Critic & User Reviews
IGN Review of FlatOut: Head On
In roughly mid-2006, Bugbear Entertainment released FlatOut 2 on the PS2, OG Xbox and PC, a sequel that improved on its already-fun predecessor in almost every way. Late last year, the developer turned everything up a notch with FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage, an enhanced version of the game for the Xbox 360. Now, the studio (with a little help from Six by Nine) has brought the game to the PSP. Whereas the Xbox 360 release of Ultimate Carnage saw the bonus of enhanced graphics over the original PS2 and Xbox versions, the PSP release of Head On comes at us with diminished visuals, physics and overall frame rate. However, despite some issues related to this, it's still a very enjoyable title that racing fans should check out.
If you've played or read about FlatOut 2 or FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage, you'll know exactly what's in store for you here. There's really nothing new that's been added to the formula. The game is a physics-based racer, which means that practically everything around you is destructible, crashable or what have you. In fact, crashing into things is how you'll earn the all-important boost, and once you're at speed and trading paint with other racers, you'll notice slight hints of Burnout ingrained in its design.
The main FlatOut mode works as your basic career path, Carnage mode (from the 360 title) has been brought over and gives you a medal-based progression option, and there are the requisite stunt events that the series is famous for. WiFi multiplayer is present, but it only supports local play, so you can't hop online. So again, there hasn't really been anything new added to the PSP game, which is somewhat unfortunate, though we suppose additions are being held for FlatOut 3.
So what we're left with is, while old news to anyone who's a fan of the series, still a good deal of fun. The racing is just as chaotic as ever, the driving personalities aspect works (though it could still be better), and the mini-games are incredibly fun.
As mentioned though, there are a couple slight drawbacks to playing the game on the PSP. Firstly, the texture resolution is ghastly in some spots. There's a sign on top of a building in one of the early stages that you can crash through that looks like it uses a 16x16 texture expanded and blurred to fit something larger than your car. Not good at all. Some stuff looks good, while other stuff looks pretty bad. The tradeoffs make sense, as the cars and other things you look at all the time feature better work than the stuff that you don't see too often, but there are spots where something is very, very obvious and its low-res texture work really stands out, like the aforementioned sign, part of the ground, or a wall that you race right alongside.
©2008-03-13, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
If you've played or read about FlatOut 2 or FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage, you'll know exactly what's in store for you here. There's really nothing new that's been added to the formula. The game is a physics-based racer, which means that practically everything around you is destructible, crashable or what have you. In fact, crashing into things is how you'll earn the all-important boost, and once you're at speed and trading paint with other racers, you'll notice slight hints of Burnout ingrained in its design.
The main FlatOut mode works as your basic career path, Carnage mode (from the 360 title) has been brought over and gives you a medal-based progression option, and there are the requisite stunt events that the series is famous for. WiFi multiplayer is present, but it only supports local play, so you can't hop online. So again, there hasn't really been anything new added to the PSP game, which is somewhat unfortunate, though we suppose additions are being held for FlatOut 3.
So what we're left with is, while old news to anyone who's a fan of the series, still a good deal of fun. The racing is just as chaotic as ever, the driving personalities aspect works (though it could still be better), and the mini-games are incredibly fun.
As mentioned though, there are a couple slight drawbacks to playing the game on the PSP. Firstly, the texture resolution is ghastly in some spots. There's a sign on top of a building in one of the early stages that you can crash through that looks like it uses a 16x16 texture expanded and blurred to fit something larger than your car. Not good at all. Some stuff looks good, while other stuff looks pretty bad. The tradeoffs make sense, as the cars and other things you look at all the time feature better work than the stuff that you don't see too often, but there are spots where something is very, very obvious and its low-res texture work really stands out, like the aforementioned sign, part of the ground, or a wall that you race right alongside.
©2008-03-13, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved