Carmageddon: Reincarnation

 PC
User Score
4.4

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 168 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 57 out of 168
  2. Mixed: 23 out of 168
  3. Negative: 88 out of 168

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  1. surprisedcritic
    May 22, 2015
    2
    I have been waiting almost 2 decades for this sequel game title since Carmageddon 2. that is a long time and a lot of suspense. But I must say, I see all of the positive comments saying that this is the game that Carmageddon fans have been waiting for. AND, Yes, well, erm, err....... it was supposed to be but it isn't, not even close.

    The fact that the money for the development of the    I have been waiting almost 2 decades for this sequel game title since Carmageddon 2. that is a long time and a lot of suspense. But I must say, I see all of the positive comments saying that this is the game that Carmageddon fans have been waiting for. AND, Yes, well, erm, err....... it was supposed to be but it isn't, not even close.

    The fact that the money for the development of the release was raised almost completely by fans of the prequel is absolutely amazing! Truly! Unfortunately though it looks like the developer ran out of money and didn't want to confess up to it, or just didn't care about the sorry unoptimized state that the computer game is presently in, maybe they just hated the idea of not making a profit on their title, and so instead served up their fans with what they describe on steam as a "FULL RELEASE". and NO NO NO, this is a sorry excuse for a FULL RELEASE, its a terribly unoptimized piece of crap. Either the development team have overextended themselves, or they have run out of money. This is embarrassing, even to me, and truly, someone who has worked in the computer game industry and spoken to developers all over the world I have to say that I'm extremely disappointed. The outdated graphics, and "Playstation 1" textures is really quite acceptable really, lets remember the DOS version of Carma2 was absolutely spectacular and had terrible graphics, so thats no problem and it was generally accepted because the playability of the prequel was so high. It just seems like a waste.

    What a waste Stainless games, you just stained yourself with this terrible release. A real slideshow of a game, by the way that means stuttering and terrible performance issues, even on a supercomputer with the best graphics card available in the world, (thats a $5000 machine), a sloppy hideous mess! Really? I'm not sure how the developer managed to fool themselves that this was in any proper state to release, because the Q&A and beta testers feedback must have still been ringing in their ears. What did you do? You chose to ignore them and release it anyway, and I have to say, looking at other spectacular A++ titles, you have failed, miserably to capture something which could have been the most epic title in a decade.

    FAIL!

    Expect a lot of "hate" from real hardcore fans whom you have really disappointed. I am sure the turdbuying teenagers won't notice the difference between other B titles, but you really messed this up. and what cost? Another sequel that could have been golden and had great promise ruined by budgeting , greed and project management ignorance! argh it burns.    … Expand
  2. David87
    May 24, 2015
    1
    Bad optimisation is the smallest problem!There are a lot of annoying things in this game,what are turning fun into suffering.1.: Low scores-high fixing costs. 2.: Every bot is against you.They won't **** with each other-as was in the previous episodes-and they make you lost in a second. 3.: Cars are so fragile and light.Esp. yours. 4.: Sounds: There are no dynamic sounds.You always hearBad optimisation is the smallest problem!There are a lot of annoying things in this game,what are turning fun into suffering.1.: Low scores-high fixing costs. 2.: Every bot is against you.They won't **** with each other-as was in the previous episodes-and they make you lost in a second. 3.: Cars are so fragile and light.Esp. yours. 4.: Sounds: There are no dynamic sounds.You always hear the same effect. 5.: Chechpoint or ped hunting events are awful. 6.: Bugs,bugs and bugs!
    They say,that will make a better optimisation in the future,but everybody knows,that it won't be better because of the complexity of the cars: shaking motor,rotating axis...    … Expand
  3. mindrust8
    May 22, 2015
    2
    Can not even start the game. Fails and gives windows error at start. Watched youtube vids of full release, graphics total ****

    This is second time i feel like scammed after buying diablo3. Please stainless fix the game, optimise it as soon as possible. You are not as big as Blizzard, you ll be damned.
  4. OldKeeper
    May 26, 2015
    4
    Allow me start this review by saying that I have been a Carma fan since I first played the demo of the original game in 1997 and that I will probably never grow tired of replaying the two original Carmageddon games.

    Needless to say I didn't hesitate to back Carmageddon Reincarnation when I found out Stainless was doing a Kickstarter back in 2012. The game was originally set to be    Allow me start this review by saying that I have been a Carma fan since I first played the demo of the original game in 1997 and that I will probably never grow tired of replaying the two original Carmageddon games.

    Needless to say I didn't hesitate to back Carmageddon Reincarnation when I found out Stainless was doing a Kickstarter back in 2012. The game was originally set to be released in 2013 but it got delayed several times until it finally materialized on Steam Early Access in March 2014. There it lingered until it was released in May 2015 after yet another delay.

    I've played every Alpha and Beta version of CR and while the game looked decidedly mediocre and ran terrible it showed a lot of promise so I kept giving Stainless the benefit of the doubt.

    On their Kickstarter page Stainless states "The Carmageddon community means the world to us" yet they were very silent on the Steam forums and updates were few and far between during the games year-long stay in Early Access.

    In May 2015 CR finally went gold and it saddens me to report that Reincarnation is still buggy and highly unoptimized. This game looks incredibly dated (it pales in comparison to 2008's GTA IV for example) yet it somehow manages to be more demanding than even the most advanced modern open world titles (eg Witcher 3, GTA 5).

    Many graphical options have been cut from the final version of the game, normally this would be a bad thing but in CR's case it doesn't really matter because tweaking the game's graphical options doesn't seem to change a whole lot performance-wise, no matter what settings I select this game keeps struggling to maintain 30fps on my system (i7,12gb ram, 960 (4gb) ) and the frame rate drops below 20fps every single time I pick up/ use certain power-ups.

    Loading times are very long, textures and foliage look primitive, there is no regular traffic, no day and night cycle, no variable weather and no cockpit view.

    I do like the game's art and the fact that Carma's dark humour is present.

    The cars also look quite good and they have a proper damage model. If you've played the old Carma games the car handling will feel just right, the game controls perfectly fine with a pad and it's also playable with a keyboard. I don't think wheels are supported at the moment.

    Peds look pretty dated but they're animated well enough. The gore is nicely done for the most part although I would prefer it if peds didn't explode so easily.

    AI is rudimentary at best. Your opponents still teleport around the map like they do in Carma 1 and 2. They also have trouble reaching certain spots on the map, this makes them more or less useless during some of the game's new modes. I don't really mind this but if you're looking for a game with challenging, "believable" opponents you may want to look elsewhere.

    CR has your "typical" fun Carma pickups (both classics and new ones) and there is a varied selection of cool, over-the-top maps. Sadly activating some of these pickups will turn the game into a slideshow, some maps also run much worse than others.

    The UI is fine but I would like to have the option to toggle it on and off.

    The replay feature is back and it's a joy to use.

    Sound design is very good and I would rate the OST higher if it didn't contain bloody dubstep tracks, this is not the biggest issue in the world but I think it's worth mentioning nonetheless because that noise gets really old really fast and it feels totally out of place.

    Multiplayer modes are still devoid of peds and pretty buggy, lag and random disconnects are still common even when trying to play with RL friends.

    So no I would not recommend CR, at least not in its current state. I know Stainless isn't a huge AAA studio but if your game looks archaic it should fly on modern gaming hardware, you can't have poor graphics, mediocre AI etc and expect to get away with poor performance.    … Expand
  5. JohnJewtard
    May 30, 2015
    2
    DO NOT trust positive scores for this. They are all from hardcore fundamentalist fanatics with top end systems. I wanna love it, but can't even play it, or can't even stand to play it in such a broken state. It is absolutely unacceptable to release a game in this kind of condition. It is broken, it runs like kife on even the highest end systems. Stainless had to know but they bungledDO NOT trust positive scores for this. They are all from hardcore fundamentalist fanatics with top end systems. I wanna love it, but can't even play it, or can't even stand to play it in such a broken state. It is absolutely unacceptable to release a game in this kind of condition. It is broken, it runs like kife on even the highest end systems. Stainless had to know but they bungled things up so bad with the engine early on that they ran outta steam & had to drop it like a steaming hot turd. It is not possible unless you're religitard crazy fundamentalist fanatical (like the few giving this more than a 6) about Carma & you own high end rig, to reconcile the narrow scope, hugely dated graphics & the disgustingly horrible performance. It's appalling that this ever came to market, at least as a "final", "gold" release. I'm sick & tired of turds being called "gold". Fix it or stop taking money for it & give back what you did take post "launch". C:R is Core2 Duo/Phenom X2 material at best & even i5/i7 systems can't keep 60 FPS afloat on this. The content & the game being more inline with something from 2005 is fine. I love Carma, this is Carma, it's a nicer looking version of the older games & there's a huge amount of fun to be had if it were possible to run it. Great damage model, probably unmatched in any other game, but that's the only area that it possibly excels. The maps have really fun layouts but they're small & not many of 'em. Being a small indie dev is a fine excuse for having less content & less than par graphics & lacking much of the things that a larger game from a larger dev may have, but it is never excusable to release broken garbage in exchange for $, no matter how unique your game may be, or how small your studio. Proper functionality & performance is a bare minimum whether you're large or small & Stainless blew it. I hope they fix it because I love Carma as much as anyone, but the reviews ain't gonna change. :(

    I give it a deuce, because that's what you gave us Stainless, a big fat stanky deuce.    … Expand
  6. g10stpd
    May 29, 2015
    3
    Engine is garbage and probably will never get changed...
    There are 10 year old games that look better, have better physics and run at 60 fps already. See Flatout Ultimate Carnage, Burnout Paradise, etc. There's no excuse for how this game runs for the type of system it demands.
    YES we all love Carmageddon, but I don't love it enough to play it in this current state and be unhappy. I'll    Engine is garbage and probably will never get changed...
    There are 10 year old games that look better, have better physics and run at 60 fps already. See Flatout Ultimate Carnage, Burnout Paradise, etc. There's no excuse for how this game runs for the type of system it demands.

    YES we all love Carmageddon, but I don't love it enough to play it in this current state and be unhappy. I'll just keep my eye on it and hope they fix it to at least run as well as a 10 year old game.    … Expand
  7. GrumpyDan
    Jul 10, 2015
    4
    Back in the Old Days a game called Carmageddon splatted onto our screens and into our hearts.
    This is a pretty faithful reboot of the days gone by.
    That said, it hasn't aged well, the game still feels unfinished, and takes an ages to load even from an SSD. As a Backer I am disappointed in this game, it could have been so much more. The new race types are a nice change, but the    Back in the Old Days a game called Carmageddon splatted onto our screens and into our hearts.
    This is a pretty faithful reboot of the days gone by.

    That said, it hasn't aged well, the game still feels unfinished, and takes an ages to load even from an SSD.

    As a Backer I am disappointed in this game, it could have been so much more.

    The new race types are a nice change, but the game balance seems rather broken, cars are simultaneously too fragile and too tough, sometimes a light bump is all they need to explode, other times cars can take massive impacts, mines and mortars and cheap kicking.

    Speaking of power ups, they are just many flavors of the same thing with cosmetic differences, and most are pretty useless.

    R.I.P Carmagedon, see you in the next life.    … Expand
  8. CaptMescaline
    Jun 4, 2015
    0
    Game doesn't even get past the loading screen without crashing. This was a problem after one of the beta updates came out and it hasn't even been fixed for final release. Shame on the developers for stealing my money.
  9. The_D4RknesS
    Jun 5, 2022
    0
    screen freezing and loading time, this one is real garbage and it's not for nothing that they tried to do max damage but some problems still persist

Awards & Rankings

79
#79 Most Discussed PC Game of 2015

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
54

Mixed or average reviews - based on 21 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 21
  3. Negative: 6 out of 21
  1. Level7.nu
    Aug 26, 2015
    30
    No, Carmageddon Reincarnation won’t make anyone happy. The game engine is rubbish, the graphics makes the game looks like it’s ten years old (in a bad way) and the physics is a joke. Even the hardcore fans should avoid this.
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  2. Games Master UK
    Aug 5, 2015
    32
    Even the combat is ancient and frustrating. [Aug 2015, p.78]
  3. games(TM)
    Jul 27, 2015
    50
    Sometimes, such fondly remembered franchises can be revived to stand alongside contemporary greats, simultaneously satisfying our younger selves and our more demanding modern expectations. Sadly, despite Stainless Games’ best efforts to recapture the wacky allure of the 1997 original, Carmageddon: Reincarnation is not one of those games.
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