If you loved the dual-stick mayhem of Smash TV, loading up Total Carnage on PC was the fastest way to turn your keyboard into a crime scene.
Midway took the Smash TV layout and dialed up the chaos
Arcade hardware in 1992 was built to consume quarters with endless enemy waves. Designers Eugene Jarvis and Mark Turmell took the underlying engine from Smash TV and stripped away the futuristic game show host. Instead, they built an absurd parody of 1991 Persian Gulf War news coverage set in the fictional nation of Kookistan.
You play as Captain Carnage or Major Mayhem, two members of the Doomsday Squad tasked with stopping the dictator General Akhboob. Akhboob is building a mutant army in a stronghold hilariously disguised as a "Baby Milk Factory". The premise is complete pulp comedy, complete with digitized voice clips recorded by Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon.
When the title made the leap to MS-DOS in 1994, ported under Midway Manufacturing Company, fans wondered if home PCs could handle the screen-filling carnage. The original arcade cabinet relied on two joysticks per player: one to move and one to fire in eight directions. Translating that control scheme to a keyboard or standard PC gamepad was always going to be a bumpy ride.
Fighting through Akhboob’s army requires endless strafing and quick weapon swaps
This is a top-down multidirectional action game where standing still for two seconds gets you killed. You start with a standard machine gun, but the battlefield quickly scatters upgraded firepower across 20 distinct battlezones. You can pick up plasma machine guns, grenade lobbers, rocket launchers, flamethrowers spitting blue fire, spray-fire rifles, defensive blades, and screen-clearing nuclear bombs.
The screen fills constantly with mutant infantry, rolling tanks, stationary gun turrets, homing missiles, and hidden anti-personnel mines. Touch a single landmine while dodging enemy fire and your soldier instantly explodes into tiny pixels. You also pick up items like speed shoes for extra movement, temporary invincibility shields, dogtags, American flags, keys, and hostages who wander through the gunfire.
The boss fights step up the scale significantly. Early in your run you run into Orcus, a giant armless cybernetic head that spews projectiles across the arena. Defeating Orcus requires dodging thick patterns of shots while dumping heavy ordnance directly into his armored forehead. Later on, General Akhboob himself takes the stage, shifting through multiple monstrous forms before you can finally claim victory.
The MS-DOS port delivers speed at the cost of your muscle memory
As a PC conversion, the port holds up against the arcade cabinet. The sprite animation is sharp, the explosive sound effects crackle through standard Sound Blaster cards, and the multi-directional scrolling battlefields move quickly. Period reviewers noted that while the framerate occasionally stutters during massive explosions, the sheer velocity of the action stays intact.
The primary barrier for modern players is the control setup. Without dual analog sticks or two arcade joysticks, aiming in one direction while running in another takes awkward key combinations. Trying to hold down keys to lock your firing angle while weaving between instant-death landmines creates a steep learning curve. If you play on keyboard, expect your fingers to cramp after ten minutes of heavy strafing.
The PC version also omits any mid-game save system or password save feature for your overall progress. You get warp passwords shown at the start of levels to jump ahead on repeat attempts, but a single long session demands complete focus. If you want to see the real ending, you have to survive the entire marathon in one continuous run.
Collecting 220 keys leads straight into a famous programming bug
Secrets are everywhere in this game, if you can survive long enough to search for them. Hidden teleporters pull your soldier into bonus challenge rooms stocked with gems, extra lives, and valuable keys. Level warp codes hidden in the game files allow you to bypass tough sections by typing passwords like MODOR, TEACUP, MEMORY, AZAZ, or even the developer's name MARK.
The ultimate goal for dedicated players is collecting 220 keys scattered across all 20 battlezones. Gathering enough keys opens the door to the Pleasure Dome, a secret vault filled with huge point bonuses and rescue objectives. However, arcade hardware operators often adjusted dipswitches to lower the required key count down to 200.
Reaching the Pleasure Dome produced one of the most infamous bugs in arcade history. Even if you collected every single key and saved every hostage, the game ended by insulting you, claiming you missed items and failed the challenge. Disassemblers later inspected the original code and discovered a programmer error that prevented the proper victory screen from ever displaying on screen, leaving generations of players permanently baffled.
You can play Total Carnage online right now
Despite a disappointing commercial run in arcades back in 1992, this home port is one of the wildest PC conversions from the early nineties. It trades balanced tactical combat for pure, noisy chaos and absurd visual gags. It delivers an intense test of twitch reflexes that instantly shows why Midway ruled coin-operated arcades.
If you want to experience this high-octane PC shooter without fighting old sound setups or mapping dual keys, you can play Total Carnage online right now. You can run the Total Carnage MS-DOS game free in your browser with zero setup, so grab a keyboard, fire up your flamethrower, and go take down General Akhboob.