I am not usually known for my great passion for car racing games. The Need for Speed series never grabbed me and Colin McRae never really did much for me either, so it was a bit of a surprise when a friend introduced me to Flat Out and my initial reaction was a positive one.

Flat Out is a fairly mindless bit of fun – a third person (or should I say, third car?) perspective racing game, much like a game where Outrun meets Pitstop II (those are an old arcade game and an old Commodore 64 game for the uninitiated) and throws some very nice graphics into the mix.

The player is offered the chance to play the quick and dirty quick race mode or the more detailed career mode, where the player must compete in and achieve a high enough placing in a variety of races in order to unlock all manner of material, such as new circuits and car upgrades. These upgrades are many and varied, ranging from a simple tune-up or some better engine parts to the installation of a nitrous oxide tank for that added boost of speed at the crucial moment. In addition to the two main game modes, a multiplayer option also exists, which allows for network play against multiple friends. In all the modes a fairly wide variety of cars are available to choose from.

The graphics aren't out of this world, but as I mentioned above, they are nice enough to do the job well and one of the biggest charms of Flat Out is the way you are able to react convincingly with the environment – signs and fences are smashed, tire walls and stacks of barrels are sent flying, bouncing and rolling very realistically – It's all a bit of a hoot, especially when you enter the second lap of your circuit and can survey all the mayhem you have caused in your previous passage. In the meantime, your car is probably getting progressively more smashed up, with bits falling off and wobbling all over the place! The one issue I had with the graphics was the occasional failure of collision detection. On more than one occasion I have had bits of fence or planks embedded in my car and protruding from all sorts of unlikely angles as I careened around the track.

Sound wise the game is also top notch, with all the car sounds you would expect and a blood pumping soundtrack, not unlike the sort of thing you would expect on a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater game, which really gets the race atmosphere going. I did find it odd that when networking the players will not all have the same song going at once, but that's no big deal.

Of course, the most important element of the game by far is the game play. To be honest, despite all the praise I have heaped on it, I can't see Flat Out as ever being a game you would play for huge lengths of time. The single player modes aren't terrifically fun and I tired of them quickly. The real magic of the game is playing against friends, smashing each other off the track, and howling with laughter as they are thrown through the windshield and generally involved in hideous accidents. It's never going to be something I play for hours on end, even networking, but for the moment nary a LAN goes by without someone at some point exclaiming "Hey! Let's have a quick few rounds of Flat Out!" There usually aren't too many voices of protest and much hilarity and enjoyment then ensues.

Flat Out is well worth a look if you are a keen fan of the racing genre and possibly worthy of a place in your game collection if you are a keen networker who is looking for just the right sort of light hearted game to break up some of the more heavy action. Flat Out is not something you can play all day and is by no means a classic, but it sure is fun in small doses!