To be honest, I’ve always thought that the FlatOut series was a straight rip of the Burnout series. After playing FlatOut 2, I can easily say that this statement is false. The extreme silliness, elaborate environments, and overall chaos of Bugbear’s FlatOut 2 makes me think that this game has exactly what it takes to become a popular franchise and threat to the Burnout series.
Racing in FlatOut 2 is pretty addictive. You can break through nearly all of the objects that you see on the screen. The races can become some of the most chaotic you’ll ever have a chance to play. Crashing your car into others can be very satisfying. Hell, even ramming your car into a building to see your driver fly out the front of your vehicle is pretty rewarding.
As fun as the racing is, it is flawed by terribly difficult A.I. and annoying track obstacles. It is nearly impossible for you to take first place in a race, and keep your position for more than one lap. It seems that the rival cars will always be on your tail or too far ahead to catch up to. Although you can knock into other cars and small objects to gain nitro for an extra boost, it seems that whenever do you use your nitro boost, other cars will be using it as well, creating the effect that no one’s position has moved at all.
It also seems that just the slightest bump on your car makes you lose complete control. You’ll be fishtailing from left to right if one rival car taps the back of your vehicle, just slightly. Thankfully, you can easily press the “Y” button to be teleported to the track immediately if you do crash or somehow become lost outside of the track.
To prevent you from losing so much control, you’ll be motivated to upgrade your car as much as you can with the money you earn from racing. You can go to the shop and make upgrades to increase your handling stats, as well as increasing your car’s strength, acceleration, and top speed.
Graphics are extremely well done. If you keep crashing into objects and other cars, your own car will lose certain body parts and become dented in various places. The amount of detail put into car damage is amazing. Environments are also a huge plus in this game. You can see all of the havoc and chaos happening around you, thanks to the details put into FlatOut 2. Shards of glass and pieces of wood will be flying all over the screen when barging through a barrier of obstacles.
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