FlatOut engine appreciation

HangTime

HangTime

HangTime

Man of Honour
Joined
25 Oct 2002
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Just thought I would start a thread in praise of the FlatOut engines. For me, they have pretty much everything:

-Graphics look great
-Performance is great
-Physics are great (debris, stunts etc)
-Car handling is great (for arcade style) - it just feels fun without being glued to the road like you are in some rubbish (see NFS World).
-No obvious bugs that I have noticed

So in summation I would say these games have arguably the most well rounded engine I've come across, I am really struggling to find fault with it.
 
mmm I'd have to say the graphics are acceptable but not good, and also the car handling is fun and arcadey and works for the game, but is still only acceptable.
 
The game isn't outstanding , but its very solid as a physics based arcade racing game.
 
Have to say, not the best racing game, but i enjoyed it a lot. The engine is great. The fun is in the multiplayer stunts and 4 player party mode.

Even when it was released it ran quiet smooth on lower hardware, and oozed class.
 
The original flatout, the motorstorm in terms of looks back in the day. When they first released the screens, mindblowing with the detail.

The dev team had good pedigree with the exelent rally trophy, and doing their own thing with the outback rally series, had to be a winner, i was chomping at the bit.

Realy enjoyed it when it finaly came out, smooth as a groove, played like a dream looked the biz.. sadly they kinda sold out to the xbox though.

The menu system spelt doom, the promised multiplayer options were intergrated in to the lackluster console ui. While you could get multiplayer working, never very popular given the hoops you had to jump through, a real missed opportunity to build the kind of fanbase that rally trophy drawn in.

2 was more the same with added bang. Great thread though, the game's unique enough to warrant some love, for it's shortcomings with the original, the refined detailed looks of the first game had PC power written all over it.
 
Don't forget the Music!

EDIT: I know that's not engine related... but... but... I don't care and there were some great songs on there! :)
 
The car handling is something that always makes me just mad at how bad most arcade racers are. The cars in FlatOut have clear weight, power and handling characteristics, and although it's obviously been simplified to make it work with a keyboard or gamepad, it still feels like you are driving something closely related to a car. With most arcade racers, the cars don't feel anything like actual cars, and that always makes me lose interest really quickly.

But yeah, Bugbear has done good so far. I'd love a sequel to Rally Trophy, but they are apparently working on some kind of action/driving game, which doesn't sound that exciting to me.
 
Deific said:
mmm I'd have to say the graphics are acceptable but not good
Click to expand...

Ok maybe 'great' was an exaggeration, but I'd certainly say they are good. The main thing is performance is excellent and it feels very smooth, in terms of Bling*fps it's probably one of the best engines I've seen, and the graphical style integrates well with the physics. In so many driving games, you see some silly little fence post made out of plastic/wood, about 1/1000th the size of your car, yet when you drive into it, you come to crunching halt. In the FO games, it's very rare you get stopped in your tracks by something you weren't expecting, because the visual style represents accurately the characteristics of objects in the world.

It's got water effects, it's got sunsets, it's got debris flying everywhere - yes there is maybe an aspect of oversimplifying the options for consoles but it still feels like a PC game when actually playing.
 
Picked up the whole Flatout collection during Steam summer sale for less than £6.00 iirc, great multi player game :)
 
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