Metal Maniax

Drive around the arenas trying to destroy your opponents while collecting bonus time, points, and ammo. Damage is sustained to vehicles at the point of impact. By the end of a round, some cars look really crumpled.

Once all the players have been destroyed, the victor is determined according to the number of points he or she has earned from bashing into other cars.

Approximately 10 machines were built, all of which were supposed to be destroyed soon after the field tests were completed. One machine currently resides in the UK and is complete and working; another is rumoured to be in the private collection of Mike Hally (one of the designers). No others are known to exist, and by Atari's own admission, there should not have been any left.

This is a twin sit-down cabinet that is truely massive. The seats move with the action and slide around when hit. There are two speakers mounted on each seat plus the rumble sound of a subwoofer under your seat. There are speakers in the top of the cabinet giving you four points of audio, creating a 3-D surround effect. Interestingly enough, the name Carmageddon is written on the side art, but this game was released quite a while before the hugely successfull PC game.

This game failed miserably in a field test due to the sluggishness of the game play. It looks really nice and plays pretty good, but the frame rate never gets above the range of 25 to 30 frames per second, and at worst, it drops down to two or three frames per second. At the time, there were sleaker, faster games out, so Atari stopped its development mainly because of player dissatisfaction.

The machines were linkable. There was an extra stand that went in between the linked machines (four drivers total) which had massive starter lights (like a drag racing 'christmas tree'). These units were simply comprised of lights in a tall box moulded to the shape of the cabinets.