As it stands though, arcade racers still sit dormant in today’s gaming landscape. More tracks, more variety, and some much needed polish would have gone a long way in bringing back this cult classic. I am a massive fan of the original game and its sequel, and while this is light years beyond the abomination that was the third game, it still falls short. It seems like there were more ideas (and hopefully tracks) on the table, but time simply ran out.įlatout 4 feels like a game destined to reinvigorate the franchise and just ran out of steam. My player character also has a model, but is completely non customizable in any facet. Instead, they are just faces on the screen during races. The game does attempt to inject some personality with characters, but they are never explained or featured.
Arcade racers have come a long way since the series inception, and this entry just doesn’t make the cut. The game just feels like generic racer number five with the Flatout name slapped on it. Races are far too long and none of the tracks really do anything to make me want to come back. Progression is good, but the game just runs out of gas so quickly. Each circuit features a few different race types, but nothing out of the standard fare. The AI is also super aggressive, and one quick tap on the backend of my car sends me into an uncontrollable spin.Ĭareer mode races earn players money which can be spent on new vehicles and upgrades. For example, slamming through fences is fine, but when my car flips after driving over a small cone, it becomes a problem. The weird physics do lead to some odd encounters though. Slamming into opponents feels good, and when I slammed through a barn door at 100 mph, it felt impactful.
Flatout 4 features heavy cars that fishtail around corners. It also doesn’t help that laps are ridiculously long and tedious.Īrcade racers have always been known for more exaggerated racing physics. Sadly, these tracks wear out their welcome quickly. With a game featuring massive destruction and junker cars one would think more variety would come naturally. While they are not bad in design, there are so few of them, that after one or two races it feels monotonous. The career mode tasks players with racing through series of events on the same handful of tracks. A lot of the same events return and it just doesn’t have the same impact. Flatout 4 brings that back, and some of them are genuinely a good time, but it fails to expand on the idea.
The only reason the Flatout series ever held any weight in the gaming world was because of its wacky physics-based tossing of drivers in the mini games. Sadly, there just isn’t enough here to elevate this game above the label of mediocre. But while this imagery may be disturbing, it. You can also knock cars off the road or hit them with bombs, causing them to explode.
When you crash, and you will, you can hit a button to send the driver flying through the windshield. The heart of the series died when they left development, and Flatout 4 tries desperately to rekindle that magic. Parents need to know that FlatOut 4: Total Insanity is an arcade racing game with a cartoonishly violent twist. Once again Bugbear Interactive (the team behind the original) is not behind the wheel, and the results are what I have come to expect. Yet, here we are, reviewing the fourth game in the series. Flatout is one of those games that sits on my list of games I never expected to see another sequel and that was after the second one.