Unofficial Carmageddon FAQ ----- Last updated: 4-23-97 ---------------
All are encouraged in contributing to this FAQ. It exists for the sole
purpose of advancing the cause of wholesale pedestrian slaughter and
general callous disregard for the sanctity of human (and bovine) life as well as
wanton, gratuitous car/environment damage.
I'm just an avid player of the game and have no affiliation or real
communication with the makers of the game. I do not speak for them, and some
of whats in this FAQ may be wrong. I'm not responsible for any damages
caused by the use of this FAQ, yada yada blah. :)
It has very personal viewpoints and opinions rather than just simply stating
facts (as they are known to me).
All are encouraged to post this without permission, and put it up on your
website and whatnot, just as long as you try to keep it current and update
it with a later version as I make them, and also please let me know your
URL and a way to get ahold of you to inform you of updates.
I've just found out that Kevin Podszebka (kgp@usa.net) started an Unofficial
Carmageddon FAQ on 3-31-97, beating me by 2 weeks. But since I've already
put a bit of thought and work into my own, I'll continue my own FAQ (unless
he wants to collaborate with me or something). His FAQ can be found on:
The Unofficial Carmageddon Homepage
http://www.aiusa.com/noyzrulz/carma
Go read his FAQ, he's got more info, and he talks with one of the developers on
a weekly basis. His FAQ mentions most if not all the keys used in the game and such.
- Newest items added (will be moved to appropriate section on my next update)
Q. Do I HAVE to run over people to get time enough to stay in the game?
A. You can hit the "-" key on your keypad to turn on "Nice and Fluffy Mode",
however its not a REAL alternative in playing (in the BETA demo) because
then the only way you can stay in the game is to hit alot of green barrels
for time bonuses. Seems like that'd be way too hard. :) The full version
has GOT to have a real alternative as there are countries that won't sell
it with any gore in it
Hmm, I've added quite a bit, but didn't think to put it all up here, so
this is just a marker for future updates. There ARE new things added, but
you'll have to look thru this list ONE more time before I start adding the
new stuff at the top. :)
- For those who've not experienced the Carmageddon
Q. I hear there's a bogus time limit. Why would I wanna play a demo that
won't even let you fully explore 1 level?
A. I was curious about that too. Only SCI seems to think it was a good
idea. At any rate there are TWO cracks available for the game that
are posted in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action on a fairly regular basis.
Thats also where I'll be posting this on a semi regular basis. Both
together total about 4k. One removes the insane time limit (you still
gotta earn time tho by bumping off the peds. But since there are
377 lambs for the slaughter (there's no LITERal lambs in the game,
maybe in the full version :) ),
its very easy to do, and you'll likely rub out more than you need.
What encouragement do you need other than the screaming and
splatting? The OTHER crack lets you use the other cars that you
see in the game. Even the police car (or whatever kinda vehicle it is).
Q. So, its very violent. Well thats all fine and dandy, but is this a
gimmick or is there any gameplay in there?
A. If they replaced all the peds in the game with stacks of newspaper and
they just toppled over with a beep from my internal speaker, I'd still
play the game 'til 9am in the morning (with no sleep that night, and only
4 hours the previous night). Keep in mind this is only 1 level out of
30 that are planned, and I've HATED solo playing (meaning not multi-player)
games for almost 2 years now. I wouldn't have tried it probably if I
didn't know that the full version would have net support though.
Q. Are there weapons, oil slicks and such in the game?
A. Not in the demo. However when u waste a car and he's all bent up with
a few flames coming out, sitting in a pile of oil, go ram him off the oil
and have some fun slipping around in it. You wouldn't think they'd make
the physics so good without adding the ability to use oil slicks in the
full version would you? Also, one of the pedestrians in the demo is
carrying a gun, and sometimes points it at the car, even tho he doesn't
fire. AND, the police cars are mounted with a huge machine gun on the
side of their vehicles even tho THEY don't fire. Well, the demo DOES
say BETA on it, so I'd assume there will be at least TWO firing guns in
the game, and again, it'd be a waste not to use that programming on the
player cars wouldn't it? I'll just wait and see, and tell myself there
won't be any weapons in the meantime (to avoid possible disappointement).
If they DO include weapons, they better give us a mode to NOT use them
because it would make the gameplay totally different, and I personally
would like to play both ways. I think playing without might even be more
fun, cuz then you will be encouraged to get up close and bump the other
players off a building, or piledrive them into the wall, spin them around
backwards, run your (wedge vehicles of course) car under them, carry them
then ram on your brakes when you reach the edge of the roof (or steep
hill, or lava if they have any in the full version). If there's weapons,
it will be more like Duke on wheels, and you'll try to stay away from
each other. That would have its charms, but I'm pretty much satiated in
the shooting department. :)
Q. What kinda system does it need?
A. The game suggests at least a P90 and I think thats accurate. I've seen
it on my nephew's P100, and I could have fun with it after turning off
all textures (but the ground, I think I need that for a sense of speed)
turning down the object complexity and shrinking the screen a bit. HE
was happy with it with ALL options on, but I like to have a smoother
frame rate myself. I'm guessing his P100 was doing about 10 fps with
all the options ON.
Q. Does Carmageddon have a true 3D engine?
A. Yes. The cars, buildings and environment can all be viewed from any angle.
However, there ARE 2D sprites used in the game. The pedestrians and
powerups (they look like color-coded trashcans) are all 2D bitmaps, and
suffer the usual limitations of 2D sprites.
- Points of interest in the game
Q. What kinda powerups are available in the demo?
A. Instant Repair (there's also a keypress that will repair u, and u never
seem to have to worry about running out of credits (what
repairing uses up) in the demo, however its a good idea
to learn where the Insant Repairs are for when that joyful
day when we get to play it on the net for the 1st time!)
Instant Handbrake (no sliding, come to complete stop, even in midair!)
Jelly Suspension! (even tho its mentioned as being only in the full game)
Hot Rod (your car becomes so powerful, any one of them will instantly
do a wheelie to the point of making your back bumper spark
against the pavement, and you'll constantly gain speed on a
straightaway (until you slam into a wall or something) there
are TWO Hot Rod powerups in the demo)
Frozen Opponents
Pedestrians Glued To The Ground
Invulnerability
Q. Are there secrets?
A. Not like in 3D shooters. But some of the buildings have narraw passages
that u can barely fit into, and some various powerups are in there.
There's even one building that is hollowed out. To get into it, you need
to go to the end of the race course (but don't go thru the checkpoint or
you'll finish the race, preventing you from doing this), and fly straight
forwards off the building. You'll land in the hollow, and in there are
some powerups. I even had one of the computer cars follow me in there
when I did it. a SECOND Hot Rod powerup is in here, and a ramp that will
jump you out of it. I've also found catwalk-like thing with walls by falling
off a building onto it. This ramp looks like a non-existant railroad
track that makes an 'L' shape thru the map, yet which you can't see when
you're driving around on the ground.
Q. Can you waste a police car?
A. Yes
Q. Do I get credit for peds that jump off buildings or are killed by other
cars?
A. The pedestrian count shows how many have been killed out of how many possible,
regardless of how they die, however you only get points for the ones you
run into
- Tips for improving your car handling ability (or controlling the game better)
Those change up & down controls you were wondering about in the control setup
screen: Not sure what up is good for, but it manually shifts into a
lower and higher gear. Holding down "change down" while gunning the
accelerator and turning sharply will cause you to do donuts and leave
round tire tracks. It doesn't seem quite right, but get used to it, and
you have a good way of pointing your car in the direction u want without
having to speed up and then use the handbrake. When your going very
slow, or are stationary, it helps to use this to quickly point you where
you want to go
I was really annoyed at having to use my mouse to look at the awesome replays
and also that there seemed to be no frame advance or decrement. Well,
I finally read the README file, and GUESS WHAT? The keypad has ALL the
controls I wanted (more than the mouse icon bar). Don't forget that there
are 3 different camera views.
Panning (stationary camera's at regular intervals that follow your car)
Action-Tracking (makes sure that you (almost always) get a closeup shot
of a pedestrian as your car (in the background) maneuvres into a good
position for RAMMING SPEED!
Standard (same camera as when your driving, which means that you can
rotate the view with your arrow keys, and get closer and farther away.
There is a catch to this. Doesn't seem to work well while the replay
is in motion, but if you pause and use frame advance, you can pretty
much always see what you're looking for by using the arrow keys.
Every time you move a frame, you might have to reposition it slightly
tho. Hope they tweak this in the full version)
For a bit better vision, remove the "Prat Cam panel that shows your character's
face responding to the driving. Hit the "P" key to toggle this.
- Game Performance
I've played it with 16 megs and 32 megs. Both times under Win 95 (using
straight DOS seems slightly worse on my system, however alot of other
folks and SCI themselves seem to say otherwise). With 32 megs, you
seem to get instant replay buffers that are at least 8 times as big as
you get with 16. I'm sure playing in straight DOS would give you longer
replays whatever your amount of memory.
- Future Features
There will be another non-beta Demo of the game near the 1st of May. It
should have the new engine with the %30 frame rate increase
3DFX support is planned after the initial release
There will be Internet play
There will be SVGA modes
There will be joystick/steering wheel controls
New powerups will include
Solid Granite Car
Mega Turbo (for your car)
Game saving
30 different vehicles
30+ different races on
11 different courses
5 different environment settings for the tracks
Different sets of pedestrians for different environments (I'm assuming this
means 5 or 11 differet sets of peds, not 30+)
Weapon and armour upgrades
Modification of physics such as gravity via editing a text file
(scripting?)
- Reviews
http://www.ukonline.co.uk/UKOnline/Games/reviews/carmageddon.html
Has screenshots I've not seen elsewhere, SVGA closeups even. Although
it sounds kinda negative, reviews like this will probably boost sales.
He also begrudgingly admits to the awesome physics of the game. Don't
know why he seems to think that adding humour to the violence (like in
the movie Death Race 200) makes the violence more acceptable. :)
Don't
know why he calls Fear Factory grunge, when they are more like an
Industrial/Death Metal mix, and dunno why he seems to think the "%30
higher frame rate" means "higher than other companies' engines" when it
obviously means "%30 higher than the BETA Demo".
http://www.ogr.com/previews/carmageddon.shtml
Some small screenshots of full version vehicles such as the Bronco/Blazer
type car and the tow truck
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/keith.dumble/hopper/carmdr.html
- Problems with Carmageddon
Q. There are certain letter keys that it won't let me redefine. Whats up?
A. It reserves certain key presses such as "S" and "P" for things such as
sound and the "Prat Cam" panel that shows your character's face (toggle its
existence).
Q. Every now and then the sound goes out for no apparent reason. Occasionally
it will come back on for no apparent reason, but usually I have to exit
and run the game again.
A. Are your playing keys near the "S" key? That key will toggle the sound
on and off. Otherwise, I don't know. :)
- Suggestions for the game? Send them to bcrice@map.com, and I'll include them
- in my own list if I like them. I plan to bug SCI with them in lots of e-mail
--- Most important additions/improvements
Allow us to SAVE our replays!!!
Allow us to mark breakpoints and cut and paste sections and rearrange them easily
so we can make one big long replay file with all the cool clips we've made.
Like someone in the action games newsgroup said, there will be lots of sites
packed with awesome stunts that users have made.
Give us an analog looking speedometer (like how the tachometer is done), or a
color-coded bar so we don't have to be trying to read fluctuating numbers
and taking our eyes off of the jump ahead. I know there is a bar in the
cockpit mode, but I think everyone will be playing 3rd person for the
majority of their time, so it needs to be there too
Make the cars be more controllable in reverse. They all seem to whip into
reverse donuts way too quick, making it impossible to drive them backwards
and control where your headed.
Split screen options for both 2 players at one machine or 2 on one machine netted
with 2 on another machine (all 4 in the same game)
Pedestrians
There's gotta be some RESISTANCE when you hit them and they should slow your
car down a bit. Add this to the cows tenfold, and even to the
normal folks a little bit. Running into people esPECIally at high speeds is
definitely gonna slow you down in real life, so model it in the game. It Will
give you a better sensation of really having hit someone. Also make the cars
rock and bump over them realistically. The cars (as it is now) runs over them
as if they were just totally flat pancake. Give us some really obese people
that will give alot more resistance than the normal ones. Also make the peds'
bodies fly thru the air more than they do.
--- These would be great
Add some icy patches or icy streets to the levels
Support for the cheap (don't they practically give them out when a 3D show or
movie airs on TV?) red & blue lense (err, plastic wrap :) ) 3D glasses.
This would include adjustments for the red and blue elements of the screen
to match the exact shades/hue/tints of the lenses. If they're not
properly tuned together, you never get a good 3D effect with both eye
views going to both eyes or both to at least one of the eyes (like in
Duke 3D for me and MY glasses).
Lockable camera positions. I wanna back up and see whats in front of me,
from the 3rd person view
Customizable camera position in relation to car position. Pointing in any
direction, and positioned at any distance and angle away from the car's
centerpoint
Let us redefine ALL keys, even the sound, and character animation toggles.
Further modification to the replay saving. Allow us to save ghosts of ourselves
driving thru a level. Perhaps make those ghosts spawn other ghosts (such
as streetlights and poles being knocked down. Then we can play a game and
either pass thru these phantoms, or they could plow thru anything and
their course would not be modified. Having the option of either would be
nice. Then let us play along with these ghosts. We could try to beat it
if it was a good run that you'd had when u record it, or you could use this
feature to make your own movies. So you could "act" with each car seperately,
but see them altogether in one time, so you can have limited interaction
(visually at least) with your other recorded selves (ghosts).
Targetting of pedestrians and cars in the replays. Sometimes I wanna see a
closeup of something cool another car did in the distance, and it'd
be great for those times when you send a streetlight skittering across
the pavement into some peds. :) It'd be nice to lock the camera on
to these other things if we want
Give us a mouse freelook option. The ability to spin your view 360 degrees
instantly even tho your car is of course only able to move in the direction
that its pointed in. So many people are used to the Duke and Quake way
of being immersed in a world. Let us see things like we really could
from within (or hovering above) the car. A 3D car interior mode would look
very nice for this, but since 2D cockpit art is used, I guess that'd be
too much work to ask of SCI to redo it all in 3D :). Well then, limit
freelook/mouse-aiming to 3rd person views.
Give us some traintracks to cross, populated with real trains to avoid. It'd
be great to be able to push damaged cars onto the track and watch the
train cut them in half or totally demolish them. Also make some of the
peds hang out near there so you can herd them onto the tracks in time for
them to get iced
Oil slicks and mines. You BETTER give us oil slicks at least! The oil
patches that the damaged cars leave behind are great fun to drive in!
Ability to open your driver side door to slam extra peds without altering
your course Powerups that we can collect then use when we want to
Blood that spatters on windshield, and has to be washed away with wipers
and fluid Powerups
Ghost Car
Other cars will run right thru you, into a wall or off a
building
Ramps and walls
You can drop these behind you and your pursuer will either crunch
immediately into a wall, or hit your ramp and fly over you (if you
slam on brakes) into a wall or off a building, the possibilities
are endless
Jump Jets
Used to jump up onto buildings, or onto cars for massive damage, or
maybe over trains, or pileups that block the road
Flying Car
Maybe take it 1 step further, and just let us really FLY for a half
minute or so. Ramming folks from the air would be great fun, as
would turning off the flying and dropping on them from
way up high
--- Ideas that are lower priority, or would be too much work to implement
--- at the moment possibly
Have more sensible placing of peds, and maybe even some routines that they
go thru to simulate them being real humans that your killing ;)
How about a flashing 25mph School Zone sign with kids streaming out of
a recognizable schoolhouse? :) A bunch of old people milling about on
the front lawn of a rest home. Those business people coming out of
office buildings and heading for cars parked in indoor garages or
outdoor parking lots (all populated with nice cars to smash into). How
about hospitals and ambulances that cross town with sirens blaring to get
to them? Even better, have them pick up some of the peds that you've
injured. It'd be great to run an ambulance off the road. And have those
kids streaming out of school get into a bus that makes its rounds, and
stops every now and then to let out a kid who of course looks carefully
both ways before crossing (to no avail). ;) It'd be great to see some
kids flying out of the bus windows when its smashed and to hear the whole
group of them screaming.
Have some cars & vehicles tooling around that aren't part of the race
or destruction (until you start ramming them for no other reason than cuz
its fun). Motorcycles would be great, would love to send the riders flying
before backing over them. How about some construction vehicles that we
could get into and start driving around. Special "pancake pedestrian"
graphics could be drawn for when you get behind the wheel of a steamroller.
Let use get to the options to redefine keys while we're actually in the
game. Its annoying to have to quit your game in order to go in there.
Let us knock over or ram jagged holes thru the billboards
Parachute powerup (that can be used when needed). Drop off a tall building
floating down, so your looking directly at the road below. See a car coming
and detach the chute too drop on it for massive damage
Grappling hooks ala Rocket Jockey, that you can shoot out the side of your car
so you can grab pedestrians and drag them to their deaths
People who have contributed (idea and info wise) to the this FAQ:
David Jenkins (he contributed ALOT of ideas, most of them EXcellent)
Colin
Rob Dunlop
Jared Betnar
