Strap on your helmet, buckle up your harness and prepare yourself for an edge of your seat, pedal to the metal balls out adrenaline fuelled racer where you will need to nudge, smash, bash and crash your way to the chequered flag using every low down dirty and combative trick possible to ultimately succeed.

FlatOut Ultimate Carnage is an all out arcade racer, come destruction derby game, just think of it along the lines of Burnout on steroids with destructible environments in which to wreak complete chaos, havoc and ultimately mass destruction.

Gameplay:

FlatOut Ultimate Carnage has been rebuilt from the ground up to take full advantage of next gen hardware. Fans of the franchise will be pleased to learn that it takes the trademark mayhem of the previous titles in the series and adds an extra healthy dose of nitrous oxide which is excellent; because as I’m sure fans will agree if it’s not broken don’t fix it!

From the offset players are able to select between FlatOut, Carnage, Xbox Live or Single events. Single events allow players to jump straight in to the action and compete in Race, Stunt, Derby, Time Trial or bonus events. A single race event allows players to select one of 12 available vehicles in which to compete in a single race at any of the 6 environments and 14 tracks.

Stunt mode offers an opportunity to participate in any of the hilarious and ridiculous 12 Olympic style events which include High Jump, Darts, Ski Jump, Stone-Skipping, Ring of Fire, Field Goal or Royal Flush to name but a few. Each of these stunt events follows a similar format which requires players to drive as fast as possible and at just the right time hit what could almost be described as an ejector seat button which sends the driver flying through the windscreen and flying through the air. As an example in the Ski Jump event, players need to drive as fast as possible down a snow covered ski jump slope as fast as possible and at the bottom send your driver flying as far as possible. In bowling you need to do pretty much the same but send the driver flying in to the bowling pins with the ultimate aim here being to get a strike (all 10 pins down).

In Derby events you take part in a good old fashioned Destruction Derby but with a difference. Instead of your sole purpose being to be the last man standing you are also rewarded for participation in the event which means you need to get low down and dirty by smashing and ultimately wrecking your opponents vehicles in order to succeed. Time trial is a no brainer and simply requires you to set the fastest lap time possible for a single lap at any or all the tracks and using any of the vehicles and finally the bonus mode which allows you to take part in racing events on special tracks.

FlatOut is the main career mode of the game and features 30 Cups with over 100 races, there are 3 cup types Derby, Street and Race. Each type offers a variety of competition such as racing, time trials and last man standing Destruction Derbys etc. You will need to initially purchase a vehicle from the car shop in order to compete in any events. From the offset you can only select vehicles form the Derby class but soon you will earn enough money to purchase either upgrades for existing vehicles including Engine, Gearbox, Exhaust, Suspension, Tires, Brakes and Body components or add to your car collection with further vehicles from the Derby, Race or Street classes.

In any of the racing modes pretty much anything goes and you will need to call on every trick in the book to ultimately succeed. Each of the tracks featured are littered with sneaky little ways for you to gain a valuable edge over you opponents and these can come in various shapes and sizes; although jumps and short cuts appear to be the most favorable. Each of the tracks also features around 8000 destructible objects. These objects can come in various forms such as simple fences, tire walls, log stacks right through to greenhouses, petrol stations or practically anything other than permanent and solid structures such as buildings. In some cases like shops in the city with floor to ceiling glass, even these can be destroyed. Destruction, collisions, crashes, jumps and opponent take downs all reward you with a valuable nitro boost, you will need to learn what is the most efficient means of acquiring nitros as simply ploughing along through a fence for example can actually cost you more in terms of slowing you down than you are rewarded with nitros to speed you up and nitros believe me even for the Michael Schumacher’s amongst you are a necessity for that extra speed in order to be the first to pass the chequered flag. But beware because if you crash hard enough into a permanent structure or tree for example, our driver will be ejected from the vehicle via the windscreen. You almost feel the pain for the poor guy as his body rag doll’s down the track. It might be an unnecessary addition in the race modes but it sure is used to great effect within the Stunt events.

The AI competition is unforgiving and just as serious about winning as you are. This can become tiresome and all too often you will be the recipient of a small nudge which will send you in to a spin and in to the surroundings. This is fine and of course what’s good for the goose is good for the gander but all to often this allows for the entire field to pass you by and catching up the leading pack is damn near impossible. It also seems at times that the opposition has a boost mode enabled which allows them to catch you but once you lose the tail of the leading pack it’s near impossible to catch them.

Carnage is an Arcade mode which you compete in any of the available game types to achieve ideally a Gold cup. Game types in which you can compete include races, stunt events, and also the new additions deathmatch derby and beat the bomb. In deathmatch Derby you compete in as the name implies deathmatch type events. Basically it’s Destruction Derby with added power ups such as Amour which triples the durability of your car, Massdriver which increases the mass of you car and potential damage you inflict when colliding with opponents, InfiNitro which gives you an infinite amount of nitro, Power Ram which triples damage you cause your opponents, Score Doubler which increase the score gained for collisions or Repair which naturally repairs your car back to full health. This is one hell of a crazy frag fest with cars as your weapon; duel to the end mayhem mode and you will need to utilize the available power-ups to succeed.

Finally we have the Beat the Bomb Mode where you have a bomb in the trunk and simply need to travel as far as possible before the time runs out. You will need to pass checkpoints to earn extra time and utilize your carnage skills to destroy scenery and earn nitro.

Graphics:

Graphically FlatOut Ultimate Carnage is no slouch and runs on par or surpasses many of the current crop of driving games available on the Xbox 360. Each of the cars on average uses a whopping 25,000 polygons and features around 40 individual panels which all deform and depart company with the vehicle accurately. Trails of dust, dirt, smoke and water splashes are left in your wake throughout and not only does FlatOut Ultimate Carnage manage to deliver this with up to 12 vehicles on screen (4 more than in previous titles in the series) at any time but also manages this all in stunning, rich and highly detailed environments. Every detail has been lovingly produced, even the water is fully animated with ripple effects and real-time reflections it is truly a testament to the developers the amount of detail and effects they have managed to include. Let's not forget the previously mentioned 8000 items which can all be destroyed and have individual realistic physics per track.

Sound:

The sound department as we have all come to expect these days fully supports Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and features an impressive rocking soundtrack that is well suited the style of the game. There are plenty of rocking beats to get you in the racing mood. The musical vibe of the game is suitable and very fitting and oozes speed, action, adrenalin and fast cars. The sound effects throughout are as you would expect from the car engines to metal upon metal collisions, scraps, smashes and bashes and you’ve got to love the screams from your driver as they go crashing through the windscreen after going 70 to 0 mph in .005 of a second!

Longevity:

FlatOut Ultimate Carnage runs the duration of the race and beyond, with an extensive career (FlatOut) mode and the addition of the fun filled arcade (Carnage), Xbox Live, Single events or Party modes. There really is an awful lot to keep you and your friends entertained for the duration and certainly a lot more is on offer than seen in its predecessors. There is plenty of challenge under the bonnet of this great fun racer. Xbox LIVE modes just add to the longevity and feature not only familiar single player event types such as race, deathmatch derby, wrecking derby and stunt events but also further modes which are not available in the single player game. These come in the form of Hunter Derby where players are either the hunter or the hunted or Head on Races where after completing a lap all the racers need to turn around and race back the opposite way which inevitably creates havoc and plenty of head on crashes. Another tweak from the previous titles is in the stunt arena where players now compete simultaneously as opposed to turn based, this ups the pace and keeps the players on the edge of there competitive seats.

Overall:

FlatOut Ultimate Carnage is a fun filled, balls out adrenaline fuelled, challenging and addictive game which improves on its predecessors whilst remaining faithful to what made them so popular. Featuring 42 cars + 6 Bonus, 30 + 9 Bonus tracks and plenty of variety in game modes, types and challenges. Players should have plenty of fun with this fun filled destructive albeit at times very unforgiving racing title that is not only fast but also furious and packed to the rafters with modes and challenges. The only real negative would be the lack of variety in vehicles, environments and tracks although all of these are promised to be made available via downloadable content in the near future which should address this issue.