I'd hate to own a new car. A new shiny blue car with electric windows, air conditioning, alloy wheels, metallic paint and other fancy bits and bobs. To be honest, I'd rather buy a scrapper - with normal wheels, bog-standard paint, wind-down windows, with just a basic heating system. Maybe even a big dent in for good measure! My reason for this is simple. I wouldn't dare take a new car out! Sure, it looks nice, but if you are scared of taking it out and parking it in a car park for fear of acquiring a new scratch or bump, then it's useless. At least with a scrapper you can take it out, park it sideways, have fun with it and burn it out when you're done! Of course, if somebody offered me a nice blue shiny car for free (hint, hint) I wouldn't refuse it!

It's taken a while for games developers to see sense and see things in this light, but it has finally happened. We don't want a racing game where you take to the tracks in a Beamer. No, we want to go out there in a scrapper, attach laughing gas, upgrade it and race. We don't want to worry about scratching the paintwork, or spinning it into a wrecked ball of flames - we want to laugh at such occurences. Flat Out has finally answered our prayers, giving us the power to buy scrappers, attach even more scrap and then race around like lunatics. And it does a fine job, too.

Flat Out starts out like any good racer would. You create a name, pick a mode - in this case it was the career - you buy a car in your price range and you go into the garage. But as simple as that may sound, picking your car can be the hardest part of the game. You are faced with the decision of choosing from five cars, from the start. Of course more become available later on, but there are five beauties (or pieces of scrap on wheels) here to take your money. There are three things to determine a good purchase. There's horsepower - my favourite racing term, weight - both a good thing, and a bad thing and the price - the lower the better. The weight is great for inflicting damage and taking damage, but you'll see some noticeable sluggish first-off speeds when you leave the line - this is not to say that the heavier cars don't hold their speed well though, because they do.

After umming and ahhing over which car to buy, I eventually decided to get the Pepper, a car that wouldn't cripple my budget with mediocre horse power but as light as a feather - the lightest of all cars in the game. I chose a colour for my newly bought scrapper and took it to the garage where I had $700 to play about with. I decided to buy myself some new tires and an engine upgrade, which boosted my horsepower considerably higher. I was now officially broke - so it was time to win me some races.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that I could actually pick which course to race on and if I won the race I selected, I could go forward from there, progressing in my own way, with my own choices. It was like a tree diagram for races, which I liked a lot. I picked a race in the forest first - what a stupid move that was!

The actual racing side of the game is absolutely fantastic. To be honest, I have been hooked to this game since I loaded it up. It's so fresh, so new and so exciting. You and seven others are at the starting line as they count you down. 3… 2… 1… go! And then you're off, as fast as you can, like there's no tomorrow. Bumping into each other, like a pack of angry women fighting in the store to get the deal of the day! In this game though, bumping is a lot more rewarding than in a frenzied clothes sale, because bumping into your opponents fills up a Nitro meter. Any ideas what that is for?

Well, I'll tell you - I'm not busy! The Nitro meter is by far the best part of the game. It allows for some nail-bitingly close races, tense moments and satisfying overtakes. When your meter has a little Nitro in it, simply down a button to increase your speed - fast! It's like a turbo boost, except you can hold to boost down, increasing your speed by the second. Not only that, providing you have enough juice, you can use Nitro anywhere.

You will be awarded Nitro based on a few factors. The first one is by bumping into others - the faster the bump, the more Nitro you earn and if you manage to tip your opponent over or send them spinning into oblivion then all the better! The second factor is by crashing into special objects around the racecourse. The courses are littered with all sorts of things that get in your way; cones, barrels, signposts, bridge pillars, tires, stupidly parked trucks, abandoned cranes and a lot more! In fact, there are well over 100 different things on each course. (3000+ apparently!) Avoiding these items allows for a much smoother race but crashing into them earns you serious Nitro and a bit of bonus cash to upgrade your battered vehicle.

However, these items can be more than annoying at times. You see, if you knock a load of barrels onto the road, you'll get some nitro for it and you'll no doubt ride off into the distance. But the general rule with races is that you have to come back around! The barrels you knocked over previously will be scattered in the road the next time you passand get in your way. You can bet your boots that you'll benefit from them when you knock them down and shave time off the clock with your Nitro - but that time will catch up when you crash into your own mess the next time around! It is annoying but most of the gameplay is based around frustration and challenge. Remember Wipeout? God, that used to boil my blood - I'd be first, then I'd get a rocket up the rear and I'd suddenly be last. But it was that blood-boiling gameplay that hooked me in a similar way to how Flat Out has me now.

I think it's a really good thing that the scenery is so well programmed and that the game remembers what you crash into and where the pieces go once you've knocked an object down. In fact, it's that smart scenery that creates the competitive aura between me and my friends. I'll crash into things on purpose to ruin their racing experience and make me the winner! Knock tires into the road and caused a pile up near the abandoned cars and diggers - how I laughed. Of course, you'll have to remember where all these inconveniences are, but providing you do that, Flat Out could be called a tactical racer.

Acquiring the Nitro is easy but using it to its full potential can take some mastering. After playing for a few hours though, I spotted some clever uses for the Nitro. First off - nitro makes cutting corners a breeze. Just hold it down, go over land and take first place in a split second! Another thing Nitro can do is turn the tables for you, swiftly. If you're on the final stretch and you have enough Nitro, hold it down and overtake all of the cars ahead of you! It's one of the most satisfying things you could ask for in a racing game. The beauty of this game is the fact that you haven't won until you cross the line - you can never be too overconfident and you should never think it's in the bag because the tables can turn all too quickly. First of all, you have the obstacles to contend with and crashing into those can be very hit and miss! You could end up crashing your way through and bagging some Nitro or you could end up having to reverse out of a sticky situation. And when you are reversing on a track full of scrap cars, the opponents aren't going to swerve just for you! They are going to crash into you and make your life worse than it already is.

And if the obstacles don't get you, the corners will. Taking a corner slowly is probably the best idea but if you go too slowly, somebody will ram you off the road! Taking a corner fast can result in spinning your car, which is the most frustrating thing in the game! It takes you ages to recover from a spin and when you do eventually recover and you think you are going straight again, your car tends to swerve in and out for a while, making it difficult to control! Obviously, the last thing that can swing it either way is the Nitro - it's lovely when you are using it to win but when the AI opponents use it, they will have you crying like a little girl. The fact that it's not over until you cross that line means that the races are almost too close for comfort and there's hardy any space between the drivers. It's a good thing in the sense that the first player is never too far away but it's bad in the sense that if you're first, be prepared to become last at the drop of a hat.

While some people might not like the sound of the above - I sure do. It takes me ages to complete any single race - I don't like to come first with ease, I want to come first and think "that was a close one, I did well there," so Flat Out pleases me in that respect but it could deter the Mario Kart kid [I dunno, that Mario Kart can be mighty tough on the higher difficulties! Ed].

Anyone with a sick sense of humour, or a taste for alcohol should find the Hotseat multiplayer mode to be a barrel of laughs. Within Hotseat mode there are 12 playable mini-games, 6 of which are playable with just one control pad! The 6 you can only play with a certain number of controllers are normal racing tracks and destruction arenas - but the other 6 that only require one controller are out of this world! You and your friends compete for scores in a human-sized game of bowling, darts, high jump, long jump, bull's eye and clown! And when I say human size, that's just what I mean! On the high jump for example, you drive along a stretch of land, until you hit an almost vertical incline to get your car off the ground and into the air. For several attempts I thought that I had to break the big measurement chart in the air with my car, how wrong I was! On closer inspection I found out that I had to dive out of the car, in mid air, get high in the sky with the driver and land safely on a gym mat! I laughed myself to the point of tears when my skinny man in a leather jacket dived out of the windscreen and bounced off the gym mat when he eventually landed! You and your friends pass the controller and you each have 3 pops at the event - the highest score at the end wins.

The other modes in Hotseat are similar-but-different to the high-jump game. You still have to bail out of the windscreen but you have to land differently, under different rules for the other game. Clown, for example, sees you charge towards a big clown billboard with various holes with nets on. You job is to jump out of the car at the right time and land in one of the holes. Each hole gives a certain amount of points, which are then added up at the end. Bull's eye is a mode where you have to jump and slide across the ground headfirst, to try and score big. Darts is similar to high jump, except you dive towards a human size dart board - again head first (ouch!) Long jump sees you dive before the cut off point and slide along a muck track to rank up a long score - and the last one, Bowling, consists of a similar scenario to the long jump but this time you'll be sliding along to knock down pins! This really is multiplayer fun at its best! The other modes are equally as fun, with fast and furious races, and destruction arenas where you knock each other to bits. Flat Out is best served chilled with plenty of beers to accompany it.

I am very impressed with Flat Out's graphics. Although a few things such as character detail don't quite match up with the sleekness of Sam Fisher, everything else is fantastic. First of all, let's look at the courses. They are absolutely astounding. What you see, you can destroy! You can go around, looking at the pretty bridges, or you can go around ramming them down. There are a few exceptions, such as trees, but most things are destructible and they look great when you destroy them. There's no slowdown when you are speeding down the tracks and the textures on the courses don't flicker like some racing games I could mention. In actual fact, there are some pretty luscious things to be seen on the courses and it's apparent that a lot of time has been put it here.

The cars are another thing that makes your jaw drop; the level of detail in the vehicles is amazing. You've got to realise that you aren't just seeing a perfect car all the way around - over time the car gets battered and even sets on fire in some extreme circumstances. The glass cracks and smashes, the doors hang off before eventually falling off; there's so much detail it's untrue. There must be at least 20 damage states that the car goes through before actually bursting into flames and, depending on where you get hit, the damage patterns change accordingly.When you crash at a high speed, Flat Outthe game goes into slow motion as your driver flies out of the window and lands on his head at the other side of the racecourse! The slow motion clips are enjoyable to watch and they are different every time, depending on how you crash. There is definitely some good rag doll physics to be seen in this game.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that Flat Out's graphics are nothing short of outstanding, surpassing most other racers out there and with the detailed physics surrounding both the courses and the vehicles, the graphics gets a big thumbs up. The sound isn't quite as good as the graphics but it's still pretty impressive. When you first power the game up, you'll hear a rather catchy theme tune, which runs throughout the menu system. When you're racing there are a handful of songs to be heard, consisting of heavy guitar riffs - music you would indeed destroy things to. The music really does fit the game but after a while it can become repetitive - especially when you start hearing the same track over and over. The sound can be adjusted, so you can have fainter music and louder sound effects - which is where Flat Out's sound department excels. The sounds of the engine are devious, menacing and angry as they roar around the corners at full speed. Appropriate sounds for accelerating, decreasing speed, slamming on the brakes, skidding around corners, smashing into objects and applying Nitro are all here and they all sound great. All that's missing is a fog-horn attached to the side of the car!

Flat Out is a fantastic game. I've never heard of the developer Bugbear before but if they continue to produce games of this calibre, I can see big things for them in the future. Furthermore, I think Flat Out has got what it takes to become a franchise as popular as Burnout if it really takes off and it may even prove to be a worthy contender. I'm looking forward to many more Flat Out games in the future and I can already see potential and things that could be added to make the game even better. How about machine guns for a start?! But as it is, Flat Out will make a worthy addition to anybody's collection, regardless of your favourite genre. Now, who's for a game of car-propelled human high jump?

Reviewed by Dexter Pearson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).