Just saying, but I do have a curator page. If you like my remarks about games, you can find more of them here: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44130985-TDP%27s-Gaming-Escapades

By now, I have played all of the original FlatOut games developed by Bugbear. FlatOut 1 found its way to my worst games of all-time list, resulting in the angriest refund I have ever done on Steam. FlatOut 2 improved upon the original in nearly every way, but ultimately drove me away because of its overly aggressive AI and how rigged the races felt. Now we are dealing with the remake of FlatOut 2, which was released a generation after that game.
FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage follows the same trend I have witnessed in FlatOut games, with every iteration improving upon the previous one's flaws. It tries to improve on many things, but there's one aspect of it that still stumbles behind the rest of it.

I cannot believe that I'm saying this, but this game finally won me over.
When I started going through the FlatOut series, I wanted the games to offer "a thrilling combination of high-octane racing, smash-em-up demolition derby action and death" just as their advertisements claimed, yet they never delivered on those promises for me. Despite incorporating destruction and car combat in their gameplay, the first two games ultimately had more emphasis on regular racing, with most attempts to have fun causing you to to fall behind the competition. This was especially a problem in FlatOut 2, with the overly-aggressive AI paving the way for frustration.
FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage is the game where the developers finally delivered on their promises for me. This version streamlines physics and collisions, often causing the cars to bounce back after hitting a wall and plow through some of the obstacles far easier than FlatOut 2. Not only that, the number of available opponents is now increased from 7 to 11, ramping up the unpredictability and madness you can face in each of the races and especially the destruction derby activities.
I had a much more fun time playing FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage with the aforementioned changes, even though I was still annoyed by some of its other aspects. The game offered me what I wanted from the series, fixed some of my most hated gripes with FlatOut 2 and even gave me more of the events that I loved playing in that game.

The most obvious change in Ultimate Carnage compared to FlatOut 2 is the graphics. Ultimate Carnage takes the contents of the original game and brings it to the next generation of consoles (at the time) with improved graphics and redone models, taking advantage of the more powerful hardware. Not only that, certain stages have also gotten additional visual elements that weren't possible on the original. For example, now water canal looks like an actual water canal and has water in it.
But this is not to say Ultimate Carnage is just a simple reskin of the original, as it offers you a bunch of new content as well. For starters, we now have a brand new game mode called the "Carnage Mode". This mode offers a standalone section for stunts and events where you can accumulate score to unlock more of them and unlock extra vehicles (like the school bus) by acquiring trophies in each of them. Then we have new event types in the form of Carnage Race where you are tasked with causing as much destruction as possible in a race before time runs out, Beat the Bomb which has you completing a race under a strict time limit, and a more arcade-y (and more fun) take on the destruction derby events where you have access to extra lives and powerups, giving you more encouragement to get up close and personal with the opponents. Alongside the aforementioned additions, the game now also has a brand-new cash award for every optional objective you fulfill at the end of a race.
But even with all of the additions and enhancements, there's one part of the game that is completely missing. As of the latest update, the multiplayer mode is completely gone. Originally it was powered by the nightmare that was Games For Windows Live, and it seems like the current owners of the IP decided to remove it altogether instead of allocating resources to migrate the networking functions to Steamworks. This means Ultimate Carnage is now a purely offline game and requires either third-party solutions such as Parsec or Steam Remote Play, or activating the old version through the betas menu to play with other players online.
So far, everything seems great for a single player experience. But unfortunately, now we need to talk about something that was also present in the original game: AI opponents.

Everyone who has played FlatOut 2 knows about Jack Benton and Sofia Martinez. These guys are the bane of your existence in that game, constantly ending up in the top 3 of almost every race. This caused the races in that game to become quite boring for me, as I always knew who was competing for the first place and who was always going to get wrecked. Ultimate Carnage fixes some parts of this issue, while leaving other parts intact.
The AI seems to have been tweaked, as Ultimate Carnage sometimes surprises you with the opponent positions in each race and their cup results. You can see different racers taking different positions every time, even surprising you with how they perform compared to how they were in previous races or in FlatOut 2. This really helps the races to feel more unpredictable and stops them from having a stale and pre-determined nature. Not only that, you can also outrun the competition by mastering the tracks, leaving an insane amount of distance between you and the opponents behind you. That is, if you can actually play well enough do it; because the aggressive AI issue from FlatOut 2 is not fully gone.
Just like FlatOut 2, only specific racers are the contenders for top spots in each race. Jack Benton returns once again to dominate the competition, while the newcomer Lei Bing arrives to replace Sofia and continuously be a pain in your ass. Not only that, these racers are seriously fast this time around, to the point you can see them move at an incredibly higher speed compared to everyone else and witness their minimap indicators vanish from it because of how far away they are. On top of that, they drive almost flawlessly and rarely make any mistakes. If you make mistakes and fall so far behind, you'll have little chance of catching up to the top 2 and will have to get accustomed to silver and bronze cups. Only if you drive perfectly at top speed you can be able to reach them and potentially smash their car to hinder them. And this is something that is manageable for more experienced players, but surely will annoy others like newcomers as it forces them to constantly retry races.


It feels like the best game out of Bugbear's FlatOut trilogy. While the AI is still really hard to beat and lack of multiplayer can ruin the game for some, the rest of it feels a lot better than before.

[quote]Just saying, but I do have a curator page. If you like my remarks about games, you can find more of them here: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44130985-TDP%27s-Gaming-Escapades [/quote] By now, I have played all of the original FlatOut games developed by Bugbear. FlatOut 1 found its way to my worst games of all-time list, resulting in the angriest refund I have ever done on Steam. FlatOut 2 improved upon the original in nearly every way, but ultimately drove me away because of its overly aggressive AI and how rigged the races felt. Now we are dealing with the remake of FlatOut 2, which was released a generation after that game. FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage follows the same trend I have witnessed in FlatOut games, with every iteration improving upon the previous one's flaws. It tries to improve on many things, but there's one aspect of it that still stumbles behind the rest of it. [h2]Super FlatOut 2: The New Challengers - Arcade Edition[/h2] I cannot believe that I'm saying this, but this game finally won me over. When I started going through the FlatOut series, I wanted the games to offer "a thrilling combination of high-octane racing, smash-em-up demolition derby action and death" just as their advertisements claimed, yet they never delivered on those promises for me. Despite incorporating destruction and car combat in their gameplay, the first two games ultimately had more emphasis on regular racing, with most attempts to have fun causing you to to fall behind the competition. This was especially a problem in FlatOut 2, with the overly-aggressive AI paving the way for frustration. FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage is the game where the developers finally delivered on their promises for me. This version streamlines physics and collisions, often causing the cars to bounce back after hitting a wall and plow through some of the obstacles far easier than FlatOut 2. Not only that, the number of available opponents is now increased from 7 to 11, ramping up the unpredictability and madness you can face in each of the races and especially the destruction derby activities. I had a much more fun time playing FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage with the aforementioned changes, even though I was still annoyed by some of its other aspects. The game offered me what I wanted from the series, fixed some of my most hated gripes with FlatOut 2 and even gave me more of the events that I loved playing in that game. [h2]Two steps forward, one step back[/h2] The most obvious change in Ultimate Carnage compared to FlatOut 2 is the graphics. Ultimate Carnage takes the contents of the original game and brings it to the next generation of consoles (at the time) with improved graphics and redone models, taking advantage of the more powerful hardware. Not only that, certain stages have also gotten additional visual elements that weren't possible on the original. For example, now water canal looks like an actual water canal and has water in it. But this is not to say Ultimate Carnage is just a simple reskin of the original, as it offers you a bunch of new content as well. For starters, we now have a brand new game mode called the "Carnage Mode". This mode offers a standalone section for stunts and events where you can accumulate score to unlock more of them and unlock extra vehicles (like the school bus) by acquiring trophies in each of them. Then we have new event types in the form of Carnage Race where you are tasked with causing as much destruction as possible in a race before time runs out, Beat the Bomb which has you completing a race under a strict time limit, and a more arcade-y (and more fun) take on the destruction derby events where you have access to extra lives and powerups, giving you more encouragement to get up close and personal with the opponents. Alongside the aforementioned additions, the game now also has a brand-new cash award for every optional objective you fulfill at the end of a race. But even with all of the additions and enhancements, there's one part of the game that is completely missing. As of the latest update, the multiplayer mode is completely gone. Originally it was powered by the nightmare that was Games For Windows Live, and it seems like the current owners of the IP decided to remove it altogether instead of allocating resources to migrate the networking functions to Steamworks. This means Ultimate Carnage is now a purely offline game and requires either third-party solutions such as Parsec or Steam Remote Play, or activating the old version through the betas menu to play with other players online. So far, everything seems great for a single player experience. But unfortunately, now we need to talk about something that was also present in the original game: AI opponents. [h2]We were on the verge of greatness, we were this close![/h2] Everyone who has played FlatOut 2 knows about Jack Benton and Sofia Martinez. These guys are the bane of your existence in that game, constantly ending up in the top 3 of almost every race. This caused the races in that game to become quite boring for me, as I always knew who was competing for the first place and who was always going to get wrecked. Ultimate Carnage fixes some parts of this issue, while leaving other parts intact. The AI seems to have been tweaked, as Ultimate Carnage sometimes surprises you with the opponent positions in each race and their cup results. You can see different racers taking different positions every time, even surprising you with how they perform compared to how they were in previous races or in FlatOut 2. This really helps the races to feel more unpredictable and stops them from having a stale and pre-determined nature. Not only that, you can also outrun the competition by mastering the tracks, leaving an insane amount of distance between you and the opponents behind you. That is, if you can actually play well enough do it; because the aggressive AI issue from FlatOut 2 is not fully gone. Just like FlatOut 2, only specific racers are the contenders for top spots in each race. Jack Benton returns once again to dominate the competition, while the newcomer Lei Bing arrives to replace Sofia and continuously be a pain in your ass. Not only that, these racers are seriously fast this time around, to the point you can see them move at an incredibly higher speed compared to everyone else and witness their minimap indicators vanish from it because of how far away they are. On top of that, they drive almost flawlessly and rarely make any mistakes. If you make mistakes and fall so far behind, you'll have little chance of catching up to the top 2 and will have to get accustomed to silver and bronze cups. Only if you drive perfectly at top speed you can be able to reach them and potentially smash their car to hinder them. And this is something that is manageable for more experienced players, but surely will annoy others like newcomers as it forces them to constantly retry races. [h2]TL;DR[/h2] It feels like the best game out of Bugbear's FlatOut trilogy. While the AI is still really hard to beat and lack of multiplayer can ruin the game for some, the rest of it feels a lot better than before.