Flat Out is a racing game that rewards you for smashing into other cars. You're expected to run dirty. Minigames involve things like flinging your driver the longest distance.
You can be a guy or a girl, and you can choose from a variety of car options. Once you get into the races, what you usually notice first is the rag doll physics of the drivers - as they get flung from their cars. Most racing games focus on the cars - but in this one, you can achieve gory death for yourself or others by the lack-of-seatbelt ejection.
I appreciated the different worlds you run in - on regular race tracks, on off-road dirt through forests, on snowy trails, and so on. However, everything seemed very "muddy" to me - and often it was hard to see on the screen what was road and what was brown near-road-but-not-driveable. Maybe their aim was to have all obstacles camoflagued, but in practice it made it not fun to drive towards an open spot and smash into something there.
So in general I wasn't keen on the graphics. Normally I love deformable objects, including cars. However, these cars didn't look like they were "dented" realistically. It seemed more like a plasic object had melted strangely.
The sounds were even worse. I was quite not-fond of most of the songs played in the soundtrack, and the RRRRR RRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRR of the cars must've been generated on a sound machine.
I didn't find the driving part to be that bad, and I do enjoy racing games in general. However, since I do own several other racing games, I'm not sure why I would put one of those down to play this instead. I really don't think the "flying humans out of the car" aspect makes up for the many other problems inherent in this game. Maybe if they come out with a sequel that has the same physics but better graphics and sound, it will start to come up to speed. |
I find the complaint that Flatout is too difficult, interesting when that is one of the game's main assets. I find this theme of dirtroad junkcar racing rather lacking in the market compared to the overcooked city style street racing and it's good to see something come out that is a little unique and challenging. While racing, there's no wide berth for making moves, plenty of fast opponents that are hard to keep up with and many of them are surprisingly aggressive when it comes to fighting for position up to and including the last lap. I was rarely short on taking a win by half a car length or less. Best of all, the courses are not forgiving, making precision a must. Shortcuts are not shortcuts, but tests of nerve to not mess up a well earned lead.
I found the extra games like bowling and darts funny in a macarbe sort of way, but their appeal doesn't last. Camera angles, especially from the dash is lacking, and upgrading cars seems more of a natural progression rather than requiring any strategy. Keeping a garage of cars would have been great. On the otherhand, the graphics are fair, but the atmosphere and design is excellent. Tracks are true to their locale being littered with junk cars, tractor trailers for ramps, and roads that wind through rural landscapes reminiscent of the south or the northwest.
There are flaws to be sure, but if you like slim odds and aggressive racing, don't count this one out entirely.
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A novel concept is generally the first step taken by any developer with aims at creating a new franchise amidst the crowded market of today's gaming landscape. There's been a lot of ground covered over the last thirty years, but there's also plenty of room left for innovation, and if you're going to stand out on the shelves, you're going to need a hook. In Flatout, that hook is certainly not lacking, (it's the only game I can think of that features... no, downright flaunts... a fleet of fully-ejectable drivers) but it falls into the very first pitfall in its way. This game takes that unique twist which gives it an identity and attempts to use it as a bandage to salvage what would otherwise be an underdeveloped, unremarkable, entirely forgettable title. What's worse, that single little identifying gimmick has an incredibly short shelf life and only serves to irritate beyond the first hour or two of gameplay.
Actual gameplay is in dire need of some serious polishing, with minor bugs resulting in big-time dilemmas as the races grow more difficult. As I've already mentioned, the big story here is the engine's ability to eject a car's driver following a rough collision, which gains points for ingenuity, but loses them right back for implementation. Sure, it makes a revenge kill twice as rewarding when you can actually see the opposing driver suffering a grisly death after you've forced his car into a telephone pole, but the first time you hop a curb and watch your own lifeless driver hurl himself through the windshield, you'll start to curse the day you thought rag-doll physics were the least bit amusing. Of course, no real dire circumstances result from your driver slamming unprotected into the side of a barn at 82 MPH, as you'll respawn a few moments later, but the act of losing a few seconds every time it happens completely derails your own momentum and often takes you completely out of the race. Playing catch-up is the real game in Flatout.
The finer details of the title's engine are never fully explained in-game, as I had to consult more than one online guide before realizing that nitro boosts are awarded in the middle of a race, depending on how many obstacles you actually hit, and how large said obstacles actually are. Debris only seems to award these bonuses upon the very first time they're struck, but remain on the track throughout the race. This adds a touch of additional personality to the game, as almost every car is seeking out the big landmarks like a guided missle on lap one and the track is usually thoroughly trashed and tough to navigate by its conclusion.
Of course, it must've been a little bit too much to ask for the development team to leave well enough alone in this regard, and sure enough, there's a flaw or two. What's destructible in one track (and thus, the object of desire, as it carries with it a small nitro bonus) is frequently rock-solid in the next, resulting in (you guessed it) a brutal driver ejection and, usually, the loss of any lead you may have accumulated. As I'm sure you can imagine, this results in an uncontrollable flinch every time your car comes close to a fairly-sized obstacle, for fear it will result in death rather than rewards. Even more wonderful is the way small items such as a stray tire or a dislodged bumper, which frequently litter the track after lap two, react in wildly unpredictable fashion upon coming into contact with the front of your car. Sometimes they'll bounce harmlessly off to the side of the track, others they'll hang out on your grill for a while, killing your momentum, and occasionally they'll result in driving the nose of your car toward the sky, which always leads to a terrible, highlight reel wreck, complete with cartwheeling car and airborne driver. Considering how frequently these things appear, it's not a matter of if you'll hit them, but when, and how kind they'll be to your car.
The mini-games you'll unlock while progressing through the single player mode, which were featured significantly in the game's promotional bits (and were probably single-handedly responsible for my own purchase) really aren't even remotely as much fun as they appeared on TV, and are limited at best. They really highlighted the "HAHA LOOK WE'RE PLAYING DARTS WITH PEOPLE" aspect of the game in these ads, but neglected to mention the fact that you get three tosses per game, with no option to play a legitimate game of 301, cricket or anything even partially entertaining. It's a straightforward three tosses, with the highest scoring player named the victor. The same goes for bowling, the long jump the high jump, etcetera. They're like the mini-games of Super Monkey Ball 2, just significantly limited, drained of all the fun and difficult for new players to grasp.
In-game controls are tough to think about without wanting to curl up and cry for a spell. Whether you're driving the cheapest car on the lot or the most souped up monster available, turning is almost laughably bad. Your cars don't turn, so much as they rotate and slide. Whether you're on a filthy patch of snow or fresh asphalt on a sunny day, your car handles exactly the same. Likewise, no matter which vehicle you're sitting atop, every single computer driver on the track is faster off the line than you are. I didn't think I'd noticed any change when I poured all of my race-earnin's into a new engine, guaranteed to deliver faster acceleration right out of the box, and sure enough, when I was driving the fastest car available with ever possible enhancement applied, I was still being kicked off the line by the slowest car in the race. It's always nice to have a handicap, I guess.
The graphics are average for the current state of the Xbox, which basically means they're the best part of this package. They aren't completely fugly, but they're far from the most impressive thing I've ever seen. Some of the particle effects are fairly well done, especially during and after a nasty wreck, but you're usually so preoccupied by your car's hesitance to take a turn that you won't even notice. The speed effects of using up some of your stashed nitro is cool, but doesn't really hold a candle to what Burnout did before Flatout's release. The terrains and surrounding textures are imaginative, but very sparse, especially when you take away the standard break-away objects that litter the roadways and are shared by all courses. This isn't a game that's going to completely blow away your impressions of what a game can do, visually, and occasionally shows evidence of being hurried out the door in a state of incompletion.
Where Flatout's visuals are mediocre at best, the game's audio is a downright disaster. The revs, grinds and hums of the cars, engines and tires are far too loud by default, and again fail to distinguish one car from another. Is that my car struggling up the hill, or is another driver right up my ass, ready to make a pass? Don't look to the audio for the answer. While most racing games contain similarly lame, repetitive sound effects, there's just something about what Flatout brings to this table that's a little bit more irritating than its peers. That engine is a bit more piercingly shrill than the one I heard in Project Gotham, the tires much more vague, hollow and shy of personality than those I heard in the most recent Mario Kart.
Flatout isn't a finished product. It is, at best, a great concept stretched far too thin over a below-average mullet-themed racing title. It's barely worth a rental, and certainly not worth busting out at a party, for all to enjoy. The graphics are unrefined, the audio is the kind of garbage that forces fingers to race for mute buttons, the controls are completely ridiculous, and there's nothing around that's driving you to reach that next goal. If you enjoy crap, or are easily amused by floating human bodies, you've found the promised land, but if you're looking for a breath of fresh air in a crowded industry, your holy grail remains elusive. |
| This is the funnest Xbox live racing game out there. This is the best racing game since Speed Devils on the Dreamcast. The physics are outstanding. The wrecks are awesome (and they're not cut scenes, you actually have to recover and get back in) and the graphics are great. (Warning for those who rent it: The first round of races are mildly fun but they get better quickly, including shortcuts, jumps, traps, and ice, etc.) This game has the best damage modeling I have seen on the xbox. When you crash, your car gets appropriately damaged, doors, hoods bumpers fly off. You can actually see your engine running in come cases, and it may catch on fire and smoke. Also all of the environments are destructable. Even the lakes splash right when you slide off into them. The controls are slightly different at first but you will see why once you get the strategy of the game, then you will see that they are perfect for what you need to do. My only wish for this game is that you could race with AI Drivers in multiplayer. Since this is not the case I decided to try it online. I rarely play on Xbox live, especially racers, but this one is awesome online, (or system link as long as you can get more than 3, or 4 people. You actually race and smash into real cars not ghosts. If you have xbox live try it out for twenty bucks. Currently there are not enough people playing it online. |
Expedited Available
"Interesting Physics but Poor Graphics and Sound"
"Diamond in the Rough"