Reviews// FlatOut Ultimate Carnage (Xbox 360)

Aside from enjoying my newly found appetite for destruction, my favourite thing about FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage are the various tracks and environments I raced around while trying to keep my jalopy in one piece. A sociologist might describe the various city, desert and forest surroundings in the game as “a high definition re-imagining of the contemporary American underbelly.” Pah! To a non-gamer I would describe them as “like Dukes of Hazard come to life, but better!” To a gamer I would describe them “like Burnout, but better, with more variety and – even more rednecks!”

The game's lovely-looking Hicksville visuals mesh surprisingly well with the heavy metal soundtrack, largely consisting of unknown bands (to me at least!) Let me be clear here, I generally tend to despise this type of music, and I would never consider listening to anything off the game's soundtrack on my stereo or iPod. It would actually pain me to do so. As I left the game running in the lounge while making tea in the kitchen all I was thinking was “Christ, what an awful noise.” But then the second I started playing again, something rather weird happened. I actually found myself not minding the noise so much and realising that it definitely added something to the speed-fuelled mash-‘em-up that was unveiling on the screen, as I annoyingly crashed into the same barn wall for the fourth time running; that said, I would have preferred Iggy Pop.

FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage also has the definite advantage over real world stock-car racing and destruction derbies, in that you get to vicariously squeal with joy at causing wanton mayhem at high speed. You can do this without the embarrassment of being forced to sit out the rest of the race in the St.John’s Ambulance van after foolishly crashing into a wall at speed (and without having to spend the rest of your days in traction). Warning kids! Don’t try to recreate the action in this game! (Unless you really are true trailer park redneck trash, in which case Daddy’s most likely been training you up since you were big enough to reach the pedals on the pick-up).

My initial concerns that the game would not quite live up to its promise were out the window after around my first hour or two of play. I can and will heartily recommend it to any 360 owner. I have been doing quite a lot already actually, as I am keen to trial out the online multi-player aspects of the game, which look promising, featuring online play for up to eight players. Oh, and there’s a bunch of cool and very daft mini-games again – my favourites being driver-skimming and flinging the ragdoll driver into a massive football goal.

There are also the fast 'n' fun destruction derbies in the Carnage Arcade Mode, although this time around these are all, as they should be, just a nice add-on to a very solid racing game; pleasing side dishes and not the main course.

Gripes? There are always gripes... Basically, the learning curve, the control system and the physics need more work. In terms of the controls, the cars still feel a little too ‘floaty’ for my liking and it does take a good few races to get the hang of the best acceleration/braking techniques (basically use the brakes as sparingly as possible). As for the much-touted realistic physics in the game, there were points when I would find myself stuck to a barn, or have another car annoyingly stuck to my bonnet, leaving me with no option but to immediately reset the game as my race had been spoiled. This was an all-too-regular occurrence and it is probably my main bone of contention with FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage. Next time round, please iron out these niggling problems in testing Empire/Bugbear fellas? But other than the feeling that this game needed a month or two more in the QA department, it's smashing… and super… and great.


Conclusion
Other than a few minor quibbles with the rather harsh learning curve and some rather rude physics glitches FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage is a great arcade racer. If you like trashy redneck Americana and own a 360, get it. And if you don’t own a 360, get one.

SPOnG score 82%