Post Apocalyptic Mayhem

Get ready for the Mayhem. -PAM Launch Trailer

Post Apocalyptic Mayhem, or PAM for short, is a Vehicular Combat game by developer Steel Monkeys, creators of 2 Days to Vegas and Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run. It was released on March 17, 2011, on Steam.

It's After the End, with the Apocalypse How left unexplained. There is no Excuse Plot, no tutorial (unless you count the quick reference in the options menu) and very short load times. The only thing that matters is action. Twelve different war-wagons, each with distinct weaponry, battle it out over five sprawling tracks to see who can score the most kills.

Players can compete against AI-controlled vehicles in single races or three-track tournaments. They can also go online to compete against up to five other players in ranked or unranked matches.

Tropes used in Post Apocalyptic Mayhem include:

• Abnormal Ammo: Ice crystals, toxic barrels, giant balls of ice cream, magnetic torpedoes, logs...
• An Ice Car: The Nitrogenius is a four-wheeled liquid nitrogen factory, replete with ice sheets hanging off all protruding surfaces. The Ice Scream takes a different approach, using weaponized frozen treats to decimate opponents.
• Anti-Frustration Features: If you are far away from other cars, your Nitrous will burn longer- enabling you to get back into the fight.
• A Winner Is You: Not in first place? GAME OVER, whether it is or not.
• Bottomless Magazines: Averted. You don't have a weak, infinite ammo machine gun or something to help you along, so the only way to fight is to grab the colored barrels to arm your weapons- and each one is only worth one use. Time your attacks!
• Car Fu: You can use your Nitro Boost to inflict minor ramming damage to other cars, but the Logger is the master of this thanks to it's front mounted Thrasher- a massive, spiked grinder. The Veteran gets in on the action with it's pneumatic piledrivers and the new Tow'er has a massive, pounding clamp- and for good measure, can actually drop a wrecked car.
• Chainsaw Good: The Logger's Blades of Steel side weapon deploys a pair of rotary sawblades on swing-arms.
• Cool Car: Special mention goes to the Nitrogenius and the Space Cowboy, a rocket-powered dune buggy.
• Color Coded for Your Convenience: The pick-up barrels are color-coded by type. Yellow for front weapons, blue for side, red for rear and green for boost refills- they also correspond to the Xbox 360 controller's face buttons. There are also black barrels, which randomly give one of the above.
• Deadly Gas: The Kitty with Claws can deploy a cloud of noxious perfume that screws up an opponent's controls in addition to damaging them. The Ice Scream can do this with side-firing clouds of deadly... cotton candy.
• Downloadable Content: The free "Mayhem Pack", Released in June of 2011, adds three new cars (The Kitty with Claws, The Nucloid and The Veteran) and one new track, the "Death 8 Area".
  • A free new map, "Airplane Cemetery," was recently added.
  • The "Chaos Pack", which costs $1.99, adds three more cars: The Ice Scream, the Tow'er, and The Fuzz!
• Every Car Is a Pinto
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: The Skorch's Soul Burner is a pair of forward-facing flame throwers.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: Though any car can "charge" using Nitro Boost, the Childhood Dreams, a Weaponized School Bus, adds the "Foe Tossing" part via the Scoop of Destiny weapon, a massive, pivoted dozer blade that snags an enemy car and tosses it up and over the bus, dealing severe damage in the process. Any car not outright destroyed will find itself at the back of the pack.
• Fragile Speedster: The Space Cowboy, which makes up for its lack of heavy damage output with raw speed.
• Freeze Ray: All of the Nitrogenius' weapons use liquid nitrogen to various ends. It's front-mounted Freezethrower flash-freezes opponents, allowing you to shatter them on impact. It's side-mounted Ice Fish and rear-mounted Ice Maker weapons create slippery patches and damaging chunks of ice, respectively.
• Gatling Good: The Veteran's side weapon is a pair of Gatling turrets that shred anything to the side of the truck.
• Grenade Launcher: The Fuzz! uses a pair of these as it's forward weapon.
• I Love Nuclear Power: The Nucloid is all about this trope, despite it's appearances (It's an armored, hot pink Smart Car). It's front weapon generates a radioactive pulse that tosses enemy vehicles into the air in addition to damaging them, it's rear weapon drops radioactive canisters and it's side weapon drops a pair of full-on micro nuclear warheads. The Nucloid doesn't mess around. As you might expect from a Smart Car, it's nimble but obviously not meant for off-road work, having the worst handling of any car.
  • Well, it is a Smart car...
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The Veteran's forward weapon is a pair of massive pneumatic spikes.
• Improbable Weapon User: The Logger's Killing Logs weapon drops a craneload of logs in the truck's wake, dealing massive damage and tripping up anyone who hits them. The Veteran has a similar weapon that drops tank traps, though with a narrower, denser spread.
  • The Kitty With Claws is this trope. It's a pink Beetle with cartoon cats drawn on the side, that uses a Unicorn-horn drill, Deadly Perfume, and exploding goddamn teddy bears.
  • The Ice Scream, a weaponized ice cream truck, also deals in this. It can unleash a barrage of ice cream balls forward, spray deadly cotton candy out it's sides or drop massive ice cream balls in it's wake.
  • The Tow'er can drop steel car-boots to the side, tripping up and damaging opposing cars.
  • The Fuzz! can drop donut bombs out it's sides, which tend to toss opponents into the air.
  • Meth Alchemist uses exploding pink flamingo sticky-bombs as its side weapon. "Fire Ze Flamingoes!"
• Interface Screw: The Skorch's Paraequilbrium side weapon fires magnetic missiles that latch onto enemy cars and either force them to a dead stop or send them careening into the nearest solid object before exploding.
• Jack of All Stats: The Nitrogenius. The Skorch also has average stats, trailing the Nitrogenius on handling but leading on damage output. The Kitty with Claws and The Fuzz! also have middling stats.
• Hollywood Acid: The Meth Alchemist's Acid Death weapon rapid-fires barrels of some indescribable toxic, acidic nastiness at enemies. It is the longest-firing forward weapon, giving the Alchemist a nasty punch when trailing the pack.
• Magnetic Weapons: Of a sorts. The Space Cowboy's Magnetic Fever weapon causes the next car the Cowboy rams to become super-magnetized causing that car to attract a ton of scrap-metal that pounds it into oblivion.
• Mighty Glacier: The Logger and the Childhood Dreams. The Meth Alchemist is faster and more manuverable but with less overall robustness.
• Military Mashup Machine: The Veteran is an eight-wheeled beast that's half US Army half-ton truck, and half Soviet APC. It boasts the best handling in the game in exchange for the worst acceleration.
• Molotov Cocktail: The Childhood Dreams can launch whole groups of these to the side, damaging enemies on impact and also setting the immediate area on fire, leaving a flaming trap for pursuing foes.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The Meth Alchemist is an RV turned Meth Lab turned high-speed combat vehicle.
• Nitro Boost: Different cars have differently-sized boost meters, but they all regenerate at the same pace. Pick up green barrels to refill the meter instantly.
• Oil Slick: The Childhood Dreams' Oil Fields weapon does this.
• Parking Garage: The "Concrete Jungle" track features one.
• Poison Mushroom: The Alchemist's Pseudo-Powerups weapon drops fake versions of the power-up barrels that inflict explosive damage when touched.
• Power-Up: The aforementioned barrels.
• Ramp Jump: Frequent.
• Required Secondary Powers: The Logger is the slowest accelerating vehicle, yet features melee-focused weaponry. Therefore, it has a very long boost meter to catch up with other cars, second only to the rocket-powered Space Cowboy.
• Ruins of the Modern Age: Featured most prominently in "Concrete Jungle".
• Rule of Cool: If nitro is used while driving The Fuzz!, it's siren will turn on.
• Shifting Sand Land: The "Wasteland" track, though the only hazards to worry about are the other cars. "Cold War Beach" is a fusion of this and Ruins of the Modern Age.
• Shock and Awe: The Space Cowboy's Electric Shock side weapon drops small electric bombs that temporarily disable enemy cars while damaging them.
• Spikes of Doom: The Fuzz! can drop spike strips as it's rear weapon.
• Sticky Bomb: The Alchemist's Sticky Bombs side weapon fires a cluster of explosive pink garden flamingos at enemies. The Kitty does a similar bit with exploding teddy bears.
• Stuff Blowing Up: The Skorch's Dyno Death weapon drops explosive canisters in it's wake. The Nucloid has a similar weapon, albeit with radioactive flavor.
• Take That: The description of the Tow'er on the "Chaos Pack" DLC page on Steam.

"This tow truck doesn't talk with a southern drawl and isn't friendly with any race cars."

• Techno Wreckage: Some of this is found on the "Cold War Beach" track, which features a beached aircraft carrier as part of the track and a similarly-wrecked submarine as an obstacle to be jumped. "Wasteland" features an area that strongly resembles the Very Large Array. The new track "Death 8 Arena" also features lots of this, with a wee bit of Minecart Madness for good measure.
• This Is a Drill: The Kitty's forward weapon is a lengthy drill (so long it doesn't look like it should fit) emerging from the head of a Unicorn.
• Weaponized Car: But also a weaponized logging truck, weaponized RV Meth Lab, and a weaponized goddamn school bus.
  • The first DLC gives us a weaponized Smart Car.
  • The second DLC provides a weaponized ice cream truck and tow truck. And an old-timey cop car with whitewall tires.
• Weaponized Exhaust: The Space Cowboy's Burn Baby, Burn weapon, which causes the car's massive rocket engine to roast any close-pursuing cars. Toasted Buns indeed.