FlatOut is the first game in the series of famous racing arcade games from Bugbear Entertainment, released in 2004. In Russia, it was published by Buka. You can play FlatOut on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 2. Since 2006, the project has been available on the digital content delivery system Steam.
At the time of its release, FlatOut was considered one of the most reckless and spectacular racing games featuring racing cars. Various vehicles sped across improvised tracks, breaking apart into tiny pieces and destroying everything in their path. FlatOut featured realistic physics and an incredible destruction model - each car could deform in forty different ways. Flying bolts, pieces of metal, bumpers, wheels, and other body parts also contributed to the madness of the overall gameplay.
Interestingly, all the items that fell off the car could inflict significant damage to other racers - players had to maneuver around heaps of metal debris, trying not to hit them. Nevertheless, the game itself encouraged gamers to total destruction of everything and anything. Players could destroy not only other cars but also anything within the racing track - barriers, fences, various buildings, and much more. In fact, some modes were specifically created by the hot Finnish guys at Bugbear Entertainment to allow players to satisfy their urge for vandalism. Why drive in circles when you can crush an enemy’s car and thus earn victory? And that is all about FlatOut - a reckless, crazy, yet so fun game.
Of course, there was no plot to be found in FlatOut, but if the developers had incorporated this crucial aspect into their creation, the game could have turned out much worse. As it was - just racing and several game modes, divided into cups. There were three cups in total - bronze, silver, and gold. In each cup, players could find a certain number of tracks, totaling approximately 50. To advance to the next stage, players had to place in the top positions in each race. Successful completion of a track rewarded players with a certain amount of money, which could be spent on upgrading rusty and not-so-rusty death traps.
If the relatively measured game (considering the factor of general destruction) became boring for the gamer, they could easily participate in regular races (outside of qualification stages) or engage in performing various dangerous stunts. It didn't matter that potential stuntmen turned their cars into smoking wrecks in 99% of cases; the fun was, as they say, plentiful. Unfortunately, none of the subsequent games in the FlatOut series could boast the unrestrained atmosphere that was present in the first part.