RuneScape maker’s Carnage Racing looks to accelerate social gaming

We’ve already seen that kart racers can shine on Facebook in Kart Rider by Nexon, but what about ones that have glossy muscle cars? And what about ones that have lots of rail guns and fiery explosions? That’s what RuneScape creator Jagex looks to prove is not only possible, but will be popular with Carnage Racing, its first-ever social game on Facebook.

“Triple A gaming isn’t often associated with Facebook gaming and we are determined to change that,”Jagex US studio director Jay Panek said in a release, “We wanted to take all our experience from the Midnight Club series and apply the same quality and gameplay benchmarks in a Facebook environment. The result is Carnage Racing, a massively addictive racing game where the main aim is not only the beat your friends to the finish line, but also the see how many of them you can blow up along the way!”

Much of the Jagex US studio based in California is comprised of veterans of the Midnight Club series on consoles, so Panek’s enthusiasm is understandable. Carnage Racing, or Jagex’s answer to the kart racing games on Facebook, offers real-time racing with friends or AI opponents along with a time challenge mode that allows players to asynchronously throw down the gauntlet with one another.

Other features that players can expect, aside from those gorgeous graphics, are 13 unique race tracks set on a tropical island, five cars that players can beef up with 50 different upgrades and five different weapons with 47 upgrades available. Full 3D, console style social games are a rare breed on Facebook (with successful ones being even rarer), but the same could have been said for the web when Jagex hit the scene with RuneScape, no?