What does Ultimate Carnage offer over FlatOut 2?

Danny Rawles: FlatOut Ultimate Carnage will be the definitive version of FlatOut available on any platform. The series has always paved the way for technological advances in a racing game, now we're bringing this technology over to the next generation and raising the bar higher.

But it's not all about the physics, technology and gorgeous visuals, the gameplay has been tweaked and fine-tuned and new game modes have been included to both single player and Live.

What new features have been afforded by the superior Xbox 360 hardware?

Rawles: We're pushing the hardware as far as we can and so far everything is holding together. From a memory point of view, we've upped the number of dynamic objects you can crash into from approx 5,000 to somewhere between 7 and 8,000 objects.

And these objects stay on the track and can influence gameplay, they don't get reset or fade away over the course of a race. With the increased GPU power, we can now render more cars (12 in-game), at higher resolutions, with thousands more polygons.

All the cars have real-time environment mapping and real-time shadow mapping including self-shadowing. In fact, the entire scene, not just the cars have a real-time shadow map. All buildings, trees, cars, characters, and every single one of the 8,000 objects have a proper shadow.

Tell us a bit about the new game modes.

Rawles: We've really concentrated on bolstering up the arcade side of the game. This makes it a lot more accessible and immediate with quick rewards to appeal to players who prefer not to get buried deep into the career mode. More details about game modes will be revealed at a later date.

Have you taken any influence from PS3's Motorstorm, and do you feel motivated by the increased competition?

Rawles: In all honesty no, we've not been influenced by Motorstorm. Looking at some of their features, perhaps they've been influenced by FlatOut.

We've obviously kept an eye on it to see what they're doing but it's not a direct competitor to FOUC since they are PS3 exclusive and we are Xbox 360 exclusive. But competition in general is always a good thing.

You have to stand out in this competitive genre and we're making sure FOUC does exactly that. If you think destruction, damage and carnage, we want FOUC to be the first game that comes to mind.

What are your plans for Xbox Live play and how does Ultimate Carnage perform online compared to single-player?

Rawles: Performance wise, simply superb. This is where the game comes into its own. I really enjoy the single player modes and the AI is very good at being unpredictable like real people are, but playing on Live with a bunch of mates takes the experience to a whole new level.

The plan is to create a more seamless and rich experience on Live. The first big change is hostless sessions for our ranked games, which has a couple of immediate benefits.

Firstly it makes ranked games fairer since there is no host to dictate his or her favourite track. Secondly there's less waiting around since lobbies are timed, again you don't have to rely on a host to physically start a game, so the turnaround is a lot quicker.

The second big change is the infamous Rag Doll Stunt games, which have been overhauled. We've changed the gameplay from being turn-based to simultaneous play. The problem with an eight-player turn-based game is that it can take a very long time to finish and for most of the time you're just a spectator. Now the stunts are simultaneous online, they're more fun and immediate for the player.

Have the huge amount of dynamic objects caused problems for optimising the game for online play?

Rawles: Well this was solved way back in the days of FlatOut 1 and even though we have thousands more objects and everything is vastly more detailed, the Xbox 360 is proving this won't be a problem online. What you see and experience in single player, is what you'll see and experience online.

Interesting. Sounds like a fun game, I never did play the first one. And while it may not look crazy impressive, it hardly looks bad either. Some nice damage modeling they've got there.

Hmm..maybe I should try Flatout 1? It has a destruction derby mode? I'm sold already.