Exhilarating race into mayhem

Most racing games suffer an identity crisis – but not Flatout Ultimate Carnage.
As a gamer who casually plays and enjoys racing games, it baffles me why games such as the Project Gotham series offer fancy cars with arcade-style handling.
The stiff and boring handling means you never really feel as though you’re driving a luxury car.
And the linear tracks with their indestructible barriers create a boring and claustrophobic experience. That’s why I like Flatout Ultimate Carnage – it knows it is an arcade racer, and never pretends to be real.
The developers have realised that arcade, particularly on a console game, should have some depth, but that it must come in the forms of insane driving, crashing, vomit-inducing speeds, and pants-wetting explosions.
Flatout Ultimate Carnage is therefore a mud-slinging, metal-crunching, bone-breaking and over-exaggerated racing game – and I love it. The open tracks, each with 8000 destructible objects, 11 opponents, nitro boosts, insane jumps and rewards for destroying other cars during the race mean the action never stops.
While the series has had two incarnations on the original Xbox platform, this version shines on Microsoft’s Xbox 360, with enhanced graphics and sound.
When you’re not racing on a track, there are destruction derby arenas to smash up opponents in, and a laugh-a-minute Stunt mode where the aim is to eject the driver through the front windscreen and into a variety of obstacles, or over hurdles, not dissimilar to an Olympic javelin event. If the single-player set-up is the tasty burrito, the online mode is the special sauce atop it.
All game modes are available so players can compete against others from around the world. Even better, players can create tournaments comprising several events with the goal being to win as many of those events as possible to run out the overall champion.
But Flatout Ultimate Carnage is not without its disappointments.
The first is that there is no offline multiplayer, meaning no split-screen mode. You can take turns in Stunt mode, but it’s not as much fun as going head to head in a destruction derby or powersliding around a dirt track.
The game operates horribly with a steering wheel, a bitter disappointment for those who have invested $120 in the product that is designed to enhance racing experiences. With a standard controller, the driving model is easy to learn.
But there seems to be a glitch with the powersliding, as it can be difficult to execute despite the simple procedure required to perform it. If you crash your car and have to reset it on the track, there is a harsh penalty that will see you lose several positions in a tight race.
This seems out of context in a game that encourages players to crash, and to have fun doing so.
But these gripes can be forgiven, because Flatout Ultimate Carnage is the most enjoyable game I’ve played in a while. In particular, if you’re wondering what to play on Xbox Live before Halo 3 arrives in September, pick this title up. It retails for only $89.99, as opposed to the hefty $120 price tag of most games, and the tournament modes will guarantee some of the best multiplayer mayhem you’ve experienced on Live.