FlatOut demo now on Live

by Justin McElroy { Sep 5th 2007 at 5:30PM }

If those rascally Duke boys from Hazzard county had tried to make their own version of Burnout, we feel fairly confident that they would have come up with something like the FlatOut series. It's a special, gritty, violent version of racing, and you can sample it for yourself with a new demo of FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage on Xbox Live.

Ironically though, the Duke boys probably would have already figured out a way to play this demo when it was released in Europe earlier in the summer, much to the chagrin of Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane. See, they're crafty like that.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Snukadaman @ Sep 5th 2007 5:43PM

Cue the "when is it coming too psn" posts

vidGuy @ Sep 5th 2007 5:54PM

Don't mock. It's very important for words like "Carnage" and "Revenge" to be accompanied by flipping and burning cars. Otherwise I might get the game confused with "Custer's Revenge".

Word of the street. @ Sep 5th 2007 6:00PM

Your post for some reason reminds me to Carmageddon.Anyone played that game?,It was so ridiculous hahaha.

Chameleon @ Sep 6th 2007 12:38PM

@word of the street

honest to God i thought i was the only person who ever played that game. there's something comforting about knowing i'm not.

Mr. P @ Sep 5th 2007 5:55PM

Ah, creative freedom.

Word of the street. @ Sep 5th 2007 5:55PM

Flatout,the poor men Burnout.

Walking,The poor men Driving.

The Jungle,The poor men Woods.

Peeing,the poor men e...You know the rest.

Phour ZwanZig @ Sep 5th 2007 6:01PM

Basicly your first line is right..

Gotta give the little guys some credit..
The FlatOut series is the biggest tittle they have..
DirtTrack Racing, and SprintCar are the only other titles I can think of right now and they were PC only..(That I know of)

But in all reality they are Budget Devs moving up in the world..

Monster @ Sep 6th 2007 10:56AM

You gotta love big tittles.

killploki @ Sep 5th 2007 6:15PM

this demo is craptacular

umm....hello??? @ Sep 5th 2007 6:21PM

suh-weet. I really enjoyed the original FlatOut for xbox....and to whomever said Carmageddon--HELL YEAH!! great fun for playing on PC! GTA is almost the same thing--except you don't get points for not doing missions just to run over pedestrians (among other major differences). anyways, I think that was one of the last PC games I ever bought (aside from FF:VII for the PC).

Shagittarius @ Sep 5th 2007 6:29PM

Did anything hit Live today? Not that it matters im way too busy with Lair, Blue Dragon, Warhawk, and Metroid Prime 3 really. But I still want to know.

Bloo @ Sep 5th 2007 7:05PM

I'm enjoying Metroid as well but Blue Dragon is really blowing me away! After all this talk about how boring the first 15 hours are... I'm 6-1/2 hours in and if it gets a lot better than this as the reviews suggest - AWESOME. BD and Eternal Sonata are the kind of games I need to hold me over until the next FF

BETA king @ Sep 5th 2007 6:36PM

@ Word of the street.

Wow is Flatout,the poor men Burnout?

people are stupid, how can you use "poor man" on games when they're going to cost the same

example
now for cars, its a whole different story like the infinity G35 coupe and the nissan altima coupe. both look the same but the nissan is the poor man's G35

Slvrgun @ Sep 5th 2007 6:49PM

That Altima coupe is really nice.

Word of the street. @ Sep 6th 2007 1:07AM

It was a Family guy reference you ass hat.

Word of the street. @ Sep 6th 2007 1:10AM

Ok sorry for the Ass hat comment but really you take stuff way to seriously and Stop calling people stupid.

Now that Burnout and Flatout are in the same price I guess Flatout lose pretty much its advantage against Burnout.

Jeff @ Sep 5th 2007 6:37PM

This game > Burnout imo.

It doesn't have a rediculous slow motion crash every time it happens. I swear after 30 seconds of playing burnout, only 3 of them have been in real time.

Just download the demo and play the carnage race mode. Its really really great fun.

Not sure if i'd spend money on it, but its great fun.

Played that race at least 15-20 times (had it for ages on EU xbox live).

And the minigames that come with the actual game are pretty fun (If the original 2 are anything to go by). Bowling by crashing your car into a wall and letting your driver fly over the wall and along into the pins.

Fun stuff i tells yah.

Dont bash it till you've tried it. While its obviously drawing some fairly strong roots from burnout, its got a lot of original stuff going for it. The environments are amazingly destructable and the game is generally just a lot of fun.

Give it a shot anyhoo

Slvrgun @ Sep 5th 2007 6:48PM

I wish the Wii had a Demo Channel.

JJ Rooster @ Sep 5th 2007 11:49PM

I've had this game for a while (region free) and it's a lot like Burnout. Crashing opponents is tougher, you don't just boost into them and they shatter. It's more about wearing them down till their damage levels either slows them or blows them up.
The career mode is good, but you will see repeating tracks (or alternate route variations of them) since there are a lot of races X 3 car class types. The destruction derbies are quite fun. I found with most races the same 3-5 racers out of 12 will challenge you for the lead. And often they seem to cheat, so you need to get a fast car to keep up. Lastly, running into road debris is used to gain nitro boost, but too often I lost control driving over a pipe or something that seemed to "catch" you and cause a spin.
The mini-games (stunts) are varied, but they take a bit long to load for the 10 seconds it takes to do the stunt. Worth a rental at least.

Joonas @ Sep 6th 2007 3:19AM

The driving mechanic is way different from Burnout. Flatout's dev Bugbear has a simulation background with Rally Trophy, which results in Flatout having a nuanced driving model. Sure it's arcade, but it's deep, nothing like Burnout's "cars on railroad tracks" approach.

Another thing I like in Flatout is weight. The cars feel like physical objects, not cardboard scenery you throw aside as in Burnout. I do love my Burnout, too, but Flatout is actually quite the different beast, regardless of the cosmetic sameyness.