The original "Flat Out" is one of my all time favorite 3D games. You get to smash your way to the finish line or destroy all other cars in Demolition mode but the graphics of the original game were so good that they rival some new 3D games being released for PC today. So my interest was really piqued when I heard there was a sequel to my favorite racing game.
Unlike the original, the new Flat Out 2 has much steeper system requirements so don’t think you’re going to be able to play it on your old eMachines 500MHz Celeron system. It’s not happening; I don’t care what kind of AGP card you have.
The idea of the game is basically the same as the original. You race to get money to upgrade your car and buy better cars so you can win more races. Empire Interactive and Bugbear Entertainment have taken it to the next level by giving your AI opponents each their own personality and background information. Each AI character has a trait that they always display, aggressive, psychotic, happy go lucky and so on. When you’re racing though, you don’t take time to ask who’s driving the other car so it doesn’t really mean a whole lot in the game but it does make it a little more interesting.
Flat Out 2 has a few of the same cars as the original but there are many new cars as well and three different classes of cars and three different classes of races. In the original Flat Out, there were three levels of races; bronze, silver and gold. Each level opened up new cars for you to buy but any could be raced on any level. Flat Out 2 divides the cars into classes called Derby class, Racing class and Street class. Each type can only be raced in its own class.
Another big difference in Flat Out 2 is that if you make enough money, you can buy all the cars available and store them in your garage. In the first game you could only own one car at a time. Each different car has its pluses and minuses. Some are fast but hard to control and some are slow but control very well. Some have better acceleration but lower top end. All cars can be upgraded and modified by earning credits and buying upgrades in the shop. Upgrades include things like better tires, brakes, exhaust systems, turbo, fine tuning, body and frame, and so on.
Flat Out 2 is not limited to just cars either. They have introduced some racing pickups and SUVs as well. These are great vehicles for control but lack on speed but you don’t get forced off the road as much in one of these.
Car Classes
Derby Class
The Derby class cars are suped-up junkers that have been resurrected for racing and demolition derby matches. They aren’t particularly pretty and are not very fast but you can inflict some serious damage with them just the same.
Racing Class
The Racing class cars are similar to the cars in the original Flat Out. They have been painted attractively but you can tell they have had a rough life. These cars are much better looking than the Derby class cars but they wouldn’t win a car show.
Street Class
These cars are show cars with big nasty motors and gorgeous paint jobs. These cars are modified and tricked out to look good and move fast. Of course, looks only last about three seconds on Flat Out. Before you turn the first corner most are damaged and missing parts.
Special Features
There are bonus events you can play, just like the first game, that must be unlocked by winning events. An event may consist of anywhere from 3 to 6 races. Winning events earns you credits (money), Cups (trophies) and unlocks special tracks, cars and following events. You must place at least third overall to move on to the next even in that class. You can switch between race classes in the middle of an event if you aren’t doing well and want to try to earn credits to upgrade you car before the next race, and when you switch back you will be in the same event you were when you left.
Some special events are races and some are stunts. You earn credits in these as well if you place third or better in the event. The stunts are just as crazy as the ones in the first game, like launching the driver from the car to try to see how many times you can skip him/her across a pool of water or, launching the driver through rings of fire into a pool. My favorite is the “Field Goal” event where drive through giant plywood football players and launch your driver through a goal post.
Graphics
The games graphics are just as impressive as the first game, but the new Flat Out 2 takes advantage of new graphics technology that the first did not. The cars are better looking and the background scenery is photo realistic. The tracks and roads look pretty much the same but the plants and immediate surroundings look much better.
The crashes are much more realistic and much more violent than the first game. With the addition of more things to slam into, like gas stations and stores that you can drive right through, there is much more debris on the track/road that can really make it hard to stay on the road.
Flat Out 2 introduces realistic fire and explosions which the first game lacked severely. When slamming into a gas pump, a fireball explodes and can throw cars every which way. You can also now damage your car bad enough to not be able to finish a race. When your car takes too much damage, it will explode and you automatically loose the race.
The damage on the cars is also much more realistic, even though the first game did the damage extremely well in my opinion. Lightly side swiping another car may give it a few scratches on the paint, but slam into a stopped car at 153mph and parts will fly everywhere.
There are no “ghost” parts either. These are parts that appear to fly off the cars when they collide and then fade into nothing and disappear. This was how they made the collisions in the first game, some parts stayed on the road and other dark pieces of material would simply fade after a collision. Flat Out 2 lets the parts lay where they fall, which is another reason you need a powerful computer with a good graphics card and plenty of memory to play this game.
Sound
The sound is more realistic as well with better sounding crashes and new music from popular rock artists playing at better than CD quality. The music in the game can be set to 24-bit, 48KHz and CD quality is only 16-bit, 44KHz. Music can be turned off if screaming rock isn’t your thing.
Crash sounds are impressive with broken glass, scraping metal and screeching tires; and can be set to 5.1 surround for seriously realistic sound effects. When a driver is thrown from their car, they let out a frightful scream and if they hit your windshield you can hear them go “Uuuhhnn!!” as they bounce off onto the road.
Tasteful use of effects is also present in this game; the use of slight reverb when traveling though a small tunnel, delay in larger ones, and pitch shifting when a car passes you (like how a car radio sounds like it changes pitch as it passes by).
Controls
The game can be played using the keyboard (which is how I play) but if you have a game pad, you may want to use it. All key controls are customizable as well as controller buttons. You can set it up any way you like it. I use the typical “W-A-S-D” for fwd (acceleration), left, brake/rev and right. I use the space bar on my keyboard to the E-brake and CRTL for nitrous boosts. You don’t use the mouse at all when using the keyboard controls. Menu navigation is done with either the keyboard or a controller as well.
Multiplayer
My only complaint with the original Flat Out was that multiplayer mode only allowed single races on various tracks; you couldn't play the demolition matches in multiplayer. Well, that has changed and I am happy. The multiplayer feature of Flat Out 2 allows up to 8 players to either race a single race, race a full tournament or race in demolition matches and tournaments. You can play over a local area network, over the Internet with Gamespy (I hate Gamespy and never install it) or you can play over the Internet with direct TCP/IP connections.
When hosting a multiplayer game you can change some of the aspects of the game, like collisions only giving half damage for a longer derby match or giving twice the damage for much shorter matches. You can also choose a track for a single race or choose multiple tracks for tournaments. You can set the limit of players from 2 - 4 and limit the class of cars allowed or allow all. Empire Interactive must have listened to their fans because this was the only gripe I had with the original Flat Out and they fixed it.
System Requirements
Minimum
* Processor: Pentium 4 2.0GHz or AMD Athlon 2000+
* Memory: 256MB
* Video: 64MB (there is a list of supported graphics cards – see bottom)
* Sound: DirectX compatible sound card
* Disk space: 3.5GB of free hard drive space
* Operating system: Windows XP w/SP2 or Windows 2000 w/SP4 only
* DirectX 9.0c (included on game disc)
* Ethernet: Required for high speed online (512kbps connection minimum, dial-up is not supported)
Recommended (by me)
* Processor: Pentium 4 2.4GHz w/HT or AMD Athlon 2400+
* Memory: 1GB
* Video: 256MB (there is a list of supported graphics cards – see bottom)
* Sound: 5.1 surround capable sound card
* Ethernet: 10/100BaseT/TX for LAN multiplayer and Internet multiplayer
Supported graphics chipsets
* NVIDIA: Geforce FX5, Geforce 6 and Geforce 7 series
* ATI: Radeon 9600 Pro and above, X200, X300, X550, X600, X700, X800, X850, X1300, X1600, X1800 and X1900 series
Conclusion
If you like racing games, 3D games, games with a lot of action and quick thinking or if you liked the first Flat Out, you will like Flat Out 2. It is worthy to be called the sequel of Flat Out.
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