Flatout Ultimate Carnage

The demo for Flatout Ultimate Carnage was released yesterday to our friends over in Europe. I heart my European gamertag. I logged in and downloaded the demo. I haven't used it since the Chromehounds demo came out. Hehe.

The demo gives you 3 types of racing with 1 track available per race type. There is one car you can choose on each type of race. The race types are Carnage Race, Destruction Derby, and Race.

Carnage racing drops you into a checkpoint race and rewards you points for crashing into your opponents. It felt a lot like Burnout to me at first, except the controls weren't as tight and the cars didn't feel as glued to the road.

You get a decent sense of speed, especially when using your NOS. This brings up my major gripe with the game. In most racing games the A button is your handbreak. Not so in Flatout. The A button fires off your NOS. This can really cause you to screw up some turns. I would be going into a turn and expect to drift once I hit the A button, but instead I would accelerate into some houses. Not cool. And there was no option available to change the button layout. Hopefully it will be in the retail release.

The Destruction Derby races are fun. They drop you into a parking lot with 5 lives and you smash the other cars into oblivion. You get points for each hit, which in turn equate to either a bronze, silver, or gold trophy. You can also get multipliers during the game. All I got was a 2x, but I imagine there are more.

The last type in the demo are races. 3 laps around the track. The one included in the demo is a dirt road track with trees and a few buildings. The car they give you does not have much grip. Needless to say I saw some of the trees up close. This is the race type that I actually saw my driver get shot out of the windshield.

Speaking of that, it seems odd to me that at least one of the mini-games weren't included in the demo. The mini-games are what sets Flatout apart from other racing games, so I don't understand why they didn't include it.

Based on the racing alone, I wouldn't buy this game when it comes out. Burnout does a much better job with both the racing and the crashes. Of course, if you really need to do some driving and crashing before the holiday season, then it's not a bad option. Especially if you're like me and not into the Forza 2.