The poor man's Burnout - more than just a tech demo, but not quite brilliant enough

User Rating: 8.2 | FlatOut XBOX
By jervo | Review Date:
There are quite a few moments when FlatOut is an absolute blast, and they generally involve mid-air collisions - be it with another car, a wall of tires, or the carnage left over from another wreck a few laps ago. The phsyics engine in FlatOut is, well, astounding - there's really never been anything like it before, and the way it's incorporated into the gameplay is brilliant. For example, if you careen wildly into a wall of tires on the first turn of a 5 lap race, you - and everybody else - is going to have to drive through that wreckage for the rest of the race, and the wreckage itself will react accordingly so it might be in a different place the next time around. There are also lots of moments when FlatOut can be incredibly frustrating. The AI of the opposing drivers is ferocious and relentless - which is fun, but there is a bit of "rubberbanding" which often feels like it only works towards the AI's advantage. However, the AI does not use shortcuts, of which there are lots. I'm not the first one who's compared FlatOut with the Burnout series, nor will I be the last - both games require you to drive like a lunatic in order to achieve success, and both games feature extensive damage modeling when you crash - and you will crash. FlatOut's damage modeling is incredible, although there are times when it feels as if your car's body is made out of tissue paper - your car will not remain intact for more than a few seconds after the start of a race. The damage is purely cosmetic, however - your car can still run at top speed even if it's on fire. Which is good, because crashing into things gives you boost - and a little bit of money, depending on how much damage you cause. Money buys you new cars and upgrades. There are only about 20 cars in the game, all of which handle somewhat differently - there are also a surprsingly robust amount of upgrades, although I must admit that I've found very little difference in my car after spending a substantial amount on upgrades. However, this might just be my fault for not knowing anything about cars - I had no idea what the upgrades did for me in Forza, either, but at least in FlatOut it doesn't appear to matter that much. Aside from the racing, there are also a variety of mini-games that feature the much-ballyhooed ragdoll system; yes, when you crash, your driver flies through the windshield and soars for a few hundred feet before colliding into any number of solid objects. In the mini-games, you can launch your ragdoll into a set of bowling pins and a dartboard; there's also long-jump and high-jump events, as well. These are fun but there's not much to them - they remind me a bit of the minigames in Crazy Taxi, where the sole purpose of doing them is to complete them. The graphics are generally pretty good, although they're not quite as astounding as the pre-release screenshots led me to believe. The cars themselves look fantastic and the immediate areas surrounding the track look great, but the backgrounds look very fuzzy and blurry. The video itself looks somewhat... I don't know, compressed, like when you watch demo movies on a demo disc. It moves at a pretty steady 30 fps, which - considering the sheer amount of insanity on screen at any given time - is perfectly serviceable. The sound is pretty forgettable, however - the music is bland, generic alterna-rock and the car engines don't quite rumble and roar enough. All in all, FlatOut is pretty fun, but isn't quite what it could've been. Apparently the developer is already at work on a sequel for the Xbox 360 and PS3 - hopefully FlatOut2 will fill in the missing pieces that prevent FlatOut from being more than just good.

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