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Gaming has seen its fair share of controversy over the last couple of decades. And while violence and sexual content have long been a part of cinema and literature, games have struggled to shed the idea that they exist purely as some form of childish entertainment. Over the years, there have been a number of titles in video game history that have helped erode such taboos. I'm Stuart Brown, and this is Game Over. And in this episode, we're covering [Music] Carmageddon. Originally published in 1997 for both MS DOS and Mac, Carmageddon was published by London-based Sales Curve Interactive or SCI. The sales curve started with ports of popular arcade games to the home systems such as Silkworm and Shinobi. And one of their early original hits was a spiritual successor to Silkworm, Swift, published under the Storm label as their current moniker. The sales curve wasn't deemed suitable for games at the time. Swift was popular for the solid vertically scrolling shooter mechanics and two-player cooperative play with one player controlling the skies in a helicopter and another in a jeep. Swift was a blaster to play and a commercial success. SCI went on to publish a steady stream of games throughout the '90s and in 1997 would team up with the then unproven studio Stainless Software. Stainless had existed since 1993, serving as a subcontractor for Argonol Games and producing multimedia titles for the Times Mirror Company. Carmageddon would be their first game as a studio and one that would go on to stir quite considerable controversy. Ostensibly, Carmageddon is a racing game. It features all the usual stuff you'd expect, from cars and checkpoints to laps and timers. But right from the checkered flag, it was apparent that this game's focus was not of a typical racer. Originally designed for destruction, Carmageddon started life as a destruction derby simulator with 3D graphics and realistic defamation and damage. During its development, the game was intended to be an officially licensed Mad Max game. But this deal fell through, resulting in the transfer to the game inspired by cult 1975 film Death Race 2000. It was at this time that pedestrians were added, tying into the movie's Macab scoring system for vehicular murder, or simply put, pedestrians for points. Unfortunately, the Death Race tie-in fell through as well, but the game was left with heavy influence and would finally adopt its final identity as an entirely new franchise. The game's car design mirrors that seen in its inspiral movie with a serrated midline division and menacing front end resembling Frankenstein's monster, the Appalachian given to said protagonist's car in the film. The characters seen in Carmageddon are as colorful as their movie counterparts as well. With a cabal of anarchists, rednecks, Nazis, gimps, and Russians, each with their own thematically matched ride with pedestrians, five opponents, and a set of race checkpoints. There were multiple routes to victory. Whether through pedestrian genocide, annihilation of every last opponent, or of course the boring option by completing the race conventionally, with a variety of environments to race in, from urban streets, dusty deserts, and industrial plants amongst others, the worlds were open-ended, more sandbox than racetrack. Your only real opponent was the clock. Run out of time and the race was over. And so earning bonus time by running other cars and killing pedestrians is essential to complete the race. Naturally, the more destructive means were the more appealing, and wasting every opponent was usually the swiftest route to victory. This was done by using your own vehicle to impart as much kinetic force as possible upon your unfortunate victim. High-speed head-on collisions, or better yet, crushing them against a hard surface would damage and ultimately destroy your opponent, earning you credits and bonus time. Of course, they would attempt to do the same to you. But thankfully, your opponent lacks the ability to repair and recover themselves, which tilts the odds in your favor a little. Damage modeling was fairly impressive for its time. With defamations and different critical zones, you could be left with no steering or a broken transmission, rendering you near immobile. In practical terms, this wasn't much of an issue, as the ability to repair your car mid race eliminated any long-term effects brought about by any excessive collision. In a sense, though, this is probably a good thing. Worrying about trashing your car might take away some of the reckless fun that can be had in hunting down your foe. Killing all the pedestrians on a level would also grant a victory, and a well-earned one at that, as tracking down the last of several hundred pets is a herculean task indeed. With each race completed, you gain ranks, and the closer you get to the top spot, the harder the opponent you'll face. While you start off racing against soft-skinned sports cars and buggies, eventually you'll find yourself pitted against diesel chugging armored bulldozers and a host of more aggressive, tougher tokill opponents. The addition of police in later levels adds to the challenge as they've got some of the toughest cars in the game. Thankfully, you can upgrade your own ride, and with each defeated opponent, there's a random chance to take their car and use it in future races. While some are better than others, once you gain access to Dawn Dumpster's bulldozer, crushing even the highle opponents and quashing the annoyance of the aggressive police becomes a breeze. Upon completing the game, a sixth tier of upgrades is unlocked along with every single car in the game, including the Enforcer, an armored police APC that outclasses everything else in the game. Come again wasn't the only game influenced by Death Race 2000, nor was it the first to stir controversy. In fact, there was a game just a year after the film's release in 1976. Exod's Death Race was a crude replication of the pedestrian for points mechanic seen in its namesake film. Two crudely rendered race cars compete to mow down pixelated peds and to rack up a superior score. While tamed by today's standards, the very suggestion of automotive violence was enough to warrant massive outcry and maybe the first video game to elicit such a response from the media. The game was pulled off the market with fewer than 1,000 machines produced, and as a result, the original machines are a rare sight today. The early 80s saw the popularity of MadMax at the cinema and a peak of interest in post-apocalyptic vehicular combat themed games. One such game was Car Wars, a board game featuring car-on car combat and the inspiration for 1985's AutoDuel on the Atari 8-bit platforms. With top-own graphical combat and a host of customization options for your vehicle, it was an immersive role- playinging experience with a distinct MadMax flavor. 1986's Road War 2000 was similar with a familiar doomsday scenario and textbased combat. While such games were fun for those prepared to invest the effort into learning how to play them, these early car combat games lacked a certain degree of arcade action and accessibility. Supercars and its sequel Supercars 2 added heavy munitions into the mix with a solid top- down arcade style racer with missiles and mines. Winning the races required more than just skillfully navigating the twisted circuits, but crafty use of violence as well. For those who prefer their violence visceral and a little more hands-on road rash on the Sega Mega Drive had a fantastic blend of reckless motorcycle racing and heedless fisticuffs. Few things are more satisfying in life than stealing another biker's weapon, then pummeling them into a collision with an oncoming car. Speaking of car collisions, one of the first games to employ semi-realistic 3D defamation as a result of collision damage was Destruction Derby from Cosis in 1995. Based on the real life sport of demolition derby, the general goal of most of the race modes was to inflict as much damage as possible upon your opponent by crashing, bashing, and otherwise colliding with them. Remedy of later Max Pain fame tossed their hat into the car combat arena with Death Rally, a top-own racer notable for the inclusion of killable pedestrians. With tracks and weapons similar to the earlier supercars, Death Rally brought more customization options, more diverse tracks and cars, and smoother overall gameplay upon its release in 1996. Just a few short months before the release of Carmageddon saw Activision's Interstate 76 on the PC with a laid-back ' 70s vibe and the prerequisite post-apocalyptic backstory, souped-up cars replete with rockets and oil slicks, and miles upon miles of open highway. With a long history of violent racing games, Commagan had its fair share of antence. quite why it elicited the degree of controversy it did at the time might just coincide with the higher level of scrutiny video games were subject to as they became more realistic. The game failed to meet rating standards in both the UK and Germany and was even banned outright in Brazil, resulting in the need to dial back the realistic violence by replacing the human pedestrians with green bleeding zombies for a certifiable release. After 10 months of appeal, the original Gore was eventually approved, leading to the Splatback add-on with more tracks, vehicles, and the option to turn the blood back on. It's tough to discuss controversy in video games without mentioning the infamous Grand Theft Auto series. And like Carmageddon, GTA had more than its fair share of vehicular manslaughter. The original GTA was released just a few months after Carmageddon and from the outset offered a violent sandbox for the player and score rewards for mowing down pets. even a Ganga bonus for taking out an entire troop of Harry Krishna at once. As you'd expect, GTA was no stranger to controversy from the start. But it took the transition to a full 3D environment in GTA 3 for the real disputes to begin. The ability to hire a prostitute and then beat her with a baseball bat to reclaim your cash was a hot media talking point. And this controversy followed the series, perhaps reaching a peak with GTA San Andreas and the hot coffee backlash. Essentially a cut miniame featuring simulated sex. It wasn't a part of the final game, but the very trace of it on the disc was enough to stir a considerable call for a withdrawal of the game from sale. GTA 4 is the most recent title in the series, and thanks to Natural Motion's Euphoria engine, running over pedestrians is now more realistic than ever with properly weighted bodies and apt reaction to a two-tonon hunk of steel traveling at high velocity. Despite this, GTA 4 has thus far avoided the level of negative attention that San Andreas mustered. And despite murmurings of discontent from some groups, the series has never been more popular. Carmageddon was successful enough to warrant two sequels, although Stainless Software would only be involved with the first. Carmageddon 2: Carp Apocalypse Now kept much of the familiar formula from the first game, but saw a transition to a full 3D environment with hardware acceleration, allowing for greater detail and more advanced damage modeling. The pedestrians were now 3D models instead of 2D sprites and were able to more convincingly splatter and otherwise collide with your car in the surrounding environment. With a soundtrack featuring Iron Maiden and a zany collection of opponents and environments, Carmageddon 2 was a fun addition to the series. Lacking a little polish in places, but maintaining the same core gameplay as the original. Unfortunately, Stainless W contracted for the third in the series, Carmageddon TDR 2000, released appropriately enough in the year 2000. Australian developers tour games were brought in with most of their prior experience being developed for handheld consoles. This title is generally regarded as the weakest of the trilogy, bringing little new to the table and marking the end of the series. The original developers, now known as Stainless Games, dropped off the radar for some time after Carmageddon 2, returning with Xbox Live Arcade title Nova Drrome. Much of their recent output has been smaller titles intended for download, such as the popular Magic the Gathering: Jewels of the Planaineswalker on Xbox Live Arcade, PSN, and PC. Sales Curve Interactive, on the other hand, have been active throughout the last decade, releasing titles such as the popular conflict thirdperson shooter series on the Xbox, including Conflict: Desert Storm in 2002 and the realistic rally simulator Richard Burns Rally in 2004. Carmageddon 4 was originally planned for release in 2005, but the purchase of Idos Interactive by SCI shelved the franchise. SCI adopted the Idos brand for most of their output and were now responsible for popular franchises such as Thief, Hitman, and Tomb Raider. There was another change of ownership in 2009 when Square Enix purchased Idos PLC, forming a new division, Square Enix Europe. With forthcoming titles such as DSX, Human Revolution, Tomb Raider, Hitman Absolution, and Thief 4, the Carmageddon franchise evidently doesn't feature in Square Enix's future plans. And in fact, they offloaded the rights to the name this year to the original developer, Stainless. And so, a fourth game may yet see the light of day with the original developers in a reboot of the original Carmageddon title. Dubbed Carmageddon Reincarnation, it's mooted for a 2012 release, but details, publishers, and platforms all remain to be seen. Odd to think that the chunky gore of Carmageddon could ever be considered controversial. But if nothing else, it's a reminder of how far video games have come in the last decade. It's a slow shift away from the mindset that video games are for kids, and slow acceptance that sex and violence might actually have a place in the interactive arts. Far from inspiring real life violence, games such as Carmageddon are an escapist's outlet. A chance to defy rules and break laws without consequence, safely suspended in disbelief. Join me next time when I'll be covering the puzzlingly cute suicide simulator, Lmings. And until then, farewell.