Flatout 2

Finding a direction for a game that no one else thought about is getting more and more difficult these days. Everyone is spitting ideas on a conveyor belt and either good or bad they usually end up in a game anyway. It has actually come up to a point where an original concept could make anyone rich overnight just because there is less ground to cover.

There is also a retro fashion in effect. Sometimes making games "like in the old days" will sell even better that a new one. Doom 3 and Serious Sam are just two such games that tried to emulate our feeling from time long gone. In this case, Flatout 2 is trying to send us back to the stone age of Destruction Derby and PC games. I'm not sure if many of you remember that game, because it never made a terrible impact at that time, but you should know it was one of the first to implement a small, let's say realistic, damage model. Just like in that game, in Flatout 2 the entire action is centered on your capability of smashing and surviving through real mayhem.

From the get go, the producers bragged about thousands and thousands of destructible objects on every course, but I didn't believe that for a minute. I felled for this trick too, many a time, but now I found myself facing the truth for once. Yes, they have implemented a zillion destructible objects in a game that has the main focus on hitting them.

Story

Just like the other Flatout, the act of devastation doesn't need and excuse like a story for example and because the market in our days craves for substance and saving the world plots, I'm pretty sure this is going to be considered a minus. Nonetheless, for some obscure reason, Bugbear Entertainment chose to give a face to your opponents and characteristics like car preferences and violent nature, but they only seem to appear between races in the loading screens. Normally, I wouldn't even mention this if it weren't for an uncanny resemblance of two of them with the main actors in "The Fast and the Furious", Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. I honestly don't understand this obsession of getting famous actors, although in this case I don't have any idea if the actors are even aware of their presence there.

Concept

It will not require brain. Brain is for fools, because in this game you need "cojones". The principle is rather simple: win the race and survive and, if possible, demolish as much as you can. For such a simple recipe it's a wonder that no one has thought about it.

Gameplay

The game has three main parts: Derby, Race and Street; but overall they are almost the same, except for the cars that tend to change a bit in design but the final feeling remains the same. No one should expect a highly realistic game because this is as far as it goes.

The game mechanics is quite simple: in every race, besides winning it, you can gather credits by smashing as many objects as possible, ramming other players, car flips and fastest lap. The ragdoll jumping through windows is now almost gone because the driver is no longer forced to exit the car without using any doors at every crash. Besides gaining credits, this is the only way to load the booster over and over again during a race. The second method of earning credits is through some mini games that are unlocked gradually after finishing championships. If the main part of the game has some ties with reality, these mini games are just for amusement and they serve only for relaxation after some frustrating races. Every stage consists in various trials that are concluded with the driver flying, sometimes as a balling ball, other times as a basket ball or simply to see how further we can throw him.

Let's assume for a moment that we are hard core racing fans. I must say that Flatout 2 is one of the hardest games I've ever played. The players are encouraged right from the start to slam as many objects as possible and to hit other players; but doing so will certainly decrease any chance of winning. The AI is not cheating, but it's not designed to win either. If the player is passed by an opponent, he'll worry more about putting the car out of commission than actually trying to win the race. The only true fair challenge in the entire game is the derby arena where everyone is on its own and the computer has no preferences.

The intermediary puzzle are not walks in the park and until this moment I couldn't get the first place in the first even of this kind, which in my opinion is the simplest of them all. I think this says it all.

Graphics

As I said before, the game has zillions of destroyable objects, but the engine is extremely well built so it will run on medium computers. The developers used some neat tricks to hide some of the flying debris, especially the ones that were flying from the car itself. The damage model is quite good, but after some time everyone one will notice is not dynamic and it repeats over and over again.

The car is a little featherweight, but I wasn't expecting real two tone muscle cars; sometimes I got the feeling is was going to take off, just like a plane on a runway.

I have also noticed a bug that's probably due to the track editor they have used. Entire structures remained stuck in mid air after the supporting pillars have been knocked down. If I had seen it only once, I wouldn't have mentioned it, but it happened way too often for my inner peace.

Sound

Before the launch of the game, there was a press release that went on about some famous rock groups on the official sound track. The only word that comes to mind is lame. I'm sorry for the people at Empire Interactive, but some guy (maybe from the developer team) though it was going to be a great idea to use the music from its own playlist. I have nothing with the bands (except that the music is a non-stop rock with nothing special), but where is it written that if there's mayhem we need rock and unintelligible lyrics? I would have appreciated "Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9" on some tracks, but no one ever thinks of this stuff until it's too late.

Multiplayer

If Flatout had not multiplayer what so ever, Flatout 2 has everything and then some. Besides the obvious races and destruction derbies, Bugbear decided to introduce the minigames as an online component as well. I think this game has a greater value in multiplayer than single player and we'll remember it just for that.

Conclusion

Although the concept is extremely compelling, I'm sorry to say I wasn't very impressed. I was expecting a grittier atmosphere, but I got a cartoonish feeling all the time. I would like to believe they are learning from the experience, and that Flatout 3 will be the next best thing in racing; but until then, Flatout 2 will remain a Sunday afternoon game and a memorable experience.