FlatOut - super realistic racing simulator (FlatOut)
"Empire Interactive and Bugbear Entertainment announced they have sent 'FlatOut' racing sim for gold, which promises 'a never-before-seen level of physics-based implementation.' bounce off and cause damage to other cars.If you lose control of the car, you will feel all its mass and inertia, and in collisions and accidents, 40 different parts of the car can fly off or deform.Fragments of destroyed objects remain lying on the track, introducing an additional element of randomness and unpredictability into the race. Broken barriers, rolling tires and broken car parts make the track harder with every new lap."The game went "for gold", in connection with which I ask all those who have acquired the subject to share their impressions (is the game as good and realistic as the developers describe it; impressions of the game itself, etc.).
Screenshots for the game http://www.ag.ru/gallery/12052 and the official website of the game http://www.flatoutgame.com/ .
R.Y. Demo version is out. Download, share experiences.
Article:
The windshield is shattered, the hood is dented, the passenger side door is just a memory. As you frantically grip the gearshift, your crippled car, or what's left of it, hobbles toward the finish line, relentlessly pursued by the driver you forced into the water tower two laps back. With each collision and spectacular crash, the track changes, but you no longer follow the debris flying right at you. It's the last lap and it's going to be hard as hell, but you're driving to reach the finish line first and win - in the FlatOut game.
This new kind of rally intends to push this entire diesel-soaked genre off the beaten track. Two things attract and terrify equally - speed and destruction. The Flatout game puts you behind the wheel of a car and starts racing on the tracks, where with each new circle there are more and more deadly obstacles. Finnish developers Bugbear have reimagined classic racing with amazing innovations.
"One of the games we've always looked up to, and still look at, is Half-Life 2," says Bugbear's Aki Järvilehto. “When we first saw it, it occurred to us: what would happen if the same physics were applied to racing. Until now, no one has done anything like this.â€
It's probably a daring comparison, but remember Valve's HL2 cutscenes, remember the dynamic environments and the incredible game physics that reacted to Gordon's every move. It seemed that every action he took had an effect on the situation. Now get in the FlatOut and by the time you're in fourth gear, that's when it hits you. Throw the crowbar that Gordon was armed with into the trunk, equip him with a driver's helmet and put him behind the wheel - and there you have FlatOut.
However, the technology that Bugbear uses is not new. Under the hood of FlatOut you will find the same engine that was used in their Rally Trophy (released in 2000). But in four years of polishing and polishing it, a game physics has been created that can easily compare with Valve's Source engine. Fifteen racing tracks take place in different conditions: in forests, on asphalt tracks, in the urban landscape; each has its own set of short cut obstacles, and each has its own set of tricks, goodies and surprises.
"A lot of the items on the tracks are interactive," says Janne Alanenpaa. "If the car hits a power pole, it will collapse and you'll see wires snapping and sparks flying. That's the kind of thing that was in Half-Life 2."
Racing in such a dynamic environment is intoxicating. In many racing games, you may have seen roadblocks in the form of cones and piles of tires, but you have not yet seen how they roll and fly in different directions from a collision, and with amazing realism. You've never driven half a lap with a traffic cone like this stuck under your front wheel or a tire rolling on the hood. And until now, you have not had to overcome the track, which reacts so radically to the races going on it. The passion for destruction is satisfied by another impressive feature of the game: the real-time damage scheme.
"So far, no one has done anything like this," says Alanenpaa. "There are two different models for each car: an undamaged version and a completely broken version. When you damage a car, the damage is calculated immediately. The closer the state of the car moves to completely broken, the more its behavior corresponds to the second model."
Machines consist of a large number of different parts (up to 40), each of which has its own margin of safety. These parts are damaged with every push, bruise and collision. Panels get dented, bumpers come off as your car bounces back and forth on the highway. So very soon parts of the cars start to fly off and debris dot the whole track, which will become like a minefield.
Järvilehto says: “After just a few laps, the track will be littered with an incredible amount of debris. The consequences of the destruction caused by each car, or that the drivers themselves cause to the track, do not disappear, so the tracks "live" their lives. Every time the same track will look differently."
The next task that the developers set themselves is to find a balance between the visual effect of the innovative destruction scheme, on the one hand, and the control of the machine as such, on the other. For all the realism, the cars in the Rally Trophy were difficult to drive, and Bugbear is clearly going to implement more comfortable driving controls in FlatOut. And this means that realism will have to make room. "The destruction scheme is not designed to be realistic. It would mean that the race would be over for you very soon if you turned the car over once. The motor would stall, the drive wheel would slosh, all the damage would be reflected in the control of the car. But in the game, you are able to drive the car further, even if it is almost completely wrecked."
The essence of the game is to keep the cars on the track and continue the race, which means, among other things, that gradually between you and your computer rivals, enmity will begin to flare up. Bugbear is trying to create an AI driver that would also dynamically react to the environment, would harbor evil and remember insults, and would try to avenge you for that harmful maneuver with which you forced him to drive into the fence on the third circle. But at the same time, they are not obsessed with aggression: despite the lawlessness, the goal of FlatOut is still to reach the finish line. So your opponents will primarily strive to win, but nevertheless will be subject to inevitable driving mistakes.
"Drivers will make mistakes," says Alanenpaa, "it will make them more realistic, more alive. When your computer opponent's car is in the lead and you have to trail behind, there's nothing more satisfying than when he crashes into a fence because he's too stepped on the gas on the bump."
In the single-player version, you are on an equal footing with your computer opponents. Early in development, the game was supposed to have a story. The third-person view allowed players to get out of the car and walk around the buildings, wander into the garage for minor repairs, and even chat with other drivers in a virtual bar. This was the first attempt to reinvent the racing genre, but they were soon abandoned as it became clear that FlatOut's true potential lay elsewhere.
"At the beginning we thought about other aspects of racing," admits Järvilehto. “But when we finally fully debugged the engine, it became clear that what we really wanted to do well was the interaction with the environment and focus all attention on it, instead of doing a number of other diverse things moderately well. We looked at the novelties, introduced in first-person shooters and thought about the possibility of combining two different genres. But in the end, FlatOut is a racing game, and we decided not to include a story in it."
The plot has been shelved, but the idea of ​​drivers interacting with each other on the tracks is clearly appealing to developers. This idea will almost certainly be resurrected, at least in the form of mini-games. The introduction of mini-games will be more than just entertainment from boredom - they will allow the player to earn extra money and win money to buy new parts and improve the car for the main races. So far, the developers are not particularly sharing secrets, but at least they are hinting that the physics of mannequins will play some role there.
"We're just experimenting with different ideas for now, but we can already say that mini-games will allow you to embody completely crazy physics and add something really innovative. If you think about the test benches and put dummies in the driver's seat, then you will get an idea of ​​u200bu200b in which direction we are moving," say the developers. Yeah, the first thing that comes to mind is the way to "get out of the car through the windshield." In one of the mini-games, you will have to play the role of such a dummy (they are usually used to simulate accidents), and try to fly as far as possible from the car.
This is pure entertainment, albeit tasteless, but against the backdrop of total destruction in real races, such fun fits well into the overall style. It's not entirely clear yet how these mini-games will be introduced into the game in the middle of the races. You can immediately rule out total chaos like Carmageddon, since Bugbear clearly wants all players to stay behind the wheel. "We want everyone to keep racing," says Alanenpaa. "It's just that all these mannequin effects are designed to have a sense of shock, which is quite strong at first."
Flattening other drivers into a cake will come in handy in multiplayer, but it is still on the Bugbear list of priorities. As usual, the developers don't say much about the details, but for now, the "instant racing" mode with eight participants is almost ready; other modes are planned that can be played over LAN or over the Internet.
It is almost inevitable that there will be a "survival" mode, in which only one player must remain, on a number of specially designed tracks. It is unlikely that the developers from Bugbear will miss such a great opportunity, since it is suggested by the very combination of speed and destruction in the "core" game. FlatOut isn't fully up and running yet, but it's already clear that it won't be just another racing game.
December 2nd.
Better get a pirate. Should show up in a week.
Today is officially on sale.
Yes, it's a long wait, the next person will use the services of the pirates of the Caribbean.
do you know the system?
I have a Pentium 4 2400 Mhz GeForce FX 5700 128 mb 512 MB RAM (memory :) ) the demo does not slow down at all !!!
On max settings? And what will happen on my computer (stump 1800 gigahertz 768 zu zu
radeon 9600 ht seeing)?
And in the announcement of pisi games they wrote such a car, it will be needed once there is almost realistic damage!
2 Vra4: download the demo the game is cool!!! though sometimes it's boring when you go eighth and you can't catch up with anyone
This will be difficult with my modem connection! And why if this week
I will buy a pirate (I hope)?
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEATIVELY FUCK!
I'm also better off buying a pirate, with my 42 Kb.s I'll download to the bald spot!
Here are the official system requirements (from the Buki website) -
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Operating system Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
Processor Pentium III 1 GHz
RAM 256 MB
Video Video card of the third generation with 64 MB of memory
Free disk space 4 GB
Sound DirectX-compatible sound card
CD-ROM 4x speed
Additional software DirectX 9.0
Control Keyboard, mouse
GAME
RATING Game score: 9.2 (Voted: 293)