FlatOut Ultimate Carnage revealed

By Robert Purchese Published 1 February, 2007

For Xbox 360 in June.

Following the success of previous games in the series, Empire Interactive has announced a new FlatOut game for Xbox 360, which is due for release in June.

The game, developed by Bugbear Entertainment, will be built from the ground up to make the best use of the new technology's horsepower. You'll be able to race in 12 different cars in five singleplayer and two multiplayer modes, plus downloadable content via Xbox Live will also be supported.

"We are very excited in being able to reward the loyal FlatOut fan base with a next generation FlatOut game," said Ian Higgins, Empire Interactive CEO. "FlatOut Ultimate Carnage is that game and it is undoubtedly the best FlatOut game to date."

FlatOut 2 was released last year, and despite being largely an update of the first game, received very favourable reviews. It's racing in a similar vein to Burnout, but off-road and messy, and one of the first games to lean heavily on its physics engine for negotiating debris and bumpy roads.

You know, it's actually very good. Here's hoping a new next-gen version can deliver the goods. Catch a face-full of the new screenshots elsewhere on the mud track, er, website.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (22) Latest comment 5 years ago

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  • OnlyMe #1 5 years ago

    Well, this could be good. FlatOut is actually a fantastic game, due to the excellent damage you can make. I'm rather curious to see this on a next-gen console.

  • OhWiseOne #2 5 years ago

    FO in Xbox was great in multiplayer. Hoping it'll rock on 360.

  • spongebob #3 5 years ago

    Both FlatOut games looked good, reviews were fine and many fans raved about them. I don't know why, but I think they are simply not fun and I've tried both on PC and Xbox. FlatOut 2 tried to be the offroad Burnout, but it was not nearly as fun. I really hope they fix this major flaw with the gameplay for the X360 rendition.

  • groovychainsaw #4 5 years ago

    I think the main thing the original had lacking was bit of gloss, a bit of a professional finish would have worked wonders. The gameplay was fun (although the handling could be tweaked a bit), and hte idea is still strong and (fairly) unique.

  • Wash #5 5 years ago

    Indeed, it was very pretty and funny knocking things over for a while, then it all got a bit boring fast.

  • espadachin #6 5 years ago

    the idea was great and it was a very good live game, but i found the handling just a tad too sensitive.
    i do have high hopes for this though

  • mr rick #7 5 years ago

    I also got sick of the pointless rag doll "buckle up" mini games. At first I thought it was great watching the driver fly through the air but it soon became very annoying.

  • Darkedge #8 5 years ago

    hmm the handling was a bit too sensitive so it took along time on ice to even finish the races, not instantly as accessible as burnout but a good couple of games.
    The minigames were fun and of course mrrick seems to have forgotten that you didn't have to play them at all.

    A next gen version will definitely be on my list of games to watch :)

  • BadBoyBonner #9 5 years ago

    Enjoyed both previous versions - think most of the polish missing is in the lack of voiced over audio. Would have loved Hill-Billy redneck Old timer doing voice over for mud tracks in country - couple of stories about daring moonshine runs an stuff mixed in with commentary on your driving.

    "Last time I saw someone jump that far in a pickup was when me an old Billy-Bob..yada yada yada with loads of different ones to avoid repetition" and some Ridge-Racer esque comments on cornering etc - surely decent audio must be the cheapest way to improve a product - certainly Flat Out franchise would benefit massively.

  • Valver #10 5 years ago

    please support the 360 wheel, please support the 360 wheel....

  • SooperCooper #11 5 years ago

    Five of us play Flat Out 2 on the LAN at work. Great Fun.

  • space_ace #12 5 years ago

    great 'work', you mean :)

  • trevd72 #13 5 years ago

    flatout is what driving games are all about. you can keep your GT5 or what eva number its up to. I love Flatout.

  • SBfistfun #14 5 years ago

    FlatOut!......asleep

    Zzzzzzzzzzzz

  • Machetazo #15 5 years ago

    I've never played Flatout 2...Hype burned me out during the wait, on it's Xbox release; but when this UC was rumoured a good few months ago, I was really looking forward to it. Now it's confirmed to be coming out. Yeah!

  • spongebob #16 5 years ago

    And yeah, the cars in FlatOut feel like some floating spaceships.

  • polar #17 5 years ago

    Here's hoping they get rid of the ridiculous ragdoll drivers.

  • Vin #18 5 years ago

    Ace. They need to give some proper 'weight' to the cars, though.

    Big fuckin' HEAVY collisions, please sirs.

  • smelly #19 5 years ago

    Nooooooooooooo!!!!

    Requesting proper physics and no rag doll, would remove the soul of the game, and leave you with just another dull boring racer.

    Boooo!

  • dan2313 #20 5 years ago

    I really enjoyed the first FlatOut on the Xbox, great physics and excellent damage modelling.

    Looking forward to how this turns out.

  • db3 #21 5 years ago

    This sounds promising, loved 1 & 2 on PC :)

  • PapaSmurf630 #22 5 years ago

    Prefered the first to the second purely because the scenery and debris were a lot heavier. If you drove over an engine in the first rendition, you felt it.

    I loved the handling of the cars in the first! And the lack of 'polish'! It made it feel like a banger-race which is what I thought made it all the more enjoyable...racing around in big old 70's-esque yank-tanks crashing through fences was a great laugh.

    Just hope they return to their roots a little instead of moving into the already way-over-done 'Need For Speed/Fast and Furious' area...
    Edited by 1 at 05/02/07 @ 00:15