Я знаю, тупо создавать отдельную тему ради одно сайта, но это же Кармагеддон!!11

Кто какие надежды питает?

Ну про вторую часть(и все последующие) можно поспорить. Там нормальное человеческое мясо и коровок заменили на зомби =(

С текущими технологиями можно такое шикарное продолжение сделать.... эх, мечты, мечты.

В том то и дело, что нельзя. У тебя мозг просто откажется принимать новую картинку

Ну про вторую часть(и все последующие) можно поспорить. Там нормальное человеческое мясо и коровок заменили на зомби =(

В том то и дело, что нельзя. У тебя мозг просто откажется принимать новую картинку

Скатилась скупая мужская кровавая слеза, после того как вспомнил фразу из кармы — «Я убью тебя, воскрешу, а потом снова убью!!!111». И, как четко подметили выше, кармагеддон с таким уровнем черного юмора, цинизма, драйва и кишок нам больше не светит. Времена нынче не те. Сейчас, что не игра — обязательно оскорбляет права женщин, геев, негров, евреев, индейцев, собак, бурундуков и просто идиотов.

На таймере осталось 12 часов)

Круто. Счетчик пропал и все

В итоге на сайте можно увидеть только один новый арт...

зы что то здесь как-то глухо с кармой, неужели не осталось матерых старых геймеров ? вообще, многие ли играли в carmageddon 1?

A long, long time ago, back in 1997, an arcade racing game called Carmageddon taught us how to ignore the Highway Code and have fun. Driving over pedestrians to get a bonus for artistic impression, aiming for a perfect head-on collision with your opponent, and laughing at the same time – these are things that made this British game a cult classic. Now, Stainless Games is not only working on the reincarnation of the original game, but they also successfully ported Carmageddon to iOS and Android.

To commemorate the day of the Android release of Carmageddon (totally free for the first 24 hours, by the way!), I talked to Patrick Buckland, one of the studio’s co-founders and asked him questions about Carma’s past, present and future.

RP: What was the moment of genesis of Carmageddon as we know and love it? At what point did you decide to add pedestrians, blood, gibs, and car-on-car violence to a racing game?

Patrick Buckland: Car-on-car was the original point of the game. It came about because there were NO video games out there that encouraged you to crash rather than race (Psygnosis’ Destruction Derby was still some years away). I used to always turn my car around in the racing games of the day (e.g. Ridge Racer, Daytona etc), drive the wrong way around the track and try to smash into other people coming the other way. So I thought “Why not make a game where this is the point, rather than something your discouraged from doing?”.

When we got a publisher (SCi), they wanted to attach a licence to it (the fools!). At first they tried for Mad Max, but this fell through. Then it became DeathRace 2020 — a sequel to the original film that was in pre-production at the time. This is how running people over snuck into the design. When the film was thankfully cancelled, SCi decided to proceed with the game as-is without any licence, as by then it was clear that what we had created was good enough to stand on its own two feet (until it gets run-over that is…). This then allowed us to ignore the rules and really go crazy with the stupid levels of blood.

RP: The original Carmageddon became infamous after the BBFC refused to certify the game for the UK release, causing you lots of headache. Later, you released Carma 2 with green blood and zombies (I had that version and I couldn’t play it because I wanted real people!).

PB: We released an interim version of Carma 1 with green blood and zombies whilst awaiting the high court ruling on the BBFC appeal. Once we won our case, we could revert to proper blood. Because of this ruling, we were able to have red blood and proper peds in from the very start with Carma 2, although we did also add a “No blood” option to appease the censors. However, there were also different rules in other countries over what we could run over, and for Carma 2 the German version had to be zombified (which was an improvement over the previous “nothing even vaguely humanoid” rule we had to follow for the German Carmageddon!).

RP: Why was it so important for you to get that rating? After all, even with the green guts, Carmageddon is still a very violent game!

PB: Well that’s very nice of you to say so! There are two reasons why it was important: 1) Because it was a matter of principle and freedom of speech. And 2) because you do definitely lose a lot of black humour when they’re zombies and green blood. Yes, the core gameplay is the same, but it’s just not quite as funny, and that’s what Carmageddon has always been all about.

RP: During the development, did you generate any ideas that were deemed too crazy even for Carmageddon?

PB: Pregnant pedestrians were vetoed by one artist’s wife. I wanted the foetus to fly out, get stuck on your windscreen and then bungie off because the umbilical was still attached to the mother’s corpse…

RP: Looking at the studio’s resume, there is big gap between 1998 and 2006. What was happening at Stainless all that time? How did you manage to survive for 8 years without a single major release? What projects were you trying to get off the ground?

PB: We had three big projects cancelled – that’s just the way it is with this industry. But we happened to have three in a row. One was our next big title with SCi in 1999, then we were doing a state-of-the-art rally game for EA Sports which got canned at 90% in 2001 because Colin McRae and Sony’s WRC cleaned-up the market whilst it was in development. And then we had a Carmageddon-style title in development with Midway which got canned in 2003 when the new CEO came in and saw that they’d signed both this and Roadkill. Roadkill was further down the line, so our title bit the dust. We then did various bits and bobs of contract work during, some confidentially ghost-written, some just too embarrassing to admit to! But you’ve got to pay the wages somehow… We even did Carmageddon for the Gizmondo for SCi, which never saw the light of day when the console itself died.

RP: I’m sure that over the last 15 years, before you started working on Reincarnation, you thought about bringing Carmageddon back. How close you were to realizing this dream?

PB: In terms of buying the rights back, that was never going to happen whilst SCi owned the rights, as why would they sell them? Same with Eidos. But when Square bought them, we seized our chance. As I mentioned above about the Gizmondo though, we were actually talking to SCi about new Carmas, but when they reversed into Eidos, they suddenly inherited an excess of internal development studios, so our chances died again. They never did quite realise that only Stainless could write a proper Carmageddon.

RP: By the way, since that steaming pile of crap known as TDR 2000 tanked, no one seemingly tried to make a game like this. FlatOut came kind of close with the idea of playing football with people, but it is still something else. Do you have any theories as to why?

PB: Yes – because they didn’t understand the key reasons why Carmageddon worked: It was because it was FUNNY above all else, but it was also intentionally surreal and thus was able to always put gameplay above everything else. There was never a case of “We can’t do that because it doesn’t fit in with the scenario” or “That doesn’t make sense – it couldn’t work like that”. If it was funny and/or fun, then it went in. It’s as simple as that. And it’s the same in Reincarnation.

RP: With the original Carmageddon releasing for iOS and Android, did you have any troubles with violent content when going through certification?

PB: No, not at all. Not only have things moved on a lot since 1997, but those platforms (even Apple) don’t have any restrictions as long as you have the correct age ratings.

RP: What was the reception so far to this port? I mean, fans like myself enjoy it because they love the original game, but did you manage to introduce the game to the current generation of players?

PB: Difficult to determine the new player takeup, really, other than anecdotally (e.g. my daughter’s boyfriend bought an iPhone rather than an Android phone late last year just so he could play it!).

Obviously the reception has been amazing – we’re averaging 5 stars in almost all territories. You can’t complain about that.

RP: Speaking of generational changes — games are more often used as a scapegoat to explain someone’s criminal behaviour. I guess that kind of unwanted attention comes with the heightened visibility of the entire interactive entertainment industry. At the same time, a lot of blockbuster games are incredibly graphic in their depiction of violence thanks to advanced technology (just compare Tomb Raider of 1996 and 2013!).

PB: What is your stance on violence in games now — did it change over the years? Is it easier or harder to market a game like Carmageddon in today’s political climate?

My stance has not changed at all. There are some games out there that are violent purely for violence’s sake. To that I say that freedom of speech is an essential human right, so you should be able to do that. But that’s not what we’re about. I said earlier “If it was funny and/or fun, then it went in”, but the reverse also applied (and applies) with regards violence: “If it wasn’t funny and/or fun, then it didn’t go in”.

I certainly think that it’s rubbish that any form of media, whether it be a game, film, book, or psychic transmission from aliens can influence somebody’s behaviour. If you don’t already have the propensity for arming yourself up and shooting up a school yard, then playing a game or watching a film is not going to somehow change you into somebody that does. To think it could is demeaning to ones view of humanity. We’re stronger than that, but unfortunately there are some amongst us whose moral compass is askew, allowing them to inflict genuine violence (to varying degrees) on others. But this behaviour was not triggered by something as trivial as pixels on a screen or words on the page.

RP: Another generational thing is that players are now used to games holding them by the hand pretty much the whole time. I bet some of them would look at the original Carmageddon and deem it too hardcore. How are you dealing with this problem?

PB: We are dealing with it where it is necessary to, however because Carmageddon was a game that didn’t punish you for “Not doing what you are ‘meant’ to do”, we don’t need very much of this. We did tune the gameplay of Carma 1 quite heavily for the iOS and Android re-release though, so that’s a good indication of where we’re at.

RP: When did you decide to go the Kickstarter route, and why? What was your initial assessment of how good (or bad!) this campaign would turn out? Did you have any bets going on at the office?

PB: I’m afraid we did what lots of other people did: We saw the DoubleFine success and wanted a piece of the action! We did also realise how perfect it was for us though.

Kickstarter was great for us, but of course this is just a proportion of the total funding that we need for a next-gen game. It would have been great to have fully funded it from Kickstarter if we’d had an explosive campaign like DoubleFine, but we’ve ended-up adding to the pot from profits, and from internal investment funding from our shareholder, Les Edgar, founder of Bullfrog. This is great, as it means the whole development is truly independent. I think that we missed the boat for Kickstarter craziness though – people were already getting a little wary.

But what Kickstarter gave us was a lot more than just money. It’s gave us the opportunity to really connect with our fans and the Carmageddon community out there. That was invaluable. It was also fun covering Nobby in fake blood and shoving him under my range rover.

RP: Give our readers an update on Reincarnation. How far is it in development, what has been already done, and what areas are yet to be tackled?

PB: Development is coming along nicely, although I can’t really go into too much detail. We are re-writing our rendering engine in order to provide a state-of-the-art look to the game, so this means that the artists are currently having to grey-box everything. When the rendering-engine is ready, the whole game will suddenly spring into life.

RP: Will there be any changes to the core gameplay formula? What gameplay modes do you plan to include, who’s on the driver roster, and are there new wacky bonuses for killing people and destroying opponents?

PB: Core gameplay will stay the same, but we’re trying to fold some of the multiplayer fun back into the single-player game.

The driver roster will be a mix of old favourites and new crazies to pit yourself against.

And there are a LOT of new bonuses for killing people and opponents. And I mean a LOT! And they’re sillier than ever…

RP: Speaking of drivers — I know that one of your 10K backers was a Russian guy named Roman who came to visit your studio, and now he is in the game. So, what is his character?

PB: We covered Roman’s visit to us (plus our other 10K backers) in recent blogs on Carmageddon.com, and you’ll notice that the details of his character and car design have been kept largely under wraps – the guys are keen for their appearances in the game to remain something of a surprise! We’re revealing a lot about the game as we continue with development though – so our fans won’t lack for juicy information about what we’re up to and what to expect.

RP: Carma 2 was a very advanced game for its time, but nowadays we can do lots more cool stuff with physics. Lots of destructible objects, Burnout-style car damage, people flying into environment, huge levels — which of these can we expect?

PB: Oh lots and lots more of this sort of thing. Proper rag-dolling peds, obviously, and properly physicing environment. The great knock-on effect of this though, is that we can now add lots and lots of really STUPID physics-based powerups. We’re hoping you’ll cry with laughter – we certainly do!

RP: Besides that, do you have any ideas that you’ve always wanted to see in Carmageddon, but couldn’t realize for some reason, and now you finally can?

PB: Well obviously the above is the perfect example. Better visuals are another. The most important thing is network play though. Carmageddon was always an amazing multiplayer game, but back then you could only do this on a LAN, which most people had no access to. These days, pretty-much everybody is connected, so our fans will finally be able to discover what they were missing!

RP: Licensed music in previous Carma games really set the mood for the vehicular carnage. What is your approach this time around?

PB: We’ve got a number of potential options for music. Needless to say, it will be very cool.

RP: How many original Carmageddon developers are on the Reincarnation team?

PB: From Carma 1: Myself (Batwick), Nobby, Dr Kev, Matt Edmunds, and Shaun Smith. (That’s five out of eight!). From Carma 2 add Dave “Trifle” Hosier and Steve “Onhai” Rushbrook, although Steve only joined us right at the end. The lead programmer on Reincarnation is Si Lacey, who also worked for us at the time of Carma 2, but on a different project. Lead art is Will McCourt, who has worked for us for over 12 years now. We also have Ben Gunstone as Production Director, who was Lead Tester for Carma at SCi at the time.

RP: You work on Reincarnation alongside Magic 2014 and some secret project. How big is the studio now, since you manage to juggle three games at the same time?

PB: [I’d love to know what the third secret project is!] We’re at 85 people now, and expanding. Anybody want a job? We’re recruiting! Check out the website!

RP: By the way, we’ve seen the photos of the Christmas parties at Stainless Games — wow, that is wild stuff! How crazy people have to be to get a job at your studio?

PB: Stainless Christmas parties aren’t considered a success unless we have at least four police cars turn up. We do try to weed out normal people at interview though, to ensure the gene pool is appropriately deranged. Put it this way, when Ben interviews job applicants, one of his first questions is “Are you a cunt?”. (No, really, he actually does that!).

RP: Thank you for your time, and good luck with Reincarnation!