Meeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!! (continuous loop)

Sound familiar?

Or how about-

Neeeeeeeeeeeeooooooooooowwwm!!! (continuous loop)

Come on, anyone who has played videogame racers knows these sounds. These are the sounds of victory. The sounds of engines at full rpm, from cars that are well in the lead. These are the whiney sounds of a joypad button being held down whilst you merely flick at the directional stick to ease through gentle corners because you have mastered the game’s handling nuances and are dead good.

It happens often, because all lap racing games are pretty much the same. Even great racing games like GT3 and Burnout 3 have these moments of banality and if it wasn’t for some lovely modelling on the cars to admire, new motors to win or some gorgeous scenery they would sometimes be as appealing as Tesco economy baked beans. You stare cretinously at the screen, saliva dribbling from your mouth as the road whizzes by, but you are happy because you are winning. But surprisingly, for a game named Flatout, this doesn’t happen all that much at all. No, this game kicks you up the arse constantly and is about as slick and quick as a cement-encrusted tortoise.

Yes, upon loading up it becomes clear that this game is not going to offer you the most aesthetic and desirable of motoring experiences. To start off, your car selection is like a rogues’ gallery of what not to drive. You can flick all you like from one model to another but they pretty much all look the same - a stock car extracted from the nearest scrap yard. To give you some perspective, if GT3 offered you an endless selection of the finest, sexiest supermodels, Flatout offers you Mabel and Ethel from the nearest old peoples’ home. But before you puke your guts out and click on the little x in the corner, read on. For though Mabel and Ethel are beat up, they also have plenty of character and pack a feisty punch...

But once you start to race one of two things will happen. You will either:-
1/ Cry and moan because you can’t get to the front and blitz the opposition every time you play by merely holding your accelerator down and there isn’t enough wazzo speed going on and the cars are never going to feature in glossy teen automotive masturbation magazines.
Or
2/ You will be thoroughly refreshed by the challenging, varied and destructive nature of the very organic, almost rallycross-style collision racing.

I experienced the latter revelation. Yes, I have to say, as far as lap racing goes Flatout provided me with a standout and very enjoyable experience and this is all down to the superb physics applied to both the cars and the track. Where as most circuits in gaming are sterile, boxed in, ‘bounce off the rails’ affairs, Flatout instead offers largely open pieces of waste ground which have been meticulously sprinkled with dynamic objects for you to smash into. Tyres, barrels, scaffolding, fences and the like are all provided for destructive fun and they make the racing feel alive.

A successful race requires concentration and a good feel for anticipating the corners, often skidding and sliding on the dirt and compensating for your momentum. Crashing into other cars and using them as a bouncing shield to get you around tighter corners is always a fun tactic, but it is also something that can be turned upon yourself by the pretty decent driver AI. Indeed, some races can be a running battle of ramming and shoving and this is where one of Flatout’s amusing quirks comes into play, namely the ‘head first through the windscreen’ manoeuvre. When you hit a static object pretty hard your driver is launched out of your car with a cry and into a careering ragdoll nightmare. It’s pretty amusing and is perversely satisfying when you manage to shunt a rival into a trackside truck or log pile and hear his or her wailing scream behind you. If you are really sick you can check it out again and again on the replay to your black heart’s content.

So far it may sound like this game is a must-have and excellent piece of software but I should put my foot down on the brakes somewhat, because there are problems to be found here. First of all, this is a game that you will reset and restart time and time again. Often you can be driving superbly and just one mistake or piece of debris on the road will put you in a terrible spin and put paid to your efforts. Also I found that there were occasions when your car becomes stuck and propped upon hazards like tyres or fencing and there is no way to get off of them. Perhaps the biggest problem long term harks back to the cars and the fact that the game just isn’t very sexy. Everything is much of a muchness and there isn’t much to work towards with your money.

Sure, there are plenty of tuning options but they are quite simplistic and easy to achieve - just a case of ticking off the list of what you can afford. Apart from increased speed and tighter handling it’s hard to tell on such active courses where your money has been spent. Also, unlike the Xbox version, the PS2 is not given the option of online play, and for a game of this type that is a pretty disappointing omission. The music too is also a load of nondescript twangy rock crap that however suitable to the game it may be, is always forgettable.

So Flatout quite impressed me. It’s not sexy but it’s different and offers an unusual angle on the overcrowded racing genre, offering a pick up and play arcade feel mixed with a real need for judgement, feel and concentration. It may be too frustrating and unrewarding for some but for me, where it actually counts, (in the actual racing) it delivers physics and a constant challenge which will always feel fresh and ‘unmastered.’