When you have been having a bad day and just need something to do to unwind, there is something strangely satisfying about smashing vehicles into things at over 100km/h. What makes it even more satisfying, is after crashing top speed, seeing your vehicle blow up into a hunk of burning metal and the driver’s limp body flung in rag doll fashion out the windscreen, and this is the core game play mechanic for this very entertaining game.
With a name like Flatout: Ultimate Carnage, it goes without saying that you expect a lot of destruction, and there is definitely is plenty of that. As the third offering in Empire Games’ lacklustre Flatout series, Ultimate Carnage did not have too many expectations to meet.
The game is broken down into two distinct game play modes: racing and doing stunts. Flatout Mode is racing, Party Mode is the stunts, and Carnage Mode is a mix of both.
Flatout mode is essentially the main game. You buy one of the starting cars and then proceed to gain money through racing with which you use to buy better cars, and upgrade your existing ones. Furthermore, the game is broken into three main categories: derby, racing and street, and of course the game only gives you enough money to buy a cheap, barely holding together, “derby” class car to start with.
Now this sounds all well and good to begin with, but the derby class races quickly become boring as the cars barely get above 100km/h, leaving you on a dirt road, and barely having enough power to get around a corner without understeer. More often than not, this ends up with your nose into the wall or even better, flying off the track into a tree. The only thing that kept us playing the game at that stage was the entertaining destruction derby events, which is a last man standing, place 12 cars in a small arena and let them create havoc, affair.
As you progress into the Racing and Street classes the actual racing gets more interesting as the speed (and steering) ability of the cars increases. On top of that, you move from only dirt roads into a few actual roads, meaning that the cars have more traction.
A major downfall of this game however, is despite the engine being able to run 12 cars on the track at once without too much drop in the frame rate, you always face the exact same opposition (they have even got names). The enemy AI always behaves the same, and you will find yourself racing the same cars for 1st place every time. On top of that, there are no qualifying positions; you will start every race at the back of the pack, with the same annoying cars in front of you doing the same frustrating things.
When you actually manage to get some speed up, you will find that although you can shove the opposing vehicles out of the way, you will often end up with one stuck T-boned in front of you, meaning you have to almost stop to get them unstuck and continue racing.
Carnage mode however, is more enjoyable. It is made up of all the fun things from Flatout mode (such as the destruction derbies), combined with a group of highly entertaining stunts. Now these aren’t your usual, 'jump through the flaming hoop' stunts; these are 'fire the driver out of the car and see how high you can get his body up a wall' stunts. These provide hours of entertainment, especially when you compete against mates in the Party mode, and we were surprised at the sheer creativity of most of the events.
Graphically, the game is brilliant. The gloss of the cars and the rendering of the environment have been done well. There are a few jagged edges but that is not really a big deal as most of the time you are going too fast to notice. The game even manages to make the damage look realistic, and as you smash into things you can see bits of your car fall off and the remaining chassis looks suitably damaged and discoloured.
The soundtrack is also good. With a number of less well known nu metal and rock bands, the music's upbeat tempo and guitar riffs gets you in the mood to destroy. We found ourselves a number of times tapping our feet along to the songs as we raced.
The online play is almost perfect. Matches are quick and easy to find and the entertainment value is enhanced by hearing your rivals through the voice communication. It was also good to see that you can play almost any game type online, despite only being able to play the stunt mode locally. They have even added an arcade feel to the destruction derbies online by adding in various power ups into the mix.
The games controls are suitably simplistic, making this game great at parties, especially for people who are only casual gamers at best and just want to have a bit of fun and see a body fly through a windscreen.
On a whole, the game (especially the Flatout mode) plays and looks very similar to Criterion’s Burnout series, even down to the loading screen. However, despite these flaws and the frustration of the racing mode and the general lack of depth, the stunt mode makes this game an original and a quite enjoyable experience, albeit a shallow one.
