PC Release Date: 4th Quarter 2004
Developer/Publisher: BugBear/Empire Interactive
Official Website: https://bugbear.fi/flatout.htm
FlatOut Game Guide

Gameplay teaser:
Even though I only tried 2 cars, their handling felt the same, perhaps due to the fact that the demo had full-spec cars that players would only acquire towards the end of the game. The figure-8 track was loads of fun at the Nvidia booth, the forest track covered with gravel at Empire's booth provided some shortcuts, too. As physics were also tweaked, my driver was catapulted from the seat at bigger impacts, but it will be tuned down in the final game. Expect lots of crashes, flying debris, rolling cars and on the street track Jussi showed me, the barrel obstacles. It was awesome to see how an opponent could be slowed if pushed into those barrels, carefully placed on the track by level designers. :)

"Rally Trophy" will always remain to me as the most accurate rally simulator of vintage cars. The game suddenly elevated newly founded developer studio BugBear to unimaginable heights. At Empire's booth I sat down with Jussi Laakkonen, the Development Director of the Finnish studio to have a chat about that exciting title.

FlatOut, their new racing game sports all the good things RT had, starting with its vehicle physics, but adds all the best things we've been previously enjoying in Destruction Derby titles. The spine of the game is made of a Career Mode, where you start up with a junk car, then, after earning some cash with racing, you develop it into a good racing car by upgrading the parts and finally buying a new car from a pool of 16 cars in total. Between races you cannot tune your car's setting as the game focuses on close-quarter battles between the 8 competitors, not setting up your machinery. The game's 45 tracks have 5 different environments altogether: forest (gravel), town (with a mixture of surfaces), racing track, snow and sandy terrain. There is also a special area which you'll unlock towards the end of the game where you have the sort of Lethal Pit to throw the driver out of the car: here you'll have the high jump, the long jump or the dart throwing amongst other disciplines - that part made me laugh, so the icemen of the North can be also funny sometimes! Once on a track you can drive your car anywhere (up to the limit of the world, of course) and use its exhaustive dynamic physics engine to push objects with different setups around the world. Tree-trunks, barrels, tires and detached body parts all represent a challenge on the next lap as hitting those obstacles will damage and slow down your car or can even cause major accidents. Another interesting feature of the game is that its tracks have shortcuts that you can employ to your own risk in your quest to beat your opponents. Using shortcuts may result in landing on the opponent's car or on the roof of your car or amongst a pile of barrels.

As the game is very heavily axed to the close-door racing involving contact, the AI drivers are pretty aggressive and merciless, though it was impossible to make them spin in the build showcased at E3. I was able to try out several tracks of the X-Box version and a special "figure-8" track (reminiscent of the double figure-8 track of Destruction Derby, one of my all-time favorites) of the PC version, both provided the amount of fun I expected from these guys. As Jussi told me, multiplayer is up to 8 people but if 2 or more human controlled vehicles are detected, no AI cars will be on the track, but right now they're not 100% sure that they won't do an AI mode for the Multiplayer, too.

Music was one of the points where RT delivered the goods with its characteristic pieces. FlatOut will feature licensed music pretty much leaned towards the nu metal genre hi-octane songs you've come to expect from BugBear. The camera angles have a bumper-cam and several chase cams, but no bonnet or cockpit cam. Finally I asked Jussi if they'll let players use their own paints or at least choose from different color-schemes but at this moment it is not planned - fans of RT made lots of skins for their favorite car.

This game delivers all the carnage I expected from it and thanks to its physics and dynamic environment it would keep you entertained for quite a while. The PC demo will be released several weeks before the game hits retailers and we can also expect BugBear to release some new content afterwards (tracks and new vehicles are planned amongst other things).

Photos:


Jussi Laakonen from Bugbear.