Advanced Carmageddon Tips

See any of the other sites for basic tips, here's more stuff.

Points

Points are vital. Not so much the credits for upgrading your car -- you should have plenty to spare by the time you're eligible to upgrade your car -- but to get a rank increase of 5 on every race. That means getting 100,000 points or more a race (at medium difficulty).

To amass points, you want to get Head-on Bonuses as much as possible with other cars, you want to go for Cunning Stunts bonuses (especially if you have the free repair power-up) and most importantly with pedestrians, you need bonus points. 500 pedestrians at 100 each is only 50,000 points -- not enough! You need to

take out multiple pedestrians at once for multiples
ram pedestrians into objects for piledriver bonus
take them out at really high speed for Splatter bonus
slide into them backwards or sideways for Style bonus

The start

Review the other cars (use View Racers, until you've learned their blocky outlines, then you can recognize them on the starting grid map). Watch for Stella Stunna in the race -- she has permanent "Pedestrian Electro-Bastard Ray" power, which means she steals pedestrians and points from you. You want a weaker car behind you so you can start the race in reverse and get quick points. Adjust your position on the starting grid accordingly.
When the race is counting down, switch between cockpit and external view by pressing c. Figure out if there's a barrier behind you to ram the car behind you into. Make sure there isn't a cliff or water hazard -- you don't want other cars to get wasted by falling off the map when you could make points off them.
If Stella Stunna is in the race, turn on Nice & Fluffy mode (keypad -) to hide the pedestrians.
Hold down reverse during the countdown, and ram the car behind you.
I like to switch to cockpit view and watch the cars in front, see if they turn around.

Sometimes they'll all just tear off, in which case I'll attack the poor sucker behind me, checking on the map (press [Tab]) to see when the others come back
Other times one or two will turn around. If so, accelerate forward for Head-on bonuses
If there's a multi-car melee ahead, it may be better to head off backwards in the course. If you have more than two cars around you, it's hard to get away to take more head-on attacks, unless you use the recovery key ([Ins]).

My general strategy is to waste three cars quickly, damage the other two, and then go ped hunting. The cheat I use is ilovenobby to display the pedestrians on the map. This will give you a good sense of where to go.

Holding onto Money

Avoid repairs.

Even with "red"-level damage, your car is good enough to nose around wiping out individual pedestrians, though it's tough to harvest or splatter them with a weak engine. You may come across an Instant Repair or Free Repairs power-up.

If you do go for repairs, tap repair ([Backspace]) lightly. You only need to get back to "yellow"-level damage for a pretty effective car.

Avoid recovery.

Don't get stuck. The most likely way you get stuck is going up an incline, sliding back, and getting stuck in the transition. This is very common in the sky course around the islands in the Splat Pack. If you approach a transition downwards, always turn sideways so you're more likely to have a free wheel. If you get stuck, try waggling the steering, pressing the z key, going into reverse -- sometimes one of these will make the car shift.

Be careful dropping off buildings. If you're slow, you'll land on the roof. More power's nearly always better, if you can slide sideways you'll probably flip back onto your wheels.

However, sometimes recovery is the way to go. If you've got a tough truck to beat and you're too low on time to in good position with tons of points, keep ramming it, and press [Ins] to get back into position.

Barrels

Once you get to a bunch of power-ups, it's tempting to drive into all of them at once. Don't. There's nothing worse than getting a "Pedestrians Glued to Ground" and then a "Jelly Suspension" that stops you taking advantage of it. As soon as you get a good one power-up, consider using it.

If you get a "Free Repairs" or "Invulnerability", use it. Do a huge stunt. The really awesome combination is "Pinball" and these two, I've got 10,000 point stunt bonuses.

If you get a "Free Repairs", you have 60 seconds of free repairs. Keep pressing [Backspace] at regular intervals for repairs.

If you get a "Hot Rod" or "Turbo", use the brakes to avoid losing control, and always turn the wheel in the direction you want to go before you start moving. You can also use the brakes if you get "Pinball" and don't want to bounce around.

Underwater, the light blue barrels tend to be "Underwater Ability" power-ups. These last a long time, so there's not much point in picking them all up if you might return to the water. On the other hand, sometimes the game will toss in a different bonus...

Exploring

Going up near vertical hillsides and walls to explore is usually good. It's hard to get started. Different kinds of cars have different capabilities in making the transition. Some can slam into the hillside at high speed to get going, or drive in at an angle, or hit an earlier transition to land on the wall.

Once you're on the hillsides, if you've got a big heavy car that's having trouble making it, try tapping the z key as you hold down the accelerator. Sometimes that will pulse you up the wall.

When you land on a roof, always brake so you won't slide off. (Unless, of course you have the "Instant Handbrake" power-up, which will stop you in mid-air.)

Use the small direction pad arrows to change the camera view when exploring.

Police Cars and Trucks

In the Splat Pack, it seems harder to get points off bigger vehicles and cop cars. I found I just bounced off and get no points even with level 3 power-ups, unless you have an "Acme Damage Magnifier" or "Solid Granite Car" power-up. I switched to Psycho Pitbull's "Tow Meister" to inflict some damage.

Once you're able to inflict damage, definitely go after the police. You get a big bonus for wasting one.

Fights with the big boys are all about energy and momentum. They've got it on their side, so you have to gain the advantage, much like a dogfight. Either you need a run-up to pick up speed, or you need a slope. Ideally you'll get both, in a sloping tunnel with your opponent pinned to a wall, but other good situations are a truck trapped by a tree, a truck stuck in a corner, or if you're really lucky, an upside-down truck that you can push to a wall. Once you are in position to ram, try to keep the energy advantage -- in a dead end, immediately back up to return to position, or in a valley, spin around as you drive up the other side, keep the other vehicle in view, and then charge down again. If you really want the kill, press the [Ins] key to recover your starting position instantly. Otherwise, it may be worth taking your time, letting the other vehicle come to you so you can get the Head-on bonus.

The big mystery is whether pressing h to beep the Horn attracts other cars and police cars.

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