FLAToUT 4: ToTAL iNsANiTy

Bugbear is set to release Wreckfest later this year and it looks like a proper destruction derby

Publisher PqUbe / DeVeloPer kYLOTONN GAMeS / forMat XbOX ONe / release Date OUT NOW / Cost £44.99

SmaShing Stuff for the undemanding Paul taYlor

You’d never have thought that flinging a ragdoll driver a hundred metres in the air like he’s an indestructible Evil Knievel would be tedious. Nor that mashing the nitro button on your barely-held together Mad Max-style jalopy as you careen into a hillbilly pickup would leave you yawning rather than yeehawing.

FlatOut 4 sadly proves you wrong. There are frequent flashes of excitement, but they burn rubber on the ground carved out by the series’ original developer, Bugbear, rather than create something new. The basics of the game remain faithful to the series: race your car around a track and take a podium spot by any means necessary, whether that’s by pure skill, ramming your opponent off the road, or (in some events) blowing them up. Nitro – your go-extra-fast juice – is earned via crashing into other racers, shredding the scenery and injecting some air between your wheels and the ground.

Violence is preferable in most scenarios. Arena mode – destruction derby by another name – reconfirms it, while FlatOut’s signature minigames hammer the ethos home. You’re gleefully dumped in a gigantic playpen, and told to ping the driver through the car’s windscreen and into beer pong cups (extra points if you get him off the bounce), through blazing rings of fire or over a series of gigantic fans. Anyone who played the riotous Ultimate Carnage from 2007 will fondly recognise a number of these, but they feel staid and wonky a decade later.

Still, they’re a welcome diversion from a career mode that demands you grind your way through short but stiff championships. You’ll have to work pretty hard to earn enough cash to afford anything but the most basic car in each of the classes, and there’s the mild complexity of saving up or lashing out on upgrades to bolster your strength, speed and durability. Getting a decent result is made harder by inconsistent handling. One moment you’re pulling off a thrilling powerslide that feels just so, and the next your rear end’s spinning out thanks to a slight shunt on your bumper.

right Locations are dazzling, (especially when you’re being pitched through the windscreen.)

short cut

What is it?

An arcade smashem-up where cars belt into each other at very high speeds. What’s it like?

FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage 2017 with a camera that’ll drive you mad. Who’s it for?

Lapsed fans that have bundles of patience, and anyone who wants to smash wacky cars together.

“Thrills and spills are dampened by the vertiginous difficulty spike”

Chaos model

Marry this to a camera that often clips through the car’s roof during intense moments, and it becomes chaotic and sloppy. Track design can also trip you up, as Kylotonn’s desire to offer wild and intense environments clashes with muddy textures and unclear signposting of where the track goes. Cue launching out of the windscreen because you tried to smash through a solid structure that looks identical to one you just ripped through.

Damningly, you have to unlock tracks and cars through the career mode before you can go for a spin in the ironically titled ‘quick play’, and by the time you’ve earned the right to dip in and out you’ve seen everything there is to offer. Offline multiplayer is relegated to a ‘pass the pad’ style mode as splitscreen is off the menu. Single player it is, and your best bet is Flatout mode, which slots you into each mode one event at a time. Here you get to sample better vehicles, picking and choosing the order you tackle each event.

But here’s the yoke. A vertiginous difficulty spike holds this back from encouraging long play sessions, particularly the punishing and incomprehensible way that points are awarded in Carnage, where you extend your time on the track by pulling off stunts and destroying your opponents. These kind of thrills and spills are dampened by taxing requirements, and a driving model that simply doesn’t hold up.

All of this hints at a subgenre that’s been missing for far too long, and for the ultra-patient (or those that are content with pitching a man though the windscreen) there’s entertainment to be had. As for total insanity? Mildly maddening, more like. n

oXM VerDiCt

What should be lighthearted fun turns into a grind in this knockabout arcade racer.

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