Oh hell yeah I’ve played almost all of both series.
Flatout 1 is alright, hasn’t aged especially well. Suffers from being completely overshadowed by its sequel in every way.
Flatout 2/Ultimate Carnage is still my favorite Bugbear game, with Wreckfest being a close but firm second.
Flatout 3 is.
Flatout 4 is honestly not terrible, but still feels like a cheap imitation of the first 2 games.
Burnout 1 also suffers from sequel shadow.
Burnout 2 is a great arcade racer that no one talks about because…
Burnout 3 is quite possibly the best arcade racer ever made. Absolute masterpiece.
Burnout Revenge is somehow just as good. Whether I prefer this or 3 depends entirely on how much I enjoy traffic checking on that day. I posted Junkie XL - Today to the music community a few days ago because I was playing Revenge recently, what a soundtrack.
Still haven’t played Dominator, should probably get around to that.
Burnout Paradise is also excellent in its own right, but I think going open world took away some of the charm that the previous games had. Tracks were so well designed in 3 and Revenge. Still love Paradise too, but 3 and Revenge are just absurdly good.
Fuck yeah. After Test Drive Solar Crown turned out to be live service garbage, I’ve been waiting for another racing game to look forward to. Hopefully the career mode has a bit more depth than Wreckfest 1.
The PC port of FC2 is a disaster though. I remember sitting through that long intro cutscene so many times, it just kept crashing before the first save point…
People complain about PC ports now (and rightfully so) but man there was a constant stream of garbage ports in the late ‘00s that were never fixed.
The firm is also in talks with a “known company” for a potential sale of its NASCAR license.
I’m guessing it’s Kylotonn. They just lost the WRC license and are nearing the end of Test Drive Solar Crown development. They need a franchise they can push out every year.
Another possibility is EA, because they love their yearly releases and have an abundance of racing game developers right now (Codemasters, Slightly Mad Studios, Evolution (or what’s left of them), Criterion, Firemonkeys).