Carmageddon 64

"This truly is the worst game ever to grace a console."

Carmageddon 64 has done something few games in the past have achieved. It has truly done something unique and for that it must be credited, as it’s about the only possible merit to be found within this little grey cartridge of evil. Carmageddon 64 has claimed the throne to rule the land of arsey games. I can safely say that the game has earned the title of ‘worst. game. ever.’ (end: comic book store guy). It’s not all too often that a game is released that is just SO bad that everyone that plays it comes to the conclusion that it is by far the most atrocious piece of horribly-designed gaming sloth that they’ve ever laid their gaming hands upon across any platform. It’s possible that there are one or two games out there as bad as this, it’s just that I haven’t played them. There really is no point reading this review further, because I’ll sum it up here, every single aspect of Carmageddon 64 is completely and utterly terrible. The game falls nothing short of pure gaming evil. If you’re after an overly informative review you’re out of luck as I’m not really in the best position to provide one. I rented the game for 2 days, plenty of time to really get to know it and put in a lot of gameplay. The problem though is that I played it for a total of about 15 minutes, then put it back in its case and left it idle till I had to take it back. It was just that bad.

Gameplay
Driving an unresponsive molasses coated brick could possibly be fun, if it was intended to be that way. Carmageddon 64 has no gameplay whatsoever, the most fun you’ll get with the game is in the menu, and when you turn off the 64. I mean that. It seems the vehicles in Carmageddon 64 were invented before the wheel and as such they handle extremely poorly and feel just plain bad. If you’ve ever played a game with a mini-game included where say you go from a 3D platformer control setup to a kart racing mini-game, you will usually find that the physics of the driving aren’t too great as the game you’re playing has had all the engine tweaking occur on the platforming aspect, which is the way it should be. These kinds of mini-games are fun for 5 or 10 minutes even with sub-par controls and physics. Playing Carmageddon 64 feels as though it’s a mini-game within a mini-game within a mini-game within a mini-game in terms of gameplay, controls and physics. The English language doesn’t have near enough words to cover my negative feelings towards how the game plays, so I won’t bother trying with every last bit of my brain power to come up with the words needed to express my feelings on the matter. Here’s the short of it - The game, at no point whatsoever is even slightly enjoyable, let alone passable. Every aspect of the game is unbearably dreadful. Games like Carmageddon 64 are what ensures other works-of-arse such as Dual Heros and Superman 64 aren’t complete failures by providing a new level of awful, and in fact, both of the said games are infinitely more enjoyable experiences.
0/10

Graphics
Fog, blurry mono-coloured textures, poor frame rates, terrible camera angles, you name it Carmageddon 64's got it. The graphics will literally make you sick.
3/10

Sound
The sound effects in this pitiful ‘game’ are bad, real bad. The music, or lack thereof is just plain awful. The game is best played (ha!) with no sound whatsoever. I know it may seem harsh bagging out the sound and graphics on top of gameplay, but quite honestly they are almost as bad. It’s a real shame that if gameplay had to be such a painful experience that the pain could have been eased a little with a nice soundtrack or something pretty to look at. No such lucky however.
2.5/10

Multiplayer
As I mentioned, I rented the game and didn’t play it for all that long. If the single player game is anything to go by, there is no way on earth anyone sane would even consider inflicting Carmageddon not only on themselves again, but on someone else. Unless multiplayer is an entirely new game I can’t really see it being any more ‘enjoyable’ than the solo portion of the game.

Replayability
Replayability? Pfft! This game has none. The fact that I didn’t even want to complete it the first time (hell, I only spent about 20 minutes with the game in total) is reason enough that no one in their right mind would want to play this game over.
0/10

Overall
For such a prolific franchise as Carmageddon, it’s a disgrace that this ‘game’ made it off the chopping room floor in alive. The development team should have been relieved of their jobs, or perhaps given a budget and timeframe greater than $10 and 2 days to develop something at least worth playing. The game had potential, but sadly there is not a single redeeming quality to be found in Carmageddon 64 whatsoever. The only reason anyone would be able to justify owning or having played this is purely for the fact that it is indeed the worst game on the face of the planet (at least that I’ve had the pain of experiencing).

1/10 - Steer very clear.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 05/27/01, Updated 11/25/03