By John Walker on March 4th, 2009 at 2:48 pm.
Russian racer Armageddon Riders (or Clutch – both names seem to be being used) is a Carmageddon-meets-Burnout looking game, which is something we haven’t seen in a while. Splatting pedestrians with a car has obviously become the domain of GTA and its many illegitimate children, but none are pure racing games. This one’s all about zombies, racing cars, and hitting zombies with racing cars. It’s out in Russia via developers Targem right now. (Google’s translation of that page here.) No word on an English release (that I can find), but there’s a trailer packed full of in-game splattage, below.
Sorry this is all a bit scarce. We’ll try and find out more details. In the meantime, enjoy the below. Especially the in-car view with the zombies wedged to the bonnet. Good times.
There’s also a Russian trailer, with different content, on You Tube. I love racing games where you can drive up curved walls and do rolls. It’s something that’s just so missing from GRT2 and it’s ilk.
This looks bloody fantastic :D
edit: Actually after watching the trailer maybe not so much :(
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A much needed update to carmageddon – one of my favourite games of all time, when it came out. Handling looks a bit ‘icy’? And why are the russians having all the good (even if remade) ideas in PC games at the moment?
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Surely the language of racing is universal!
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god, that song…
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Oh heavy metal, how you make me not care at all.
Plus was that a *sexy* zombie at the start of the trailer?
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I still think Carma 2 is the pinnacle of ped hitting, bizzare racing carnage tbh.
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idea itself is fab, but the execution looks a little..icky.
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AndrewC: Back off, she’s mine.
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I smell the bitter smell of lawsuit (and gibs)
I love the original Carmageddon. Proper sandbox, amazingly good in game replay camera, and that very very british sense of humour. The second may have been technically better but i prefer the first ones grunginess.
‘Pratcam’ anyone?
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It just looks… slow.
If you pick up Burnout Paradise, even at the beginning you get this immense sense of speed that makes it fun – This just looks a little bit like a driving test with zombies to splatter. A very nice looking driving test sure, but just.. somnambulant.
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Looks good, but it isnt as polished as we are all used too.
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Ian: half each?
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Oh my, that looks utterly awesome.
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Sounded awesome but not excited by the trailer. Carmaggedon was carnage in sand-box areas fun, and this looks more of an on the rails racer (is that a term, meh). Plus all the cars look sporty, where’s my bulldozer? Or monster truck with a huge drill on the front? No sale with me thus far
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Needs more pedestrians!@@@
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This reminds me of Demolition Racer: No Exit, which was possibly my favorite Dreamcast game (holy crap, Dreamcast…). I like the physics of these crash-em-ups. The keys to success (and I’m not sure if I saw evidence of either of these in “Clutch”) are:
1. power-ups (turbo boost, shield, etc.)
2. kill/crash points. Demolition Racer offered you big bonuses for “Death from Above”, where you’d land your car on another after taking a jump. And there was the “T-bone”, where you had to hit the other car at a full-out right angle. Without fluff like that, I can’t see how games like this can have any sort of longevity.
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Carmageddon is one of my most fave games of all time. I would love to see a “reboot” of it.
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AndrewC: But how do you split her? I’m resisting the temptation to be incredibly vulgar right now.
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AndrewC: That’s probably fair. Are we splitting top-to-bottom or across the midriff?
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Well, seeing as nobody’s mentioned it, I definitely recognise several of the cars as being pulled directly from carmageddon (the blue drag racer with the red flames, the yellow sports car, the grey car with the monster truck suspension, the buggy and the main car).
The first straight after the Armageddon Riders logo fades at the start of the trailer also looks suspiciously like the opening straight of the first race of the original game .
I’ve got to say, I’m not convinced that Carmageddon can actually work in as racing-focused a setting as is presented here. Most of the entertainment of Carmageddon came from the shock value, the crazy powerups and the fact that nobody had ever seen anything like that level of physics and graphics combined before.
As a modern game which actually has to rely on gameplay, I’m not sure Carmageddon can succeed. It’ll be interesting to see whether they’ve managed to pull this off.
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There was a race in carma? I was more on the “explore all the map, play with the police, try to climb a skyscrepper” sandbox thing. Getting into the top of buildings was intended, so there was ramps even on totally ridiculous locations. You was to play that insane. Carmaggedoom One was a game that rewarded your insannes with fun. Carma 2, well.. a techdemo for ragdolls, I suppose.
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Yes, we should definitely avoid vulgarity in a discussion about necrophilia.
But without getting too German about it we should put her in the middle of a game of chicken and see what sticks.
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Ummm, I don’t think the game looks very good.
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Carmageddon! Who cared about the racing? The carnage, though. WOOHOO! Finding the best way to kill the most… Such pure unadulterated fun. I can’t believe it’s taken this long for someone to pick up the reins. I may have to reinstall those 2 games. The jewel cases are around here somewhere…
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This looked infinently better in me mind than it does in trailer form.
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Otis P. Jivefunk – it’s just not Carmageddon without him.
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I didn’t see the purpose of the zonbies until one of them got attatched to the front bumper
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@ Fumarole
Pitbull was the best car in the original game (if you don’t count the Special Police Car which was so tough to get hold of). Otis, yes but nothing could beat the sheer carnage possible with Mother Trucker in the ‘Splat Pack’.
Good Times. :)
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Zombies? Pfff, carmaggedon had real people!
Carmaggedon is also the only racing game I ever enjoyed :)
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Oh man…..screw this game, but Carmageddon….probably the most enjoyable video game I experienced as a teenager. I used to just cheat with pinball mode or afterburners and go wild.
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I really like Targem. I enjoyed Hard Truck: Apocalypse, I hope that Sledgehammer will get an English release sometime and now this! These guys are cool.
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We want a new Carmageddon!!!!!
..so yeah, this looks promising already.
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The original Carmageddon was an amazing game. As much as I appreciate an attempt to build on that, this is missing some of the fundamental parts of Carmageddon. The nonsense powerups, the even more nonsense range of cars, the score and special move announcements that filled half the screen and stopped you from seing where you were going (and EVERYTHING had a special move bonus) and the fantastic humour.
I’m gonna have to go find my old copy of Carmageddon now…
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My memory my be failing me but i remember Carma having really quite good car physics for the time. I hope that it doesn’t become too detached from reality. I love racing games and Carma was one of the first I played and god forbid I loved it for the racing. Running people over was a bit an aside to me, though obviously hugely fun, the replay and lasting enjoyment came from the frantic races.
hope this holds true but the trailers looks, well terrible, from a racing perspective.
And GRT2?
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I love Carmageddon. I’m not sure I’ll love this :(
Until it has car deformation, where you can a bend a car so far it can thereafter only turn in tiny circles, I’m not sold.
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I cant decide if they are all zombies or a mixed bag, which is concerning me far more than it should be.
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someone do destruction derby meets POD with a trackmania style editor and community services built in.
Man, POD was the bomb :)
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Unfortunately I’ve not played carmageddon, but this does look cool! :D Perhaps I should check out carmageddon in the mean time?
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I adored Carmageddon, it’s one of the few games of its era I actually finished (all the way to level 100 IIRC). A revival would be fantastic, even if I am running down zombies instead of little old ladies (200 points!).
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BONUS FOR ARTISTIC IMPRESSION
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“I really like Targem. I enjoyed Hard Truck: Apocalypse, I hope that Sledgehammer will get an English release sometime and now this! These guys are cool.”
Yeah, Targem games are a guilty pleasure for me aswell. They’re slowly adding more and more stuff to their racing games, so I hope they keep going in the same direction as this game for a while longer. A better collision system with deformable vehicles should be first priority. After that they’ll just need bigger more open levels and crazy powerups and it’s mostly all there.
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I love how, although its never mentioned in RPS (until now), everyone holds Carmageddon dearly in their hearts. #1 was definitely the better of the two. I did enjoy the racing part, but that’s because you didn’t have to race. You could just grief the others. The super police APC was awesome (easy to get when you know how). Did anyone ever complete a race by running over 100% pedestrians?
Bring on a real Carmageddon 3 (or 4 if you count TDR2000). C’mon Eidos, you know it makes sense!
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It gives me hope that so many people remember Carmageddon. That was probably one of the best games, if not THE best, that I can recall playing on the PC. I and II both had their highlights that were unmatched in any similar game since then in any format. Amazing that so many people liked it and they haven’t remade it yet. Color me pessimist, but I bet they’ll mess it up and somehow miss what was fun about it.
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yeah yeah !!
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I’ve watched the trailer. Sorry to disappoint Armageddon Riders creators.
Graphics
The overall graphics look great – no need for better ones. Still, sparks are overdone and they are of a too bright yellow. Try a little darker orange and not round as stars. They spawn too many from a little scratch. If you love sparks make them spawn more often – from dragging parts on the road, from colliding other objects than cars etc.
Physics
The game looks like it’s more NFS-ish but lacks its assets: complex parts and performance tuning, social life mood etc. Another close comparison would be with Carmageddon. I think a little inspiration from Carmageddon series woudn’t hurt; so compared to the latter, there are some downsides:
The car controlability is too childish – the car stays too sure on the road, not to mention when it lands from a jump or hit by an opponent. It gives the impression that is a single rock box, instead of a car, a compound of different objects (body, wheels).
The body of the car is too resistant to shocks – it adds to the mentioned impression. It should deform like paper, body parts spattering around, shocks/springs work more visible.
Concept
The cars are too common, too compact which adds even more to – you guessed it – box feeling. They should contain “disposable” parts like visible ailerons, reinforcement bars, shields, gross spoilers, wheel caps, spinners or name tags and all these when you see at an opponent, you can’t wait to peel them off his car and grieve for your every lost part of car. It should be like a human dismember, only it’s on cars. Plus – the car has a reason to be more endurable: it’s hardened with all that stuff and it lasts longer till it gets undrivable.
Maybe the most enjoyable aspect of Carmageddon which boosts it past other car games is this:
You can drive free wherever you see with your eyes: no road limits, no height limits, just everywhere. There’s no forward and backward, left or right. Although you HAVE to race going forward, you CAN go otherwise. It’s why I don’t play NFS the last version and I play Carma with crappy graphics.
Seen the “Death Race” movie? it would be great if someone would copy some things from there: story, weapons, shield and traps and add a gadget tuning shop or alike.
It also would be nice if the tires would blow up, or the upper side of the car would tear apart. Even more: the wheels would go off, more often than in Carma, so you have to steer harder to overcome unbalanced traction. Make it so you would be able to drive with one wheel :)). Make so you could drive with half the car (which I’ve actually REALLY seen, go figure…). Make it so when the car is violently hit, it bends a little on its length (in Carma) but still drivable. Make driving more dynamic.
What Carmageddon lacks is that the mood and approach is too childish. Also the graphics but hey, for that time… also, the cars would stick to walls, not too pleasant.
I don’t want you to mind, I’m sorry if I misunderstood your game; I just said what I’d like to see in the game as a player.
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Note : Alot of Foreign Carmageddons had zombies in their releases, American versions had people. It was also banned in alot of countries
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