With the ongoing conflict for oil plaguing the modern world, countless debates have emerged questioning whether the whole endeavour will ultimately have been worthwhile. With so many lives lost, billions invested and all the hatred of the Middle East there must be some light at the end of the tunnel. Why have we been fighting this seemingly pointless struggle for a rapidly depleting resource? Has there been some point to it all?

Too right there has! It's all been so that backwater America can get in their rusted up gas guzzlers, put the pedal to the metal and drive their rivals to destruction!

Isn't it glorious to live in a disposable society?

The destruction-racing genre is one that has been sorely ignored on the 360. Whilst the Playstation 3 was granted the spectacular looking Motorstorm off the bat, the 360 hasn't seen too much action since Burnout Revenge and Full Auto at launch. They were fun to kill off the usual launch drought before the big titles hit the scene, but both have long since been forgotten with gamers. Burnout was simply an enhanced port of its last gen siblings, though Sega's Full Auto was an ambitious title that offered car combat racing set in massively destructible environments. The amount of destruction possible was certainly impressive, but unfortunately the game was let down by one significant factor for me; slowdown. The game could not maintain a constant frame rate and would buckle under pressure in times of high intensity - not good when that's the main draw card for the game. Now Bugbear Interactive has come along to tackle the genre with the next-gen instalment in the destruction derby inspired Flatout series, Ultimate Carnage, and the only thing slowing this baby down is a barnyard wall at 130km/h! For those unfamiliar with the series, Flatout sees you in an all-out Dukes of Hazzard-style race against eleven other drivers as you make your way through the championships from racing rusted out junkers around the caravan park to souped up tuners on the city streets,

As soon as you pop the game disc in, the game looks deceptively very much like Burnout Revenge, with the menus, HUD and general theme of the game screaming "Burnout for backwater America"! Coming from my Burnout roots, I initially thought I'd try to play the game similarly, attempting to knock my rivals into barriers and boost away, but this time, I kept finding myself at the back of the pack. Whilst both games focus on boosting and destruction, both play distinctly differently. While Burnout focuses on risk taking and precision knocks, Flatout rewards big jumps, massive slams and all round chaos. Needless to say, if you're looking to kill some time before Burnout Paradise is released, this one should fill in the gap nicely.

Apart from racing, the Flatout series is known for its mini-games, particularly the infamous high jump event, where you send your rocket powered car hurtling down the track and launch the driver 150m high through the windshield of the car. These all make a welcome return, but as far as I could tell, they are unchanged since Flatout 2. It would have been nice to see some new ways to send your hapless driver to the emergency room.

Most impressive about the game in its jump to the next-gen is most notably the graphical improvements. Every element on the racetrack is practically destructible and all backed by the impressive physics engine, complete with that luscious next-gen sheen. Even my HD Plasma owning, PS3 playing, Motorstorm spoilt mate was instantly impressed by the graphics on my standard definition CRT. So that's saying something.


Flatout Ultimate Carnage is a welcome addition to the 360 and is sure to please all your high-speed hillbilly desires. Beneath the spit and polish it might be little more than an enhanced and improved version of Flatout 2, but chances are you overlooked it in the first place when you made the jump to next-gen. I know I sure did.

If you prefer to tear your car down then build it up, give it a shot and you should find yourself right at home.