of the great and good, a game where you were actively encouraged to roar around in armoured vehicles, murdering pedestrians with crazed abandon, was like a red rag to a morally indignant bull.
Today, Carmageddon's gore-soaked take on Wacky Races seems positively quaint, its squealing guitars and brattish sensibilities no more likely to topple society than Limp Bizkit is to reinvent rock music. What was once forbidden fruit has become a strangely cosy nostalgia brand - but while Carmageddon may no longer be guaranteed to raise tabloid ire, that doesn't mean it's stopped being deliciously transgressive fun.
Now available for Early Access purchase on Steam, the version of Carmageddon: Reincarnation on offer lives up the billing. This is a very early build - pre-alpha, in fact - so anyone still harbouring the notion that "early access" means "demo version" will be in for a surprise.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation Early Access 27th March
You'll have a smashing time.
The rebirth of violent driving game Carmageddon is finally nearly in our hands.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation dev reverses DLC decision after backer backlash
Backers will now receive the full game and all DLC.
Stainless will now give Carmageddon: Reincarnation backers the game and all downloadable content following a backlash.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation Steam early access set for early 2014
Kickstarter backers get standard game for free.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation launches on Steam as an early access title during the first quarter of 2014, Stainless Games has announced.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation prototype screenshots
It's a work in progress.
It's a work in progress.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation becomes a PS4 and next Xbox game as well
"The true triple-A quality of a game should come out of the gameplay, not out of how bloody shiny it is."
Remember Carmageddon: Reincarnation? It was a successfully Kickstarted, modest reboot of Carmageddon for PC, Mac and Linux. Originally it was due out, well, nowish, although development was extended at Christmas time.
EGXCarmageddon can't match E3's levels of violence - Stainless
"They're miles apart."
Newspapers had a field day when the original Carmageddon video game was released on PC in 1997. Cars smashing into people, ripping them apart, great torrents of blood flooding car bonnets?
Carmageddon Reincarnation Mac and Linux versions confirmed
Kickstarter ends with 156% of target raised.
Mac and Linux versions of Carmageddon Reincarnation are confirmed after its Kickstarter ended with 156 per cent of its target raised.
UK studio Stainless Games had asked for $400,000. It ended up with $625,143 after 30 days of campaigning.
In addition to a copy of the game backers receive rewards ranging from t-shirts to posters, miniature models of the game's cars to a chance to appear in the game as a pedestrian. The top tier reward was to become one of the game's driver characters with a custom car of your own design. This reward sold out, with all three places taken up by backers who were willing to give $10,000.
FeatureThe Cunning Stunts of Stainless
The Carmageddon story: from controversy to Kickstarter, via Portia the Pig.
The Isle of Wight doesn't really do excitement. My wife, an Islander, often regales me about the time BHS in Newport installed an escalator - and she joined the crowds of people queuing up to have a go on it. If you ignore the increasingly chronic youth unemployment (as most do) the Island is a place of beautiful green fields, cream teas and a well-supported donkey sanctuary. It's not where you'd expect to find the birthplace of Carmageddon.
The Carmageddon: Reincarnation Kickstarter is funded.
Original Carmageddon game and Splat Pack heading to GOG "soon"
Free if you help fund the Carmageddon: Reincarnation Kickstarter.
The original Carmageddon PC game and Splat Pack expansion are heading to GOG.com, developer Stainless Games has announced.
Stainless' "ultimate goal" is to make a triple-A Carmageddon game
But first, the Kickstarter reboot, as the dev explains.
A full-scale, "all bells and whistles", triple-A Carmageddon game is the "ultimate goal" of series creator Stainless Games.
EGXCarmageddon developer Stainless Games to talk Kickstarter at Rezzed in July
Planning session on crowd-sourced development for PC and indie games show.
Carmageddon creator Stainless Games has signed up to speak at Rezzed: The PC and Indie Games Show this summer in Brighton.
New Carmageddon looks to Kickstarter for funding
Stainless Games needs $400k for franchise revival.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation, a planned revival of the infamous '90s vehicular combat series, has turned to fan-funding site Kickstarter to get off the ground.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation revealed
Original dev Stainless reacquires IP.
Original Carmageddon developer Stainless Games has reacquired the smash and crash racing IP.
Square Enix not behind Carmageddon
Reboot an independent project, report says.
The Carmageddon reboot that emerged last week is an independent project, a new report claims.
Carmageddon timer counts to new game?
Square Enix targets 1st June reveal.
Square Enix may be about to unveil a brand new Carmageddon game.
