As a kid I used to love playing F-Zero. As a teenager I used to love playing Wipeout. And as an adult I mostly enjoyed playing Flashout 3. Mostly.
I had never heard of the Flashout series before I was given a review code for the third one. At the time, the second one was on sale on Steam for about a buck, and the first one wasn’t even available in the storefront. So I have to say, I wasn’t expecting much from this title. And really, when I first glanced at the title — Flashout 3 — I first thought it read as Fleshlight 3, and then upon a second look thought it said Fallout 3, only to finally realize it in fact was Flashout 3.
Not that Wipeout is all that great as a title for a high-speed glider racer, but Flashout doesn’t really move the needle much, as far as giving an accurate depiction of what to expect from the gameplay. But, naming conventions aside, once I fired it up and started to fall into its groove, I was pleasantly surprised by what Flashout 3 had on offer.
Yes, this is by and large an attempt at living in the long shadow of the Wipeout series. But to its credit, Flashout 3 does more than just ape what came before it, offering a varied and challenging campaign that manages to go the extra mile and step slightly outside expectations.
Now, to be fair, I am garbage at high-speed racers — or really, most racers in general. And even though I barely managed to progress but by the skin of my teeth at times (to say nothing of multiple healthy doses of luck and happenstance), there were moments of real strategy that, when executed proficiently, resulted in trophies on the wall and Champagne in my drawls. Hell, there were a number of times when I could barely decipher what was going on in a race, only to wind up coming in second or even first purely by the good graces of the Flashout 3 gods.
The basic gist is that you get to choose between an assortment of vehicles that have varying combinations of skills, like faster speeds but with a weaker shield, or better control as the expense of speed, etc. You can also choose from a number of different weapons, of which you can equip three to your vehicle. These range from machine guns and missiles to more exhaustive yet more damaging super attacks, like using a drone that shoots at any nearby racers.
And from there you are, well, off to the races, across a variety of tracks and biomes. In some instances you will have to jump past gullies, in others you can spiral around the entirety of an enclosed section of a track, allowing you to lose a close tail or sneak up on unsuspecting prey. The action feels good and the crashes can be satisfying, but the biggest drawback is that, for the most part, even though my speedometer was in the hundreds, it felt like I was going 60 or 70 mph tops. And considering racers like these exist to sell the sensation of extreme speed, this is kind of a sticking point for me.
That being said, there are some genuine moments of fun and excitement to be had in Flashout 3, at least in the amount that I experienced. I like how the campaign isn’t just a string of races that you place high enough in to continue the journey. Instead, it mixes things up with the occasional time trial, where it is just you racing against the clock to place first, or a last-person-standing race where whomever is in last place once the continuously ticking timer runs out will automatically get eliminated. These are welcome diversions in addition to the typical race, shoot survive place formula I expected to be the paradigm.
Even though Flashout 3 didn’t light my fire (outside of a few moments) during my overall time with it, the controls are solid, the presentation is on par, and the skill level is engaging enough to elicit that elusive, late-night just-one-more-race-before-bed feeling.
Was I tempted to write Flashout 3 off before I even gave it a shot? Yeah, maybe. At the very least, I admit that I wasn’t super hyped going in. But after spending some time with the game, I can honestly say that, if you long for a game like Wipeout or F-Zero, Flashout 3 should be more your speed than not.
Disclaimer: I was given a review code for Flashout 3 for Steam, but the opinions expressed in this article are my own.
