Reviews// FlatOut

The racing game genre is perhaps the most competitive of any of the industry’s specific markets, and when a smaller developer releases such a title, it’s often all too easy to slam its shortcomings. And at this present period in time, a substandard racing game would be even easier to rubbish. As racing fans wait on Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo 4, with Burnout 3 and Outrun 2 screeching in and out of the disc tray, there has arguably never been a worse time to release a driving game.

So when Bugbear’s FlatOut landed next to the office PS2, eyebrows were raised and bestubbled chins were stroked. We do like racing games, but having heard less than positive reports about FlatOut’s preview code, we were braced for a possible head-on collision with mediocrity. Lining up all the usual comparisons, we were ready to establish in what arenas this title tries to copy established favourites, and how it fails in doing so. But, apart from the obvious inclusion of cars and tracks, FlatOut does actually feel remarkably different from most of the top-tier racing games on offer.

Generally speaking, car racing games follow one of several established routes. The usual form is: solitary rallying (eg Colin McRae, Richard Burns etc), arcade style racing (Outrun 2, Ridge Racer etc), ‘street’ racing (Burnout, PGR etc), mod-heavy ‘street racing’ (NFSU, Juiced etc) or serious simulation (GT3, Formula One etc). But FlatOut doesn’t really sit well in any of these categories. It’s essentially a stock car racing game, which although simple and approachable throughout, manages to include many elements from across these sub-genres.

FlatOut just goes where other racing games haven’t gone. In the most obvious way, this includes the tracks and environments you race around. Forget PGR2’s glamorous European city streets, forget Outrun 2’s glorious fictional arcade world, forget satellite-mapped recreations of real-world race tracks, FlatOut visits all the really rubbish places no other racing game would want to include. We’re talking bits of muddy scrapland and litter-strewn brownfield sites: highly reminiscent of that bit of wasteland between your local Tesco’s and the Halfords superstore – where all the rusty trolleys, third-hand adult publications and empty cider bottles go.