I’ve never been a fan of the racing genre. In fact, the only racing game I’ve ever owned in my entire life, on any platform, was “Need for Speed III” (and that was a true classic). But the first time I sat down and played “FlatOut 2” with my friends, I nearly crapped myself laughing so hard. Witnessing cars nitro-boost over my head and off a jump only to head-on collide with a tree, forcing their drivers to eject violently through the shattered windshield, was true happiness.
Empire Interactive delivers a strong sequel in “FlatOut 2,” released simultaneously last month on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 2. One of the game’s biggest successes is the multiplayer facet, and that is the reason for my close call with self-defecation. FO2 features Race, Demolition Derby, and Stunt options, and while Race and Derby modes are pretty self-explanatory, the Stunt aspect of the game might require some clarification.
Stunt mode in FO2 is truly ingenious. It consists of driving a ludicrously fast stunt vehicle to a launch point, usually through a set of obstacles, then expelling the driver at various trajectories to achieve a myriad of objectives. In the high jump stunt, the driver has to navigate a slalom of barrels and hurl his or her body as high as it can go towards a backdrop with graduated heights. Hearing the satisfying “Splat!” as a corpse hits what can only be described as a chain-linked fence crossed with netting at elevations as high as 150 feet is as close to nirvana one can achieve with a video game. Other stunts include bowling, curling, stone skipping, soccer, and the ring of fire (Mr. Cash would be proud).
The single player portion of “FlatOut 2” lacks the aforementioned enlightenment of the multiplayer mode, but nevertheless proves to be a fun, career-style, arcade racing game. As you place higher in tournaments and events, you earn money to upgrade your initially lack-luster derby car. The AI is strong, and winning a race after the first few tournaments is no simple feat. What I appreciated is that the AI wasn’t always out to get me. In several races I was in third place, and got to watch first and second duke it out on the pavement, only to knock each other out and hand me the victory.
Whether racing, stunting or competing in a demolition derby, FO2 is full-contact, and rewards those drivers who can successfully drive on the edge between losing control and losing ground. By crashing into the very destructible environment or gaining massive air off a jump, you gain more nitro. This nitro can be used in short bursts to rapidly increase your car’s speed, and when used wisely can mean the difference between second and first place. Drivers also get rewarded for hitting, slamming, rolling and blasting out other racers.
“FlatOut 2” also sticks to its arcade roots in the gameplay. Controls are simple, incredibly simple, namely accelerate, decelerate/reverse, right, left, hand brake, and nitro. That’s right, you don’t have to be a shifting wizard to drift in this game. The graphics are a strong compliment to this simple gameplay; for what it lacks in driving complexity, it makes up in obstacles. Logs roll off damaged trucks on the side of a forest raceway, traffic cones bounce forcefully away from the bumper of the Mustang look-alike Road King, and hay bales disappear as a derby car bearing the Confederate flag tears through them on its way off a jump. Where are the Duke boys when you need them?
Like any game, however, “FlatOut 2” is not without its shortcomings, and there are some less appealing attributes that potential buyers of the game should be aware of, the first of which being game bugs. The biggest bug I noticed was at the start of a few multiplayer games (this never occurred in single player), the HDRR (High Dynamic Range Rendering) completely bugged out and eventually filled my screen with white light. Simply restarting the race would normally fix
this issue.
Another problem I had was with the simplicity of the single player game. You win races, you unlock cars and side events, you get money to upgrade your vehicle, and that’s about it. Car upgrades don’t change the appearance of the car, either, only the car’s performance, and while this is only an aesthetic issue, it is one I wish had been addressed. I also would have appreciated an Internet ladder/ranking system, where you could compete for special car upgrades that can only be achieved through online play, but that might be asking a bit too much from what is, at its core, an arcade game.
That having been said, if a game is so entertaining that my unabashedly anti-gaming roommate routinely forces entry into my room in order to get in some rounds of stone skipping, it has to be pretty special. “FlatOut 2” proves to be just that, a special entry in the routinely overlooked racing genre. The solid, high-octane single player game compliments the raucous, extremely re-playable multiplayer options; just like the mullet – business in the front, party in the back.