Flatout2 interview - XBW and Bugbear entertainment
posted 07/06/06
Did you play the first FlatOut game? If you did then you know why we liked it, if you didn't and enjoy racing games then shame on you! 'Ragdoll' physics in a racing game, tracks littered with hundreds of objects, plenty of scenery to bust through and best of all, being able to slam your Xbox Live friends out of their windscreens into trees made it a unique, if flawed in places, experience. Yeah, we liked it, but it had a few issues as do most games..
Unfortunately FlatOut2 is only for Xbox, but even with a few issues, we had a pretty good time with the first game and the upcoming sequel will no doubt see many of us dust off the black beasts for some more mayhem filled racing action. If we're lucky, perhaps the developers might even see fit to include 360 backwards compatibility out of the box as well? To find out what our chances are, and what the sequel holds in store for us we chased down Jussi Laakkonen from the development team at BugBear entertainment in Finland to answer a few questions for us.
Hi Jussi, thanks for taking the time to speak to us. Can you introduce yourself to the XBW readers and give us some information about your role on FlatOut2? Did you work on the first game also?
Hi! My name is Jussi Laakkonen and I work as Bugbear Entertainment's business development director. Behind that very boring sounding title I take part in project management, game design, publisher relations and much more. I was also part of the team who worked on the original FlatOut.
Development teams work so hard on their games so how did the team at BugBear deal with some of the criticism levelled at FlatOut? There was plenty of fun to be had in it so in a situation like that what do you do? Listen to the fans or stick with what your own vision of the game should be?
We listened quite a lot to the fans. We spent time reading forum postings, previews and reviews as well as fan feedback emails in order to spent patterns of problems, that would need addressing. From relatively mundane things like "I want to have more than one car in my garage" to more overarching feature requests like "The career mode should have more depth" the feedback from the fans echoed quite closely our own post mortem of FlatOut, so it was very clear from the get go on how to improve for the sequel.
FlatOut was our first console title and we learnt a lot while making it. FlatOut 2 was a great opportunity to build on the solid foundation of FlatOut and to take the whole game a lot further and polish it a lot.
What are the major new enhancements to the physics that you have in store for FlatOut2?
FlatOut physics were already leading environmental physics in any racing game on the consoles, and FlatOut 2 has taken that leadership a lot further. In terms of raw performance, the increase is 66%, so we've gone from an average of 3000 to average of 5000 dynamic, destructible objects per track. There's a lot more stuff for the players to crash thru and it makes FlatOut 2 a much more exhilirating ride. At the same time the features of the physics engine have expanded greatly and the engine supports new interaction types such as explosions.
The increased object count combined with new physics features have allowed our track designers to make FlatOut 2's tracks even more compelling. For example, the player will encounter gas stations where the gas pumps explode on impact.
FlatOut's physics engine is definitely among the very best physics engines on PS2 and Xbox. Especially in the racing genre, the game's level of interactivity is leaps ahead of other games.
Will we see any new environments in FlatOut2? Driving at crazy speeds through forests was plenty of fun and we've seen some screenshots of a city track. What other types of tracks can we expect to see, eg; can we get a couple more arena type levels again?
There's plenty of arena action in FlatOut 2! The game features six derby arenas built for destruction and several racing arenas such as speedbowls, ovals and even specialty tracks like tri-ovals. The game features a great variety of environments including downtown city, LA canals, desert, forest and crop fields. You'll be racing like a madman across 60 tracks all primed for destruction!
Will the career mode offer up any new features?
The whole career mode is completely new. The career consists of three classes (derby, race and street), which are all open from the get go. You'll work thru each of the classes which consists of a series of cups, in which you need to score enough points from the races to qualify for the next cup. The player always has at least two cups open per class along with side attractions such as ragdoll events, so player's will find a lot of freedom in their progression.
The career pits you against seven intriguing AI drivers, each with their bespoke vehicles and distinct driving styles. The races become a much more personal affair as you'll be continously battling with Katie, Jack and Susie (just to name a few of the drivers). As you work your way thru the career you find more information on the drivers backgrounds as well as tips on the how to succeed in races against them.
The vendettas between the drivers will play a big part as you race for cup points. A strategic element comes to play as to place in the top three of the whole cup it might be more advantageous for you to completely wreck an opponent (and thus taking him out of the race and leaving him with out cup points) instead of actually winning the current race yourself.
What about the destructibility in the game? This was one of the highlights of the first game so how has this been enhanced in FlatOut2 for the cars and the tracks?
FlatOut 2's cars take a huge amount of beating and really show off all those scars. The car deformation and damage modeling in FlatOut 2 is really outstanding: over 40 detachable parts for each car, fully dynamic vehicle mesh deformation (shows convincingly how each hit on the car deforms it), engines on fire, ability to lose wheels as well as being able to completely wreck a car. It's "CARnage" :-).
On the tracks it really comes back to our industry leading physics system, which allows the player to wreak havoc on a scale not seen on the current generation consoles. You'll be racing thru shopping malls, lumber yards, loading docks and much much more!
Can you describe an example of the difference in the vehicle damage? It was great before but just how much more detail are we going to see as our cars fly to pieces around us?
Let's just take the example of being able to lose a wheel. If you start getting damage to your front corner, you'll see the metal panels starting to bend. The paint job is definitely gone. Hit it more against the rivals or the environment, and parts start to fly off. Perhaps your front bumber is teared off, or the fender flies off. Once the wheel's exposed and it starts to getting hammered, it will accumulate damage and once past the critical stage, the wheel will fly off, leaving you to drive with three wheels with sparks flying off where metal meets asphalt. FlatOut 2's cars are not made for be stored in a museum, they are yours to wreck as you please!
Will there be any new online modes for Xbox Live? Will the mini games or arena levels be playable online?
All of FlatOut 2's game modes are playable over Live, and we believe derbies and especially ragdoll sports are going to be a huge hit on Live. Just imagine taking on a bunch of friends from a round of ragdoll stone skipping (oh yes, you get to throw that guy thru the windshield and onto the swimming pool and into multiple bounces off the water's surface) - it's gonna be just awesome!
Live fans will also be able to construct their own tournaments with races, derbies and stunts as they see fit. This will allow friends and teams to really go competitive.
What new mini games are you working on? Can you share some information on some of the new ones?
All of the ragdoll spont events in FlatOut 2 are new and there's a total 12 of them. Each of the events has their own, involved game mechanics so there's plenty of depth and challenge to master the events. Combine this with the new acrobatics feature that allows you to steer the ragdoll while mid-flight, and you get much more playtime from the ragdoll sports than before.
Actual events include beforementioned Stone Skipping, Rings of Fire, Field Goal, Baseball, Royal Flush and much much more!
The first FlatOut game isn't on the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility list. Have you considered releasing a patch for FlatOut2 to allow Xbox 360 owners to buy and play the new game when it comes out?
We have actually investigate this to great extent, but it is not really up to developer to provide backwards compatibility support. It is something only Microsoft can do and it's completely hands-off for the developers. So, at present we don't know if the FO2 will run on the Xbox 360 eventually.
What does the future hold for BugBear? FlatOut must have sold pretty well to spur interest in a sequel so what else are you guys working on at the moment? Are you tempted to step outside the racing genre?
We are not yet discussing our future projects, but let's just say that we are definitely interested in making more original, exciting games!
Thanks for answering our questions Jussi. There's obviously plenty of Xbox owners still out there looking forward to new games so we hope FlatOut2 is something special when it's released soon!
Interview by Shane Bryan
