Flatout is not your typical racer. It’s more of an extreme-racing sport not unlike a cross between a stock-car race and a demolition derby. FlatOut was developed by Bugbear Entertainment and published by Empire Interactive in 2004 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, Wii, and Android.The premise of the game is to race to the number one seed in the allotted time, while keeping your car in the best condition possible.
The tracks will take you through towns, the countryside, farms and snow-slick regions. There is no shortage of things to hit including other vehicles. They take on a tremendous amount of damage, but they keep on going. Fenders and hoods fly off while the frames twist and turn with engines catching on fire. Some of these vehicles are reduced to charred metal skeletons. More often than not it’s yours.
Aspects of FlatOut
The player is initially allowed to choose from only a handful of the 16 total cars in the game. The remainder of the vehicles must be unlocked before they can be raced. Unfortunately, the selection is limited to just cars such as old Camaros, Corvettes and Mustangs.
Nitrous will give you a speed boost but you can’t buy it nor do you earn it the regular way. You earn nitrous by smashing into things. The more destructive you are to the environment the more nitrous you will gain. Smashing into fences, signs, poles, buildings and tire piles may seem like a lot of fun but it usually involves getting yourself into an accident that slows or stops your vehicle, basically neutralizing the extra boost that you picked up.
Each vehicle has up to 40 morph points, which determine which part of the vehicle can be damaged. The cars aren’t the only objects in the game that can fall victim to carnage. The environment is interactive, anything you crash into and break will stay on the track for the remainder of the race. Which creates obstacles for other drivers as well as yourself.
You’ll have to memorize the track layout if you want to collect all of the nitrous and manage to take all of the turns properly. The car sounds are decent but the rock music is generic with more sizzle than punch.
Bugbear allows you to explore how physics works by unlocking Bonus Games. Included in one of these games is a giant dartboard, where you drive the car around a stunt track and, at the end, slam into a wall sending your driver flying through the windshield and through the dartboard itself.
Features of FlatOut
FlatOut comes with a multiplayer and an online mode which features a split screen two player mode. The online mode allows you to play in a game with up to eight players.
Other features of FlatOut include:
- 16 different cars to race, customize and upgrade.
- Full car damage modeling which also affects the performance of the car.
- Unparalleled realistic scenery and debris damage with fully destructible driving environments with 3000 + items on each track to smash.
- Carefully tuned car physics to give a truly realistic feel to each car.
- 45 tracks to master over 5 different environments including the challenge of snow-covered terrain.
- Two-player split screen mode for a AAA racing experience with friends.
- Online play for up to eight players on Xbox Live.
- A whole host of extra fun enhancing mini-games including ‘Figure of 8’ and ‘Demolition Bowl’.
Last Words
If you’re a racing fan, and you enjoy driving in circles for five hundred laps, then this game may not be for you. If “destruction” is your middle name, renting this game may be your best option to experience the physical carnage FlatOut offers.
You have to use the brake and the handbrake to power slide around the numerous curves. You can’t just steer your vehicles around turns, you have to slide them which slows the pace of the game down. Your car feels as though it’s always on the verge of going out of control. When you finally get used to the controls you will find that the AI makes it incredibly difficult to win races.