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Carmageddon Careens Back Onto Radar
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to GameSpot's report that a new version of gory driving title Carmageddon is listed for release in 2005 by publisher SCi. This highly Death Race 2000-influenced franchise often got in trouble with censors for "sequences in which pedestrians are run over by the player", and despite suffering diminishing returns for the sequels, was a fiercely addictive title (especially in the original's rarely-tried LAN multiplayer modes.) However, there's no word yet on platforms or gameplay details for this new title.
especially in the original's rarely-tried LAN multiplayer modes
That's because although multiplayer Carmageddon was fun, it was a bitch and a half to get running!! You *needed* to drive around killing people after the frustration-fest of setting up a LAN game.
You didn't hear it from me, but...
There is one -- if you apply the no-CD patch, Carmageddon 2 no longer complains when you run it on Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows XP (I've personally run it on 2000 and XP, no problem. Never tested NT.)
Well, maybe you should go look at id Software, or Epic, or Valve, or Origin back in the WC days, or... well... any successful design company.
These companies, of course, push the bleeding edge with their games -- they talk to video card makers, CPU makers, etc. and guess at what features will be available in N years. They then target those features for the high end of their game engine (or in the case of Origin in its hayday, target beyond those features...) while making sure that it's playable with current technology (or in the case of Origin, blatantly ignore current technology).
And, somehow, they're successful. Not to say it's perfect, not by any means, but they've generally done quite well. Better yet, while the game may want the bleeding edge hardware to run at top performance with all the visual toys turned on, other developers can license the engine and be relatively safe in knowing that when they release their game in 18-24 months those bleeding edge features will be much, much more common place.
As far as Carmageddon is concerned, are they trying to be one of the bleeding edge companies, or are they just trying to make a buck? The make a buck companies usually just use the stock engine, maybe a couple modifications, but nothing really big. There's also the middle ground - companies that license existing engines and then modify the hell out of them (like Valve did with the Q1 engine and HL).
Being on the bleeding edge is dangerous - if you mis-estimate where the edge is you can either come out with a game that requires more hardware than is available at release time, or you can come out with a game that already looks outdated (Daikatana managed to do both at once, plus be full of bugs and poor design decisions). Being on the other end can be dangerous too -- anyone coming out with a Q3 or Unreal engine based game is going to look very dated once HL2, D3, DE2, etc. come out.