Posted on: November 18, 2024

JJack

Games: 481 Reviews: 21

Improved over FlatOut 1 in every way

While FO1 was fun at the lowest (Bronze) level, it got quite grindy and tedious later. FO2 OTOH is tons fun through and through. Though same tracks are reused throughout different racing cups (and I wouldn't mind if there were some more) they still vary enough that I never got bored with them. Also, the absurdly slippery snow tracks from FO1 (where you flew off the track every other turn) are gone. Yay! While it still happens that someone might hit and spin you off just before finish, 90% of the time you'll only crash due to your own mistakes. IMHO the best change is that you don't need to finish among top-three on every single track to unlock the next one. If you earn enough total points in each cup (which consist of a bunch of tracks - usually 3 to 5), you can advance. I actually managed to get gold in *every* cup (not counting the optional silly "events" - destruction derby, ski jump etc.) - even though I didn't win every track. Races were challenging enough to keep it interesting, without ever becoming tedious. Now you can earn monies not only by winning, but also by hitting other cars, shoving them into obstacles, doing fastest laps, damaging the environment etc. All that income suffices for gradual upgrades to your car - not necessarily to beat every opponent in every race, but enough of them to come out on top in every cup totals. Meaning, you don't need to buy each new car you unlock. Actually, if you choose your starting car for each of the three classes well enough, you can finish the whole class with it (if you prioritize stability of your chosen car over its speed - at least this worked for me.) I only bought one extra car in the top (Street) class for the heck of it. (I already had all the upgrades for my Scorpion and still earned enough dough for the Canyon.) FO2 requires somewhat more resources than FO1, but still runs perfectly well on weaker computers. In every possible screen resolution and with improved graphics to boot. Fully recommended!

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Posted on: August 17, 2025

Siwkann

Verified owner

Games: 165 Reviews: 27

Even without nostalgia, awesome.

God I miss games like this. I never played this game before but I liked the style a lot. It's like a proud patriotic racing game... It's the most american racing game I've played. Driving feels great for the time. The physics reminded me of Max Payne 2, though maybe it's a bit more outdated. The music is great. This game is of my generation. 1 Star less because the rubber banding it's ridiculous and because the campaign is sadly a bit repetitive. I tasted all 3 type of events and played with a friend the minigames but I didn't get to the ultimate tournament because I'm tired of playing this game. Anyway. I loved it while it lasted. Now I will probably play Star wars races... It has been more than 20 years since last time...

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Posted on: September 21, 2016

Kitlantra

Games: 243 Reviews: 2

Greatest of the greats

I dont own this game on gog yet, but I have the retail copy from like 2004 or something. So many hours were spent after class in college with my classmates ramming each other off the road and wrecking each others cars to an awesome soundtrack. It is to this day my favorite racing game of all time.

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Posted on: June 27, 2016

ChicknDuck

Games: 184 Reviews: 9

Not really a racing game

While the first game was hard FlatOut 2 is beyond easy & hard. It is arbitrary, luck decides if you win or not and you as the player have little influence on that. There are two main issues [b]The engine/the car behavior[/b] You cannot predict how your car will react during a jump or hitting an obstacle. Sometimes it runs smoothly, sometimes you will lose your position or advantage. Therefore there is little space in getting better or master the game, because you don't get proper feedback which action benefits you and which one will be punished. You will find at the bottom a video I've done about two stunts. The only thing I do is pressing throttle without pausing it, so there is no room for variation. I do this in both stunts. Two exact same actions from the player result in different outcomings. [b]The AI/your opponents[/b] Some of them are trolls, not interested in winning the race just ramming other cars and putting themselves at the tail end while giving you a hard time. The other extreme are the flawless ones, usually using one of the higher level cars which you have to unlock first. Catching up with them happens rarely. They usually drive clean and boost forwards if you are getting close. Starting at the last position puts you in huge disadvantage against those. The other thing is that the AI adapts to you. Are you driving faster or have you upgraded your car? They get better as well, so the difficulty seems to stay stable. At least to a certain point. Buying a new car with much better values makes the races easier, but not as much as I expected. [b]Some small annoyances[/b] -The starting position varies, but most times I got the last place or something near that. -Later in the game you may have to repeat races a couple times to collect the amount of money to buy a car you've just unlocked. Winning all level 1 races doesn't guarantee you having enough money for a Level 2 car. -Strangely a Level 1 car isn't necessary good enough to compete in Level 1 races. I once had to grind for a better one and repeated the races. -NPCs get fixed cars from the start of a class and some of them get ones from a higher tier. It would be fairer if everyone would use a car from the same level. All in all: Driving good doesn't get rewarded, you need a certain amount of luck. Both, losses and victories, felt cheap and latter one never satisfied me. I was just relieved to be over the current race. Now the most important point: Does this all make the game unenjoyable? It depends. Are you looking for a serious racing game? Is anything but 1st place not an option to you? Then skip this one. It started pretty easy and was fun, but the further I got into the game the more the races turned into bitter and teeth-gnashing hours of retries which felt more like playing roulette and waiting until the ball hits your number. If you don't care about the mentioned issues, because just beating the game is enough for you or you just want to have a bit random wanky car physics fun, you might wanna try it. At least it won't hurt as long as you don't take it too seriously and bite your teeth into it. Video: https://youtu.be/y9nAsEfCIX8 PS: Ignore the stars. I'm not a fan of scores, because they don't give useful information to others. Since you have to rate the game to submit a review the stars represent my "enjoyment".

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Posted on: August 16, 2014

ThE_MarD

Games: 464 Reviews: 14

omfg Ford Bronco!!!

This game built on the momentum of the fantastic Flatout 1 by adding in more variety... of course, adding in the Ford Bronco was my favourite touch hahaha... If you loved how delightfully good Flatout 1 was? You'll LOVE the multiplayer havok of Flatout 2. The AI is also plenty of fun too though. ;)

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