Reviews// FlatOut

The included cars are also notable by their apparent lameness. It has traditionally been an unwritten law that an exciting racing game needs exciting cars. But the selection of vehicles in FlatOut, particularly those that are unlocked from the start, consists of a variety of crap-mobiles. These are the sorts of rust-edged death-cars you wouldn’t even consider buying for £3.99 from the back pages of Loot.

This is where part of FlatOut’s appeal lies. You purchase a knackered old banger at the start of the game, then you modify it: slapping in new engines, exhausts, drivetrains, suspensions, tires and brakes. Soon enough your vehicular travesty will resemble something vaguely respectable, and you can take it back on track and smash it all up. Although damage is automagically repaired at the end of each race, the in-game crash physics is one of FlatOut’s most interesting features.

In terms of how damage affects performance, it’s way off the mark: you can happily thrash around the track, apparently unaffected by your engine being on fire, but the fact that each knock and tumble affects the appearance of your vehicle can be hugely satisfying. Indeed, by the end of the later races, you’ll be rolling over the finish line in a car that resembles nothing more sophisticated than a crumpled Kit-Kat wrapper, tentatively balanced on misaligned wheels. Although it could be argued that damage should have a more explicit effect on how the car runs, the denial of these basic laws of engineering does help keep the pace of the game up. Because you’ll be doing a lot of crashing, you’ll be glad that each incident doesn’t reduce your vehicle’s progress to a choking, stuttering crawl through the oil-clagged dust. That would just be a bit lame for a game that encourages bump’n’shunt a plenty.

The crashes themselves are what make FlatOut feel more engaging than it otherwise would have. Most of the collisions are plain nasty, and inadequate, screw-faced gamers will be wincing and grimacing as they watch their driver, flung through the windscreen, creasing into an amorphous organic heap 50 metres further down the track. Crashing into parts of the scenery can also have entertaining repercussions. Colliding with posts holding up a raised mine-chute, you’ll bring the whole structure tumbling down onto the track; sliding into a barrier of tyres will scatter them every which way, littering the road for the remainder of the race and adding even more chaos to the atmosphere; and, most importantly, crunching into a fellow racer will leave both cars folded up and facing the wrong direction. Joy!