The joys of racing, eh?
Well, 3 weeks and 3 new racers and we’re literally drowning in a sea of tires….which I’d like to point out - is a very good thing. Joining the ranks of Forza and DiRT, is Flatout; Ultimate Carnage. Don’t be fooled though, this is a completely different kind of animal.
“It looks like Burnout” I hear you cry, well, yes it does look like Burnout, but it plays like a mix of both this and Destruction Derby.
For starters we dived in to the cunningly titled ‘Flatout’ mode. Flatout mode is simple - choose a division, in this case you’ve got; Derby, Race, Street and a mixture of the three bringing up the rear billed as Grand Finale. Buy yourself a car, bog standard rubbish with the pittance you’ve been given and dive into a race. Derby mode is just ridiculously good old fashioned - FUN. Perhaps a little tricky at first, but once you’ve earned some money, you’ll be able to either buy a new vehicle and/or upgrades enabling you to have an easier time killing those nasty opponents…..
On the subject of opponents, they have all been given personalities, not much of one really, just a brief line on the loading screen, although I think it is a nice touch.
The Flatout mode will eat up a bit of time, there’s quite a few races but most are short and sweet 3 or 4 one minute lap affairs. I guess it’s up to personal taste, but driving round a track for 45 laps isn’t my idea of fun - for short and sweet - Flatout is perfect.
Carnage mode is where the real party is, though. Any silly ideas you had of any kind of realism, should leave now. Carnage mode is absolutely bonkers. This is a series of 3 events mixed up. A carnage race, which will give you infinite Nitro, and award you with points for smashing people, cars, scenery and buildings. As long as you reach the checkpoint, you can keep going. Next up we have Deathmatch Derby. 12 cars, a big arena, power-ups - yes, power-up’s!!! and a large dose of SMASHING. It’s survival of the fittest, it’s Gears of War in cars. Last up is Stunt mode……oh stunt mode……Now, yes some of the stunts are all vehicle, others however involve hitting the breaks on said vehicle and launching your character out of the car into a giant net, a bowling ally, football ground and off a ski jump. The animation of the characters is dreadful, but under the circumstances and the sheer ridiculous nature of the stunt mode - I’ll forgive that.
Multiplayer is the icing on this delicious cake. An offline Party mode is a chance to gather up to seven other players as you battle it out to be the stunt king.
Xbox LIVE takes the multiplayer to a completely different level. You can pretty much do everything you can offline - online. One of DiRT’s major flaws is the shambles of it’s LIVE modes. For Flatout, this isn’t a problem. Deathmatch Derby is my personal favourite, but you’ve also got Stunt and Race. You can even create your own events with a mixture of everything. All modes have tons of options and the menus are a breeze.
Graphically this looks pretty sweet. I’m not going to bore you with all that “frames per second” rubbish, quite frankly I have no idea what any of that is about. From my perspective - in HD - this looks glorious. There is an insane amount of stuff all happening on screen and it’s as fast as any other racer. Yes, cars do lack detail, but this is obviously to compensate for the volume of breakable stuff.
Sound is your usual smashes and crashes and engine noises. Music is supplied by Rock unknowns (unknowns to me) and to be honest, I turned it off. I’m a big rock fan, but this seems to rotate around 5-6 songs and gets a little tedious.
Flatout: Ultimate Carnage may not be to everyone’s taste. It’s at the other end of the spectrum when compared to something like Forza. It does however fit in very nicely with the likes of Burnout. Put the game in your 360, turn off your brain and start smashing stuff up. Highly entertaining.
