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Carmageddon Max Pack

Damn, that took a while. My only previous experience with the first Carmageddon were some minutes that I had played it back in 1998 after I had originally played the sequel. The low resolution of the game killed my interest pretty quick then (that, and the lack of Iron Maiden :P). 17 years later, I own both games, and while it is tempting to just go for the sequel, I decided to play both games in order to find out which is the superior one.

One of the really cool things about Carmageddon are the large and varied open stages. Whether you want something industrial, a beach or a plain city, Carmageddon is here to cover you. Sure, you can play it like a racing game with a designated part of the stage acting like a race track, with checkpoints, laps and everything, but where is the fun in that? Go search the stage for crazy power-ups, lots and lots of pedestrians to run over, and enemies to destroy by either colliding with them, or tossing them off a cliff or in deep waters for a cheap, but quick victory. Needless to say, Carmageddon can be a very cathartic game to just mess around and can get even better if you end up playing it with some friends. Having said that, I do have some objections to the game.

For starters, the controls aren't really the best. Trying to make a turn without losing control of the car can be impossible, so you'll end up running slower than usual, which I find it counterproductive to what the game is all about. It doesn't help that the car has an annoying tendency of skidding way too much at times and flying high when you are either running down a street or colliding with a vehicle. These effects can be further exaggerated by the power-ups, which leave you shaking your head/fist as you wait for the game to allow you to regain control of the car. Thankfully, you can use a recovery function (which costs some money) to reposition yourself, but that's still no guarantee that it won't position you next to an enemy. Finally, you can't bind acceleration/brake to W/S or Up/Down, so have fun learning to either use the numpad or some other keyboard buttons.

Another gripe with the game is the single-player progression. For starters, you only have access to one car. "That's not too bad", you might think. "I could always buy more with the money I gain from killing pedestrians/destroying enemies/collecting power-ups/passing checkpoints, right?" Nope. The only way you can get more cars is by having a specific rank or higher (more on that below) and then, you need to destroy a specific car and hope that you'll then be able to unlock it. Considering that it can be entirely random what kind of enemies you'll encounter, you might not end up unlocking too many cars. You'll also not be able to unlock all the cars, anyway, as a good number of them are locked until you finish the game and at this point, it's a bit too little, too late.

As I mentioned above, the game has a ranking system. You begin at 99, and you need to reach rank 1, at which point the final stage is unlocked, which you must beat to complete the game. You can raise your rank by collecting money, which can be gained by killing pedestrians, destroying enemy cars, passing the correct checkpoints, etc. As your rank gets higher, you'll unlock more stages to play, more upgrades for your car, as well as getting a chance to unlock some specific cars for your own usage by destroying them. I didn't really like the ranking system, though. For starters, raising your rank requires a substantial amount of cash, and it is possible that you may complete the stage without gaining enough, even for a single point, while unlocking a new level requires at least 3 ranks. Thus, you must grind in each stage by collecting more and more cash and it gets worse when you realise that not all stages are good for grinding, thus forcing you to replay some specific stages over and over again. Make no mistake, you will repeat them, because as you progress the game, you don't necessarily find new levels to play, oh no. Instead, you end up returning to the same levels, with their only differences being a name, taking part in a different hour of the day (night instead of day), and having a different part of the stage as a designated race track.

All this applies equally both to the base game and to the expansion, Splat Pack. While it's nice that the expansion introduces new stages and new cars, it doesn't really bother with new music (which was kinda lackluster in the base game to begin with), and it ends up worsening the ranking progression by unlocking a new stage every 5-6 ranks, instead of 3 (and yes, it also ends up repeating some of its levels later on. Ugh...)

In conclusion, Carmageddon can be great fun, but only in multiplayer, or in small single-player doses, or after you have completed the damn game, when it allows you to select any stage and vehicle that you want, instead of being restricted by the crappy ranking system.

Full list can be found here.
Post edited May 22, 2015 by Grargar
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Grargar: Carmageddon Max Pack
Have you gotten this to run and is there something similar for Carmageddon 2?
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Klumpen0815: Have you gotten this to run and is there something similar for Carmageddon 2?
Nope, haven't tried it, and I'm not aware of something similar for Carmageddon 2. Hell, I didn't even know that an Open-Source version of the 1st game existed.
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LJChronx: Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

Another series Ive never played before. Its really been great picking up all these great series (PoP, Batman, Tomb Raider, ect.) that I missed for a cheap price digitally. Cant beat it!

Anyways started with the first game in the series, and glad I did, as it was a nice treat. No widescreen and a few bad camera angles, but no big deal. Great action, acrobatics, and a decent story. Picked up the whole series for cheap a few weeks back here. Next!
You can enable widescreen extremely easily in Prince of Persia games.Should have done a 30 second google search beforing sabotaging your own game experience:/
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LJChronx: Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

Another series Ive never played before. Its really been great picking up all these great series (PoP, Batman, Tomb Raider, ect.) that I missed for a cheap price digitally. Cant beat it!

Anyways started with the first game in the series, and glad I did, as it was a nice treat. No widescreen and a few bad camera angles, but no big deal. Great action, acrobatics, and a decent story. Picked up the whole series for cheap a few weeks back here. Next!
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Mr.Caine: You can enable widescreen extremely easily in Prince of Persia games.Should have done a 30 second google search beforing sabotaging your own game experience:/
I figured it was only in the first PoP game, so I just went with it. I'll fix it in the next game then if necessary. Either way the game was fun.
Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World
Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal
Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag
Resident Evil Revelations
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
Killzone 3
Saints Row 2
WATCH DOGS
L.A. Noire
Assassins Creed Rogue
The Last of Us
Tales Of Xillia 2

Complete List
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2015/post32
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Mr.Caine: You can enable widescreen extremely easily in Prince of Persia games.Should have done a 30 second google search beforing sabotaging your own game experience:/
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LJChronx: I figured it was only in the first PoP game, so I just went with it. I'll fix it in the next game then if necessary. Either way the game was fun.
Good to know.I think The Two Thrones supports widescreen natively but WW and SOT require a fix.
Beat Resistance late last night. Went through about 80% of the game on an uncle's system, bought my own a while ago, finally got the game returned to me, and over the past few weeks been playing it on Friday and Saturday nights for a couple of hours each. Personally, I think it's one of the better console FPSs that I have played, better than Halos 2 and 3 but not as good as Timesplitters 2 or Halo Reach. I really like the aesthetics and designs, even though the game in general felt unoriginal. I did like the weapon load out in general. The assault rifle was an ideal assault rifle with a very useful alt fire, the alien guns were decent even if at least one of them felt like a less useful Unreal Tournament gun. I thought the aliens were okay, the Strogg are still more interesting to me and a lot of the enemies were more annoying than challenging. All in all, the game was well worth the buck I spent on it.

Not anyone would be too torn about this as both games are really cheap right now and you may as well get them both, but if it was a choice between Resistance and Killzone 2, it's Resistance.

It seems I neglected that at some point over the last two weeks that I beat Halo 2. It's my second least favorite Halo, only beaten out by 3 and that's only because I kind of remember 2's plot I legitimately do not recall 3's.
Post edited May 11, 2015 by AnimalMother117
Mass Effect for the first time. It has one of the best, if not the best, end sequences of any game ever!
Sam and Max - Hit the road

Played the adventure back in 1993 (disk version) and since then wanted to do another play-through.

To the moon

Beautiful adventure with one of the best stories i've ever seen in a computer game. Can't wait till the second episode < Finding Paradise> gets released.
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Enebias: <span class="bold">S2: Silent Storm</span> (includes the expansion S3: Silent Storm Sentinels)
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Great review! And thanks for reminding me to move this game from backlog into the fast lane. It's totally my kinda game, no idea why I've been holding off on this one for so long.
Post edited May 11, 2015 by awalterj
King's Quest 3. One of my favorite adventures because I love the opening scenario. You're a slave to an evil wizard and you have to constantly poke at your surroundings to see what you can get away with, where you can go and when. It actually creates a certain amount of suspense in the early going and makes it quite thrilling when you start finding the hidden stuff and creating spells.

My big nitpick about it is that the clock is so important to the game and there's one particular section in which you basically have to solve it just by hanging out for a little while. A "wait" or "skip time" command would have been handy to speed things up some.
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Enebias: <span class="bold">S2: Silent Storm</span> (includes the expansion S3: Silent Storm Sentinels)
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....
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awalterj: Great review! And thanks for reminding me to move this game from backlog into the fast lane. It's totally my kinda game, no idea why I've been holding off on this one for so long.
Thank you! :)
I'm always happy to be able to spread a bit of love for some relatively obscure but awesome gems!

A friendly suggestion: since your team mates can cover each class and you would certainly use it anyway, I recommend you to pick the sniper role for your main character, to avoid easy -and quite frustrating- deaths. Like in many other games, if he (or she) goes KO the mission is failed, while the other wounded companions can be carried away from the battlefield and be healed after the mission ends.
Post edited May 11, 2015 by Enebias
Brink of Consciousness: The Lonely Hearts Murders

Not a bad plot for this type of game. Easily beatable in just a few hours, its a standard adventure/HOG with a lot of point and click puzzles. Recommend for fans of the genre at a sale price.
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Gedracon: To the moon

Beautiful adventure with one of the best stories i've ever seen in a computer game. Can't wait till the second episode < Finding Paradise> gets released.
In case you didn't know about the two freeware DLC for To the Moon, be sure to play them! (And I believe a third should be coming at some point.)