Flashout 3

Genre: Futuristic Racing

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local Split-Screen)

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Review:

Flashout 3 is a Futuristic Racing game released in 2022 on PC and ported to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2023. This game aims to take a page out of the same book written by franchises like F-Zero and Wipeout, a subgenre that is still absolutely dominated on Nintendo Switch by the launch title Fast RMX. Will Flashout 3 be the game to finally topple Fast RMX?

No. For so many reasons, no.

Let’s start with the presentation. For a Futuristic Racing game, Flashout is shockingly slow. This is a genre known for absolutely insane speeds, but I swear Mario Kart feels faster than this. And while, yes, this game’s framerates and resolution are both decent (minus some shuttering I noticed that could have just been the camera bouncing off the track), the vehicles and tracks are both shockingly ugly, with terrible textures and low-poly environments. On menu and results screens, you get to see your racers themselves and their opponents, and it feels like someone tried to make the most generic-looking Cyberpunk characters possible. Heck, enemies are all just palette swaps of each other! All of this is backed by some pretty weak sound effects and a forgettable techno-inspired soundtrack.

Okay, so the game is ugly and fails to deliver speed, but… well, is the gameplay good at least?

Not really, no.

The core gameplay mechanics here are decent enough. Accelerate, turn, bank turn, and three weapon slots all work more or less well enough. It definitely feels like this game would have greatly benefitted from sacrificing a weapon slot in favor of a solid boost system, but otherwise this is more or less okay, though hardly inspired.

The problem is that the weapons themselves largely seem to whittle away at vehicles’ health, meaning that if you’re trying to take down an enemy, you’ll find it to be tedious and frustrating, and meanwhile you’ll see your health gradually chipped away with nothing you can do about it until you inevitably explode and respawn. And of course, that’s if you’re not careening into the sides of the track as it turns, tilts, and loops.

I can see some players maybe getting a bit of enjoyment out of Flashout 3, but I can’t help but ask why anyone would bother. This game looks ugly, is dreadfully slow, and the combat is far too tedious to be fun. Even if Fast RMX is too fast for you, why would you play this game over countless other better racers on Nintendo Switch? Take my advice and don’t.

tl;dr – Flashout 3 is a Futuristic Racing game that suffers from ugly visuals, a terrible sense of speed, and tedious combat. While not an absolutely horrible game, it’s so terribly lacking in so many areas that I can’t imagine why anyone would play this over the multiple better options on Nintendo Switch.

Grade: C-

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