Carmageddon II: Carpocalypse Now on PC

• Windows 95 or 98
• Intel Pentium P166 (P200)
• 16Mb RAM (32Mb RAM)
• DirectX 6 supported graphics card with 2Mb RAM (DirectX 6 D3D supported graphics card with 4Mb RAM)
• DirectX 6 supported sound card
• Hard Disk Space: Install 255Mb
• Quad-speed CD-ROM (8-speed)

Carmageddon 2: Carpocalypse Nowis the follow-up to one of 1997’s mostcontroversial computer games, in which racing round the tracks faster than youropponents was not enough. Not only were you able to smash into them and trashyour foes, but you gained time by actually running over the pedestrians.

Hence, this sequel needs litte introduction and for those who have never heardof it, check out the reviews of the original gameand the‘Splat Pack’ add-on

The second installment…

The manual states that this time round the game is mission-based, which in around-a-bout way it can be perceived like that, but, while it’s not a great dealdifferent in execution as that would have you believe, the extras make for anice addition.

Each set of races is grouped into three’s and once those are completed, youmust go through a further race but it’s against time alone and may requireyou to complete a few laps round one of the previously-completed tracks, orsomething a bit more tricky such as jumping from one skyscraper to the next fromthe ground up and smashing into 11 satellite dishes (these look likepre-analogue television rather than the digital variety).

There are also a few more camera angles to add to the Action Replay mode,namely Manual, Rigid, Reversing & Internal (Cockpit).

Graphics, Sound and Playability

The first game set the stage in terms of the graphics and one of theimprovements here is in the pedestrians and animals: they’re actually real 3Dobjects this time and not the two-dimensional sprites owners of the first gamewill be used to, so you can push a pedestrian into a boulder (cue: “Wow! Whata Punt!” onscreen message), carry one of them on your car bonnet for a while,or hit a dead animal and chuck the 3D carcass about.

Oh, and don’t forget that in the level with a train, it’s an interesting wayto kill off an opponent by gently pushing them into the path of the oncominglocomotive.

However, with the reworked graphics engine and many more polygons beingdrawn at once, this slows the game down. There are options to reduce thegraphical content on show, in terms of the view ahead or the intensity of thegraphics, but it does detract from the enjoyment the more things that need tobe turned off. When I played the first game it ran at this speed as I wasplaying it on a Pentium 90. After upgrading to a Pentium 200 MMX thisimproved things dramatically and I could enjoy the game at the break-neckspeed it needs.

A tip for improving the speed of the game is to make sure you’re runningWin95 (or Win98) on its own with no background processes running. At best Imanaged 97% system resources free (check this from the Start Menu by going:Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Information) and had to rebootthe machine to achieve this.

This game recommends a P200 CPU with 32Mb RAM for good performance, but evenwith 128Mb SDRAM, it’s still too slow to get the best effect, so I’drecommend this game to anyone with a Pentium II 300 CPU.

Therein brings down the level of playability, since the comparative slownessof the game, while looking pretty, makes it a bit on the annoying side. Even ifit is a good laugh to carry the dismembered body of a zombie on your bonnetwhile driving for a couple of blocks, I’d prefer it if there was an option toturn the pedestrians back to 2D sprites for slower PCs. It would also be a goodidea if the keys were completely redefinable as I can’t use all the same keysI used when playing the first game and would prefer it if they’d allowed thecursor keys to be used to control the car instead of looking around the car.

And yes I said zombies. While the Carmageddon Splat Pack had a ‘gore patch’to put the humans back on the streets in the first game, there are no humansto be found in this version on sale in the UK. It doesn’t have a BBFCcertificate either, but that’s because it doesn’t have any video footage withinthe game. When you see Max in his car he’s a 3D set of polygons like everyoneelse, so the advisory ELSPA rating on the box will suffice and recommendsthe game is for 15 years and older.

The sound is mostly what was in the first game in terms of the sound effectswhen you run pedestrians over and crunch into other cars, but it has theaddition of some top tunes from Iron Maiden to drive to. It would havebeen nice if they had included Steppenwolf – Born To Be Wild, but youcan’t have everything 🙂

Overall

Overall, it’ll take a much faster PC than I own to get the best out of thisgame, but while there are a few things which could be improved upon, it’scertainly a lot better than most games which are released.

If you don’t own the first game though – and have not got a particularly fastPC – then that is probably a better option, along with the Splat Pack, but ifyou have a PC running around 300Mhz then this sequel should fare very wellindeed, although if, like me, you have a PC running at 200Mhz, have completedthe first game and the add-on and want a new ‘Carmageddon’ challenge, thiscertainly is worth investing in.

If you’re after some more Carmageddon excitement, you can check out theofficial SCI Website at www.sci.co.uk whichalso includes links to a stack of Carmageddon-related sites, or click on theselinks to access reviews of the previous releases: Carmageddonand theCarmageddon:Splat Pack

GRAPHICS : ****SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC: ****PLAYABILITY: ****ORIGINALITY : ****ENJOYMENT : ****——————————-OVERALL : ****

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1997.