First of I'd like to thank all of you for your support, all those gifts. Means a lot. Thought I'll be the only one here, but no. I'm happy Carma legacy still means something to you. I've created this group so people could spill it out without harassment from the "developer's" side. If you wish - jop in: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/roguesht Back to the game. [b]Carmageddon: Rogue Shift — as a game. Carmageddon: Rogue Shift — as CARMAGEDDON… a confused, slow, weightless mess.[/b] I’m not reviewing this as “just some arcade car game.” I’m judging it as a Carmageddon title. And wow… it took me [b]34 minutes[/b] to start yawning. That’s with me actively trying to give it a chance. That’s with me being a fan of the franchise. That’s with me liking roguelikes. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [b]❌ Driving & Speed — they picked the WORST part of Max Damage and made it the core[/b] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Instead of learning from past mistakes, they doubled down on them. ✖ Slow cars ✖ Sluggish acceleration ✖ Awkward, clumsy handling ✖ Zero sense of power or momentum They took the most criticized part of Carmageddon: Max Damage — the slow, awkward driving — and built the entire game around it. Driving doesn’t feel brutal. It doesn’t feel heavy. It doesn’t even feel chaotic. It just feels [b]bad and slow[/b]. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [b]❌ Collisions & Pedestrians (Zombies, technically… I guess)[/b] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Remember when running people over in Carmageddon actually felt impactful? Yeah, forget that. ✖ Zombies walk in the air ✖ They spawn in weird, immersion-breaking spots ✖ Hitting them feels like colliding with fog ✖ Your car doesn’t react — no weight, no resistance, nothing You’re not mowing down bodies. You’re driving through badly animated background props. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [b]❌ Car destruction… or rather, car evaporation[/b] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Destroy an enemy vehicle and what happens? Does it crumple into twisted metal? Does it remain as wreckage? Does it become part of the chaos? Nope. ✖ It just [b]disappears into thin air[/b] No aftermath. No battlefield. No sense that anything actually happened. Just poof — like the game is cleaning up evidence of its own design. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [b]❌ Tracks & environments — aggressively boring[/b] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✖ Nothing visually memorable ✖ No landmarks ✖ No interesting routes ✖ No “OH DAMN I FOUND A CRAZY PATH” moments You don’t explore. You don’t experiment. You just drive around thinking about how fast you can finish the match and stop playing. The only real motivation the game gives you? [b]Grind the Battle Pass and log off.[/b] Yes. A Battle Pass. In Carmageddon. And it feels like it was copied straight out of Helldivers 2’s homework, but with none of the charm. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [b]❌ Roguelike? Technically. Interesting? Not even close.[/b] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I love roguelikes. That’s the only reason I didn’t instantly refund. I even thought: “Okay, maybe I’ll grab it someday at 95% discount.” Not anymore. It functions as a roguelike in the most mechanical, checkbox way possible. ✖ Generic upgrades ✖ Predictable runs ✖ No wild builds ✖ No “this run went insane” moments It’s a roguelike the same way instant noodles are “cuisine.” Technically correct. Spiritually empty. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [b]❌ Music — somehow perfectly matches how bland everything else is[/b] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The soundtrack is vague, lifeless, background noise. No aggression. No hype. No identity. And yet… it fits the game perfectly. Because it sounds exactly like the gameplay feels: [b]dull, flat, and forgettable.[/b] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [b]❌ Technical & design jank everywhere[/b] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✖ Physics feel inconsistent ✖ Impacts lack feedback ✖ World feels unstable and half-finished ✖ General “this needed more time and more talent” energy This doesn’t feel like a bold new direction. It feels like a prototype that accidentally shipped. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [b]❌ Dev attitude (the cherry on top)[/b] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I got into a heated, aggressive argument with the devs about the state of the game. Not polite. Not diplomatic. Very blunt. Their response? [b]Ban. Conversation over.[/b] No real discussion. No thick skin. Just ego. At one point it even looked like they tried to sneak in a petty in-game jab aimed at me personally. I never even found it — and honestly, I don’t care anymore. If that was the intention, it’s not clever. It’s just small, insecure energy from people who take criticism more personally than broken design. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [b]VERDICT[/b] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [b]As a game — slow, bland, generic. As Carmageddon — a complete misunderstanding of what made the series fun.[/b] It took 34 minutes for me to get bored. That’s the most honest metric I can give. ★☆☆☆☆ [b]❌ Not recommended for Carmageddon fans ❌ Not recommended for fans of physics-based destruction ❌ Not recommended for roguelike fans expecting creativity ❌ Not recommended for anyone looking for speed, impact, or chaos[/b] If you want real Carmageddon — replay the old games. They’re older, uglier… and still have more weight, more personality, and more fun than this ever manages. Refunded. **“Oh, and one last thing for your convenience: if you actually want a good vehicular combat game, just go play FUMES instead. It may look visually simpler, but in every other way it’s a hundred times better than this. Funnier, way more dynamic, with awesome OST. I personaly will go and re-complete it. And when it comes to roguelikes with genuinely interesting mechanics, there’s no shortage of those either — Steam is overflowing with them.”** UPD for developer I was considering to drop my review of a Carmageddon game but keep the game because I love roguelikes. 30 minutes was more then enough for me to see this game is a mess as a roguelike. You convinced me to refund it. I made detailed review of it. If you don't like people criticising your product, don't publish it. You have a solid list of low grade games. My fault? Sometimes it's good to use mirror. [b]The three pillars holding up the 190 players still in-game. The three pillars holding up this failure.[/b] [b]First — Developer behavior.[/b] Wildly unprofessional. Ban people, then sit in your little bubble like a pack of hyenas, trash-talking from safety. And lying on top of that — which honestly surprised me more than anything. [b]Second — The game itself.[/b] Shallow. Not built to last. Lazy design that completely fails to hold the attention of the exact audience this game’s name was supposed to attract. [b]Third — And most important: the legacy.[/b] The legacy of this franchise was treated like something to be wiped with and thrown away in the crudest possible manner. And if you, the 34 “geniuses” behind this, are reading this — and I know you are — ask yourselves: [b]“How did it end up like this? What exactly went wrong?”[/b] After all the past discussions, I honestly doubt your ability to answer those questions. But hey — you can always come ask me. I’ll explain it calmly, clearly, quietly… and without aggression. Enough is enough, girl.