Should I buy it?

[Klaatu]

Just bought this game. Saw it was on Steam Sale for a great price, so did some research first. Saw/read a lot of critical reviews, but my first impression playing this game is: it's better than the reviews say it is. Many said the controls were bad, but playing with k/m, it's not that bad. Turns are a little loose, but not game-breaking. Some reviews said the graphics were bad, but they aren't. Many of the the Youtube reviews were several years old. Maybe the game has changed since then(?) Anyway, for those wondering whether it's "worth a buy", I would say, at this low, sale price, definitely. Have fun!

[Devilbox Games]

Most of the reviews are either from the early access period of Reincarnation or heavily influenced by the opinions of that early access period. If it had been first released in the state it's in now then it would have been much more popular with less negativity surrounding it.

Carmageddon has always had a raw, unassisted handling model where it's easy to lose control if you're not careful, the chaos of which has been a fairly core part of the gameplay loop since the original game. Unfortunately, this did not resonate well with modern gamers, particularly the youtubers who were being relied on to spread word about the game, what with there being very little marketing budget.

Graphically, the complaints are mostly centred around the fact people were expecting triple A levels of quality from the little indipendant team on a small budget. There are issues with the graphics, such as having problems with anisotropic filtering, textures not being full resolution due to the size of them and normal maps being completely broken since Reincarnation left early access. The latter was fixed in the unreleased beta patch which Stainless were working on before they had to sell the franchise to THQ Nordic, and they were planning on releasing an optional full-res texture update. Unfortunately when they sold it they were unable to carry on work on the patch and THQ Nordic have mothballed it, though you might be able to find how to access it at a certain old-time community forum. anisotropic filtering can be fixed by modding some material files.

Overall, though, the game is an excellent tribute to the franchise and more than worth the couple of quid it costs in the sale, especially with the various mods which have been released (e.g. Shotgun's rebalancing mega mod, Mad Mike's many custom cars, my pack of C1 cars & tracks, etc.). Tons of content for vehicular mayhem.

[Yskas]

Yeah I don't see the negativity, it's real good.

[Zero McDol]

If you like Deathrace 2000 or 2050, then you'll like this game. Simple as that really. The scope is smaller, in terms of not driving caost-to-coast doing what Deathrace does, but it does well on the other elements: Run over ' ' to get points - and adds other things like: Finish a race in first to win, Wreck all cars to win. So a spiritual implementation of Deathrace in a game.

I like the game, but that's me.

[Devilbox Games]

Fun fact: One of the early pitches for the original Carmageddon was for the Deathrace 2000 license, so the DNA for it has been in it for decades. The original was also pitched for the Mad Max license too at one point too, as well as being a more serious destruction derby style game.

[Etchasketch]

This game is bad but that's what makes it good.

[Rolling Guy 0]

So far I put 4 days, 11 hours, and 31 minutes on the PS4 version, and I'm still not bored with it. The vehicle handling is something you need to get use to though.