Carmageddon Mac Review (1998)

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From the archive: this review first ran on the Mac Gaming Alliance (MGA), the Mac games site that lived here on DimensionZ in the late 1990s. It was published March 1998 and is reproduced as originally written. More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

Note:(Feb 2/98)

On my new PowerMac 8600/300 I can play Carmageddon in High-Res 640*480 and it’s completely smooth, absolutely no jerkiness at all!

Carmageddon

First of all, this is the BEST game I have played for a very long time! I’ve had more fun playing this game than any other in the this year. Now for something about the game: The Nastiest Driving Game in the World.. Ever! Pit your wits and wheels against 25 maniac drivers over 36 formidable race circuits in your quest to become the King of Carnage and the Prince of the Pile-up! Carmageddon.. it’s murder on the streets

Gameplay

I have to say that the gameplay is the most enjoyable part of the game! There are 2 ways to finish a race, you can either go through the race and complete the laps or you can just go around smashing all the other cars, the latter being much more enjoyable. During the race you have a timer at the tops of the screen that counts down to zero, to increase the time on the timer you either run over some people and get some blood splatter or ram the other cars until they are destroyed and you get credits and time. A variety of tracks and opponents keep the game very very fun during the 36 races.

Graphics and Sound

The second great thing about this game are the graphics and sound. The High-Res 640*480 graphics are absolutely fabulous, the only problem is that Carmageddon doesn’t support any 3D cards (yet?) so unless you have a very very fast processor, you’re stuck in Low-Res which thankfully is still great and playable on most PowerMacs.

The sound effects in Carmageddon are wonderful, the screams and shrieks of people just before you run them down are hilarious. The music is also fantastic!

Interface, Difficulty, and Reliability

You can tell as soon as you start the game that this is a PC port. All of the menus and settings screen are similar to a PC games there are no Mac-like dialogue boxes in this game but, even though the game’s interface is still good, especially with the bloody hand cursor.

I found that they difficulty of the different races to be either very easy or very hard, in some races it took me 4 tries to hit something before my low low starting time ran down.

As for reliability, the game never crashed on my at all, a very rare thing indeed.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I recommend this game. If your computer can run it at a reasonable speed then this game is excellent! I have absolutely no complaints about this game.

Find a copy

Carmageddon has been out of print for years, but used copies of the original Mac release still turn up, and some classics have been re-released for modern systems. Search for Carmageddon on Amazon.

Ratings use the MGA’s original 1–5 apple scale. Prices, system requirements and web links in this review are from the time it was written.