FlatOut

I played this game back when it was new and still play it every few years. It's arcadey, has neat physics, the cars are fun to drive (put it on the most realistic handling). The LAN play is actually fun (I haven't tried this with the GOG linux version). It does have rubber-banding with the AI racers but not as bad as Flatout 2. Frankly, it's just a load of fun and the way the cars handle is great. Work your way to the Bone Cracker, upgrade it to the max, and just smash the **** out of the other racers! That's the prize If somebody was to increase the poly count, add some extra layers of shaders, and expand the tracks, it would be a great new game.

This game is simply legendary, despite its continuation this one doesn't forgive. You have to drive perfectly as opponents won't slow down when you crash. Bit frustrating sometimes but so challenging! If you have enough racing - there are many cool stunts with absolutely the best addicting high jump, you can easily earn some money there and upgrade your car. Handling is bit strange but comes with interesting camera work that gives you unique feeling of speed, especially with nitro on. As a cherry on the cake we get set of awesome music tracks boosting gameplay feelings from the very first run. On a promo - absolutely must have!

I just love this racing game. It may not be perfect, but it is perfect for having a little break, stress relief, just fun. The physics are quite nicely implemented. The races consist of a lot of crashing and boxing your way through the track and opponents. Cars will slowly degenerate and change their stability during each race and thats fun, too. Parts are flying of them and through the air, sometimes even the driver, if You are not carefully enough. Use your opponents as cushions, destroy the surrunding, find funny shortcuts through buildings and crates. Gain nitro whilst crashing and crushing. And so on ... The racing isn't too hard. Even if you play it casually, You will advance slowly through your "career". But it is also not too easy. You will have to race each track several times, before winning. But sometimes You're just lucky, You box away your components or gain useful seconds on a shortcut. The game is fun, not punishing. There are also lots of tracks. 30 or 40 or something like that. And although there are only four different kinds of tracks (Wood/Race/Winter/Construction site), these have enough interesting and more and more challenging variants. Also there are plenty of different cars and upgrades. It's fun to change the car from time to time. There are some details, which could be better. Some obstacles are easily destroyed when crashing into them (and that even gets You some extra money ;) ), others are indestructible and crashing into them will cause your driver to fly ... . These are difficult to distinguish for a beginner. Also it would be nice, if cars would be completly destructible, so one is able to kill the oponents, but that would also make the game much harder, so maybe not such a good Idea? Ok, I don't really know, what kind of bad things I should say about this game. It's fun, it's great.

This is best action racing game from Bugbear. It is pleasure control the car if know how to drive it. It is balance between arcade racing and simulation. I really enjoy it. The simulation is not only for your car but also for all items surrounding track. If you hit one of that item, you will feel how your car slow down rapidly. But when you know how to damage it properly you can get benefit like get nitro. For example hit a construction from side of your car instead of front, and when construction fall you get nitro. AI is balanced and compared to other Bugbear titles like Flatou 2 or Wreckfest they are more clean and mainly they don't cheat. If they are, it is balanced. That means once you master your car, and how to get corners etc. you can beat them easily. and you can play with AI and send their drivers out from front window. I just warn that if you are new, it can be hard, but once you get it, it will be pleasure. The tracks are very well designed, and I like them all. On tracks there are shortcuts, some are "hidden", unfortunately not every shortcut is shortcuts, I describe it later. The game had more ambition as racing game, you discover it from "behind scenes" video once you finish a career. Who knows what developers wanted to create originally. Also each tracks have depth and looks like you can go everywhere. And yes, you can, and you can explore whole track level, and you can discover some interesting shortcutsbut when you go there, you got warning that you are out of race track and you have to go back. It look like tracks was designed for more content purporses as racing. The downside is, once you finish a career, there is nothing to do. You cannot change laps or number of opponents for each race track. Also once you bought a car and you want change it, you have to sell the current. That means you will allways have only one car in garage. This is far more finished game opposed to Wreckfest and Flatout 2 which has horrible car control.

I have yet to find a decent racing game that doesn't fall victim to the same gameplay flaws over and over. It is like the entire racing genre is defined by these flaws, so I find myself both loving and hating racing games at the same time, and have probably found myself ragequitting to these games more than any other kind of genre. My key gripe with racing games is that they tend to focus on speed and perfection over a very short space of time, and the usual scenario is that even a single mistake can cost you a race, as you can go from first to last place as the result of a single prang, shunt, or poorly-coded physics issue, where as opposed to being able to going really fast the tracks themselves all seem purposely designed to slow you to a crawl. I have played Flatout and Flatout 2, and had the misfortune of playing the sequel before the original, in which many of the above issues are resolved. At least in Flatout, you can improve by crashing into things and destroying the scenery but this is only ever a bonus to placing - you still need to be able to place, and this is done by not crashing and not going Flatout. Thus I rate this as a 3/5, because to be fair, Flatout needs to be reviewed in two different contexts. As a racing game, it is one of the better overall, and would score 4/5, and I hope GoG can snag Flatout 2 on here ASAP. But as a game overall, it only scores 2/5, but then most racing games only score 2/5, because despite all the preamble about going fast, they rarely actually fulfil this as the game develops. Maybe one day...