FlatOut

nice racer. if you like us muscle-cars you will like this game.

Nostalgia aside, the physics in this game are a perfect blend of "fun" and "realistic-ish".

If you love Flatout 2 and think "Hey, I played it for like a gazillion hours, maybe I should just buy the first one", don't. This is like Flatout 2, except everything sucks. Here are my top reasons not to buy this game 1. Physics: This will drive you nuts. Your car will do a 180 on any imaginable event like there is a traffic cone in your way or you touched the side barrier or a bot car touched you or you touch a bot car or you try to drive a curve. And when you start your rotation and try to counter it, you will turn 180 degree in the other direction. 2. Obstacles: Very few objects are destroyable at all. Most objects aren't and will just throw you out of your car if you try to ram them. Also if you hit something destroyable, the speed penalty and the probability of uncontrollaby turning around are so high, that it is never worth the few nitro you get. 3. The races are way too long. 4. Music: The music is alright. But as mentioned above the races are super long and you only get one song per race, which repeats over and over again. 5. Reset sucks: You just reappear in the middle of the track with no protection time whatsoever, so if you were 1st place before reset, you will appear in the middle of the opponents, who will crash you for sure. Just stick to Flatout 2. Seriously.

The sequel - FlatOut 2 - is BRILLIANT. But this game... The first FlatOut is one of the worst games I have ever played. Nothing works here. The models and tracks are really ugly. The cars are close to undrivable if you don't have a good controller - you can forget about keyboard. The impression of speed - nonexistent; you feel as though you were driving a block of concrete, no matter what the speedometer says. Horrible experience. FlatOut fails in every way. Skip it. Buy FlatOut 2 - it's incredibly fun. :-) There couldn't be a sequel more different than that.

Flatout is better than most racing titles, but demands a lot of grinding. There's some unique side content, no rubber-banding (sorry, Need for Speed & Burnout fans), and the graphics hold up for an ancient AA game. Destruction, soft-body/axle damage, and physics are stellar, even by modern standards. Hell, Forza Horizon 5 and Grid 2 play like Brazilian asset flips in comparison. On the downside, it has a lot of conflicting mechanics and irritating AI tendencies. The nitro system requires you to swap paint with rivals. That's an awful idea as other racers will crash themselves trying to drive you off the road or do a PIT maneuver anytime you are near, so you should always avoid them. You'll need to restart half the races as you will be spun out or T-boned on the first turn almost every single time. Combine the lunatic AI with with cars that oversteer, spin out, or flip no matter your tires when it touches a pebble, and you will become well-acquainted with the "retry race" button. The reset feature places you so far back, takes so long to activate, and often in the direct path of oncoming cars, that it is completely worthless. The optimum strategy is to grind to get the fastest car in your current level as soon as possible and skip all the middling cars that get shoved around like go-karts with bald tires.