Stick a fork in the Demolition Racer Genre, it's done. "Flatout" is flatout bad.
Let us start with the story. OK we’re done. Granted, racing games don’t need (and in some cases shouldn’t have) stories, but that seems to be the trend now-a-days. They forego a plot, characters, or any sort of emotional attachment to anything in the game and just hurl you headlong into the racing.
So…
Let’s get into what this game is all about: Racing and crashing. This is the worst aspect of the game. You drive around a series of tracks (40 races total in 3 settings) which get, at best, repetitive and old in a hurry. There are “racetracks”, woodland settings, and construction settings, all wrought with their own hazards to you and your always frustrated attempts at first place. You are stacked up against seven opponents who treat their cars like weapons no matter what. It’s a demolition derby type deal so you’d figure that you could (especially when the hood, grille, bumper, and fenders are missing and the engine is on fire) crash out your opponents and their smoking heaps of vehicle wreckage would be nothing more than a hazard left on the track. No. Handling deteriorates slightly. The suspension responds to the lessened weight of losing all that sheet metal and it bounces around on you quite a bit. But, even when your engine is on fire, it runs as quickly as it did last time around. The damage modeling is nice except for the lack of an ability to total other cars and take them out. This comes later. And it still isn’t that good. All in all the racing is just a big headache. As an added note, you’d figure that a 3000 lbs. plus automobile wouldn’t get hung up on a single tire or a fallen 2x6 from a fence….you’d be figuring incorrectly. Hit a tire barrier and be prepared to lose about 4 places in a race. The game allows you to “Reset” if you get stuck, but apparently the real definition of “stuck” doesn’t apply here at all. Sitting on a tire doing everything in your power to free yourself and still the game waits almost MINUTES to give you the reset option. Demolition of both opponents and the environment award you with “nitro” which you can use as a speed burst at any time. Helpful but way too little way too late.
Now that we’ve discussed the racing and what makes it so bad let’s show why it’s also just annoying. The game hangs on to the fact that “arcade-style handling appeals to a wider audience”. This game’s handling model is so “old school arcade” that it seems inferior to even things like the old San Francisco Rush and Midway’s “Cruisin’” series. I didn’t even realize my car had, or needed, brakes until the 5th race. The racing action consists of horrid attempts at power sliding around the track and losing precious speed in the corner while you watch as opponents with lower horsepower cars seem to just breeze by you. Digging into a corner makes life miserable. Your car decelerates from 90 to 15 faster than you can say “WHAT IS THIS BS!??” Getting back off the corner is just as frustrating when you realize that your car’s rear is still loose, and that no matter what you do it just can’t accelerate. The game’s controls are the controller smash after the repeated frustrated attempts at first place when you can’t get close. I’m not one to blame things for me not winning in a racing game but if this game had even half of the depth of control that a game like Burnout 3 has, I would never have a complaint.
Did I also mention that instead of having the option to “RETRY RACE” after the race is over, to repeat the event you have to back out to the main career menu, select the race option, select your race class, and then select the race event and sit through the loading screen AGAIN!? Yeah, fun for all! ATTENTION BUG BEAR: AN AFTER THE FACT RETRY OPTION WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE! AND DON’T SNAKE IT INTO A SEQUEL! DON’T MAKE A SEQUEL!
Now for the game’s gimmick: In hard collisions your driver is chucked from his vehicle through the windshield. This is NOT a good thing in races as it adds precious time to the crashes that you can’t afford to have added. As you watch the little cinema-esque sequence of your rag doll driver eating a racetrack sandwich the hard way you also see your attempt at first slip by. Not cool. But they give you bonus games to try this…horribly flawed, frustrating, bonus games. The aforementioned nitro button now becomes your controller to propel “that little punk” out the windshield. The nitro meter now reads “angle” and holding that button fills it and you release when you have the desired angle. The commercial creates the illusion that merely slamming into the low retaining wall is all that was needed to launch him. No, you have to time your button press, hold for the right about of time and then launch. This doesn’t sound hard, but the retaining wall often (if not always) frustrates any attempt at ensuring the driver flies farther than his now wrecked vehicle. It is almost impossible to find the right timing to even launch the driver towards the objective. You only earn bonus races after you complete everything else. In other words: “YOUR REWARD FOR DEALING WITH THE GAME AND IT’S DOWN RIGHT ANNOYING LACK OF ANYTHING WORTH ENJOYING IS MORE CRAP!” Nice. Remember when I said the ability to total out the opponents came later? Here it is. In the bonus missions you are “rewarded” with 3 demolition derby arenas. These are just asinine. You take way too much damage from way too little contact. And if you manage to survive the god-awful handling to get down to one last opponent, you’re screwed. The overly aggressive AI truly shows it shortcomings here. Rather than any sense of strategy or planning the computer just tries to get on you and stay there. You can spend hours driving around in a circle with the opponent chasing you. Then suddenly he bumps your fender at 3 miles an hour and you’re out of the race…WTF!? More garbage, more chances for something that may redeem this game totally ruined. I’m not even going to attempt to screw with the online or multiplayer aspects.
As an added note just let me say that the sounds of the game are pretty efficient. The smashes, revs, bangs, and crashes all have fairly great sound and if you manage to force another racer into an ejection you can hear him or her scream over the sounds of crunching sheet metal. However the musical sound track is terrible. I had a feeling it was going to be awful when I saw that the song playing during the opening cinema began with the words "Girls just want to be bad boys"....I'm not even going to ask. That song is just so irrelevant I can't even begin to fathom why it was there. If you're into psuedo-punk and emo-core then you'll love it. If you have any taste then you're going to hate it. It also looks pretty good but after the attempts at flash the game is just pathetic so this is the high that can't redeem the lows, and it even has a few lows itself.
In summary:
The demolition racing genre is DEAD. This game just proves that it cannot be revived. These companies need to stop trying. Plus, in a world of genre bending and blending and more depth than some can handle this game just doesn’t measure up to anything else available now. If you want a smash-’em-up hardcore racing game, done well, that doesn’t have a story then just get Burnout Revenge. If you want a cheap one then get Burnout 3. If you already have them, play them and pat yourself on the back for not being one to fall victim to awful gimmicks and crappy games.