9 OUT OF 10 NUTRITIONISTS RECOMMEND US
latest news
Podcast:Yahtzee joins to talk GH4, SSBB, and out of control kids
News:GTAIV to give aussies an R rating?
News:Hookers, Halo and Fraud - The life and times of Ralph in Texas
News:Super Smash Brothers Brawl - Finally
News:Lego Indy Demo
News:Too Human Coming Soon - Finally
News:A guide to importing Rock Band
News:Blue Dingos rendition of Finish the Fight
10 Questions:10 Game Industry Questions - Rob Davis
News:He Was A Fattish But Active Man, Of Paralyzing Stupidity
News:IGN turning into RALPH?
News:If Nintendo had made Halo 3
News:Ballarat Get into Games - This Weekend!
News:GTA IV won't help you become a serial killer
Podcast:Sony Gamers Day and ... well ... GTA IV news, what else!
News:GTAIV to give aussies an R rating?
News:Hookers, Halo and Fraud - The life and times of Ralph in Texas
News:Super Smash Brothers Brawl - Finally
News:Lego Indy Demo
News:Too Human Coming Soon - Finally
News:A guide to importing Rock Band
News:Blue Dingos rendition of Finish the Fight
10 Questions:10 Game Industry Questions - Rob Davis
News:He Was A Fattish But Active Man, Of Paralyzing Stupidity
News:IGN turning into RALPH?
News:If Nintendo had made Halo 3
News:Ballarat Get into Games - This Weekend!
News:GTA IV won't help you become a serial killer
Podcast:Sony Gamers Day and ... well ... GTA IV news, what else!
latest podcast
random quote
“Hey, did I mention there are the topless, or should that read ‘helpless’, women? Every woman in the game, other than A’Kanna, is chained to a wall or post, screaming to be released … and she has her breasts exposed.”
'Conan' Reviewby Cav
most recent on forum
Help Aussie kids learn! by SniperXtreme at 2:10am
Late Podcast by SniperXtreme at 2:08am
PODCAST [ Yahtzee joins to talk GH4, SSBB, and out of control kids ] by Rhuri at 1:58am
English Literacy in Aus by itsapanda at 1:05am
want by fic_kitty at 1:01am
Heaven... by The Laughing Man at 12:11am
<AG XBOX360 COD4 1 on 1 TOURNEY> by Claude the Duck King at 11:47pm
Introduce Yourself by funkypea at 11:32pm
PODCAST [ Sony Gamers Day and ... well ... GTA IV news, what else! ] by El Taco at 11:11pm
Your latest purchase by Jay at 10:59pm
How do you visual minorites? by funkypea at 10:49pm
Fire Emblem by Amyler at 9:57pm
MC Chris by EdgeCrusher at 8:52pm
NEWS [ Too Human Coming Soon - Finally ] by netjunkie at 8:39pm
Dreamscene by AJ at 8:12pm
Late Podcast by SniperXtreme at 2:08am
PODCAST [ Yahtzee joins to talk GH4, SSBB, and out of control kids ] by Rhuri at 1:58am
English Literacy in Aus by itsapanda at 1:05am
want by fic_kitty at 1:01am
Heaven... by The Laughing Man at 12:11am
<AG XBOX360 COD4 1 on 1 TOURNEY> by Claude the Duck King at 11:47pm
Introduce Yourself by funkypea at 11:32pm
PODCAST [ Sony Gamers Day and ... well ... GTA IV news, what else! ] by El Taco at 11:11pm
Your latest purchase by Jay at 10:59pm
How do you visual minorites? by funkypea at 10:49pm
Fire Emblem by Amyler at 9:57pm
MC Chris by EdgeCrusher at 8:52pm
NEWS [ Too Human Coming Soon - Finally ] by netjunkie at 8:39pm
Dreamscene by AJ at 8:12pm
upcoming releases
NDS
22 May
Apollo Justice Ace AttorneyPS3
22 May
BUZZ Quiz TVWII
22 May
Dream Pinball 3DNDS
22 May
Dream Pinball 3DPC
22 May
Dream Pinball 3DPS2
23 May
Silent Hill OriginsX360
23 May
Top Spin 3PS3
23 May
Top Spin 3WII
23 May
Top Spin 3NDS
23 May
Top Spin 3PC
23 May
Top Trumps: Dr WhoPS2
23 May
Top Trumps: Dr Whorss feeds
Australian Gamer Content - All
Australian Gamer Podcasts - All
Australian Gamer Updates, Reviews, Previews, Features
what's new
review :: flatout: ultimate carnage
FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage
Reviewed on: Xbox 360Available on: PC, Xbox 360
New comers may stick around for a while and the rest of us so called FlatOut fans may only stick around for a moment while secretly looking forward to Burnout Paradise.
Players: 1-8 Players
Genre:
Release: 2007-08-01
Genre:
Release: 2007-08-01
Developer: Bugbear Entertainment
Distributor: Activision
Distributor: Activision
I’m a racing fanboy and I’ve always loved a good racer, whether it would be Mario Kart or Star Wars Episode One Racer, I’ve always appreciated the efforts that go into a racing game to help keep the game fresh lap after lap. Some racing titles nail my theory of what makes a great racing game but others seem to fall short. I found FlatOut UC to fall below my expectation bar, but before we cut to any conclusions let me take you around the first lap.
I happened to play the original FlatOut title back in 2005 on my PC, that was God’s gift to me and it even had a little note on it saying ‘Oracle my son, I have combined what you love in life, racing and total destruction, please take this gift and use it well in life… and Jesus Christ stop having those dreams about your mother.’ What FlatOut nailed in my books instantly made it one of my top 5 racing games ever. Unfortunately I never got to play FlatOut 2 due to my disappearing act to Sydney but I can admit to you all that I was very eager to get my girlish hands on the third instalment from Bugbear.
LEAVE ORACLE ALONE!
As I was booting up the game many things were running through my head, what could Bugbear do to possibly make this game even greater than the original? I was having flash backs of the first FlatOut title and all the little bugs and untucked corners that I happened to bump into to, things they could have been fixed to make the first title 100% racing goodness.
There are four modes in Ultimate Carnage: FlatOut mode, Carnage, Party and Xbox LIVE. FlatOut mode is massive, this is the sucker that will take you a good one to two weeks to complete. It consists of three racing modes for you to enter, Derby, Race and Street. What that basically means is novice, medium and hard, the faster the cars the harder the AI. Within each mode there is hefty amount of cups and tournaments waiting to be claimed. In each tournament you are required to either come first by racing or winning a mini game round, I love these mini games and UC is full of them. With these mini games you’ll have your chance to win a destruction derby round, jump your stunt car through 7 fiery hoops, to beat the bomb to the finish line plus stacks more. And if mini games are your thing then let me direct you to Carnage mode.
Carnage mode consists of mission based mini games that will include missions like score at least 250 points in a game of stunt car darts, destroy 20 cars in derby, beat 1:57’00 on this lap, etc. Carnage mode is definitely a fun mode and definitely a tough cookie to bite. You probably thought Wiimote controllers were the popular ones to fly across lounge rooms, I admit I did get a little frustrated at times which is my excuse why my 360 controller frequently met the other side of the room. Xbox Live mode lets you play any mode in the game (as well as some exclusive multiplayer online only modes) against eight other players. What I could imagine to be a very enjoyable mode I found it rather frustrating again because of the lack of Australian players.. I got sick of abusing the French.
Perfect example of the AI gang banging you..
Party mode is much of the same except it’s done locally on your 360, I guess they called it party mode if you just happened to have eight mates at you’re your place with nothing better to do. There’s one thing that bugged my about party mode and that was you could only use one 360 controller, you couldn’t plug in 2 controllers for 2 players or share 4 controllers through 8 mates, you had to have the one controller. I happened to share this experience with Yug while he was down in Sydney, and I found sharing one controller with Yug very interesting indeed. I won’t go into too much detail but I just want to say to the Australian Gamer community that Yug sweats hard and heavy in the palm of his hands, I don’t know how and I don’t know why. The only thing I can remember is when he kept handing me back the controller is was like receiving a bar of soap and unfortunately it didn’t smell like one.
With all the modes out of the way let’s get into what I loved and disliked about the game. I want to first mention that this game contains some very competitive AI, I mean it! These bastards will run you off the road as if it required no effort from them. Like all racing games a little too competitive AI can get annoying quite quickly, especially when the bastards spin you out as your about to cross the finish line of a 8 minute race. Let me tell you this now, you will be restarting your race very frequently. The tiniest screw up during the race will send you at the back of the pack, so get used to hitting Start, Right, A, Up, A, I call this Zen and the Art of Restarting.
The physics in the game are once again very entertaining; I won’t say that they are brilliant because they still have the same flaws that the first title had which really bugged me. One tiny object on the road whether it would be a fence post or a road sign will occasionally send your car out of control. So if you can imagine yourself dodging the very challenging AI while avoiding little poles on the road it can get very tedious very quickly and because of this it does give the game a rather steep learning curve for both of those returning to the game's franchise or who haven’t played any of the FlatOut titles before.
The graphics of UC are quite impressive, the only let down for me is that it looks horrible in 480p compared to 720p. But if you are lucky enough to run the game at 720p you will be impressed by the cities night life and your cars crashed state. The sound track of the game is pretty much B grade metal, I found a few songs that I didn’t mind while I others were complete trash. Once again it’s another game where I’d recommend you to use custom soundtracks on your 360.
Heh ... ring of fire ... heh
Nitro is still in the game which gives you more reason to be destructive, the more reckless you are the more nitro you score. Pushing a rival car off the road into a stack of hay will increase your nitro a little while on the other hand crashing your own car through a dense pole causing an entire billboard sign to collapse will score you even more. The nitro score isn’t as balanced as I wished it would be so my advice to you is to avoid small objects and go for the bigger guns.
Like all racing games there is that point where the game reaches its limits and eventually becomes very repetitive, it’s a damn shame I found UC limits a little too early for my liking. New comers may stick around for a while and the rest of us so called FlatOut fans may only stick around for a moment while secretly looking forward to Burnout Paradise.
I happened to play the original FlatOut title back in 2005 on my PC, that was God’s gift to me and it even had a little note on it saying ‘Oracle my son, I have combined what you love in life, racing and total destruction, please take this gift and use it well in life… and Jesus Christ stop having those dreams about your mother.’ What FlatOut nailed in my books instantly made it one of my top 5 racing games ever. Unfortunately I never got to play FlatOut 2 due to my disappearing act to Sydney but I can admit to you all that I was very eager to get my girlish hands on the third instalment from Bugbear.
LEAVE ORACLE ALONE!
As I was booting up the game many things were running through my head, what could Bugbear do to possibly make this game even greater than the original? I was having flash backs of the first FlatOut title and all the little bugs and untucked corners that I happened to bump into to, things they could have been fixed to make the first title 100% racing goodness.
There are four modes in Ultimate Carnage: FlatOut mode, Carnage, Party and Xbox LIVE. FlatOut mode is massive, this is the sucker that will take you a good one to two weeks to complete. It consists of three racing modes for you to enter, Derby, Race and Street. What that basically means is novice, medium and hard, the faster the cars the harder the AI. Within each mode there is hefty amount of cups and tournaments waiting to be claimed. In each tournament you are required to either come first by racing or winning a mini game round, I love these mini games and UC is full of them. With these mini games you’ll have your chance to win a destruction derby round, jump your stunt car through 7 fiery hoops, to beat the bomb to the finish line plus stacks more. And if mini games are your thing then let me direct you to Carnage mode.
Carnage mode consists of mission based mini games that will include missions like score at least 250 points in a game of stunt car darts, destroy 20 cars in derby, beat 1:57’00 on this lap, etc. Carnage mode is definitely a fun mode and definitely a tough cookie to bite. You probably thought Wiimote controllers were the popular ones to fly across lounge rooms, I admit I did get a little frustrated at times which is my excuse why my 360 controller frequently met the other side of the room. Xbox Live mode lets you play any mode in the game (as well as some exclusive multiplayer online only modes) against eight other players. What I could imagine to be a very enjoyable mode I found it rather frustrating again because of the lack of Australian players.. I got sick of abusing the French.
Perfect example of the AI gang banging you..
Party mode is much of the same except it’s done locally on your 360, I guess they called it party mode if you just happened to have eight mates at you’re your place with nothing better to do. There’s one thing that bugged my about party mode and that was you could only use one 360 controller, you couldn’t plug in 2 controllers for 2 players or share 4 controllers through 8 mates, you had to have the one controller. I happened to share this experience with Yug while he was down in Sydney, and I found sharing one controller with Yug very interesting indeed. I won’t go into too much detail but I just want to say to the Australian Gamer community that Yug sweats hard and heavy in the palm of his hands, I don’t know how and I don’t know why. The only thing I can remember is when he kept handing me back the controller is was like receiving a bar of soap and unfortunately it didn’t smell like one.
With all the modes out of the way let’s get into what I loved and disliked about the game. I want to first mention that this game contains some very competitive AI, I mean it! These bastards will run you off the road as if it required no effort from them. Like all racing games a little too competitive AI can get annoying quite quickly, especially when the bastards spin you out as your about to cross the finish line of a 8 minute race. Let me tell you this now, you will be restarting your race very frequently. The tiniest screw up during the race will send you at the back of the pack, so get used to hitting Start, Right, A, Up, A, I call this Zen and the Art of Restarting.
The physics in the game are once again very entertaining; I won’t say that they are brilliant because they still have the same flaws that the first title had which really bugged me. One tiny object on the road whether it would be a fence post or a road sign will occasionally send your car out of control. So if you can imagine yourself dodging the very challenging AI while avoiding little poles on the road it can get very tedious very quickly and because of this it does give the game a rather steep learning curve for both of those returning to the game's franchise or who haven’t played any of the FlatOut titles before.
The graphics of UC are quite impressive, the only let down for me is that it looks horrible in 480p compared to 720p. But if you are lucky enough to run the game at 720p you will be impressed by the cities night life and your cars crashed state. The sound track of the game is pretty much B grade metal, I found a few songs that I didn’t mind while I others were complete trash. Once again it’s another game where I’d recommend you to use custom soundtracks on your 360.
Heh ... ring of fire ... heh
Nitro is still in the game which gives you more reason to be destructive, the more reckless you are the more nitro you score. Pushing a rival car off the road into a stack of hay will increase your nitro a little while on the other hand crashing your own car through a dense pole causing an entire billboard sign to collapse will score you even more. The nitro score isn’t as balanced as I wished it would be so my advice to you is to avoid small objects and go for the bigger guns.
Like all racing games there is that point where the game reaches its limits and eventually becomes very repetitive, it’s a damn shame I found UC limits a little too early for my liking. New comers may stick around for a while and the rest of us so called FlatOut fans may only stick around for a moment while secretly looking forward to Burnout Paradise.
Final Verdict
FlatOut Ultimate Carnage is a rednecks wet dream. After finishing and loving the original FlatOut I had great expectations for UC but after playing the game I now feel used and abused. While the game may be fresh and entertaining for the new comers it’s pretty much the same dish as before. Although FlatOut and Carnage mode might keep you busy in the long run don’t count on Xbox Live.Pros
Encourages reckless driving, destroyable cars and environments, impressive visuals, tons of tournaments and cups to keep you busy, enjoyable physics.
Cons
Attracts rednecks, frustrating AI, understanding the physics will boggle your mind, you’ll be restarting races more than you can say ‘I hate Halo’, crappy metal music, bland tracks, party mode with one controller only, party mode with Yug, French people on Xbox LIVE, compared to the first FlatOut it’s very mediocre.