Flatout is a demolition-derby style racer. The graphics are pretty tight even by todays standards, and the races can be very exciting on most of the tracks. The cars look great, and there are dozens of them to choose from; from crappy derby cars to old American muscle mobiles, all the way up to beautiful racing machines. The damage modeling is top notch too, with cars flying to peices in absolutely amazing looking crashes. Debris from destroyed scenery and vehicles litter teh raceway and actually become obsticles on your subsequent laps. It's a shame that the game doesn't have more advanced replay options; it comes only with a standard replay after the race is finished, the only option of which is slow motion (you can't even choose the angle manually, theres only a few preselected angles to use). When it came out, it's claim to fame was the fact that the guy driving your car could be thrown through the windshield in a particularly brutal crash. There are even minigames involving throwing your driver through hoops and over high bars, etc. It's amusing at first, but eventually proves to be the games major flaw; your driver will fly through the windshield ALL THE TIME. Sometimes you'll hit a curb or have your bumper hit by another driver and your dude will go flying as if he had an ejector seat. It can be especially frustrating considering the difficulty of the game. Especially in the later stages, one inconvenient crash can easily mean that you're better off restarting than even bothering to try catching up. Occasionally funky physics will send your car flying out of control from hitting even small pieces of debris or taking small bumps from other cars. To sum it up, I had alot of fun with Flatout, but eventually gave in to frustration caused by it's various problems. For five bucks, you'll definetly get your moneys worth. However, if this sounds like a game you'd enjoy you might want to consider one of its various sequels (for the PC and consoles), which fix many of the problems that the original had. Oh, and get a controller to use with it; keyboard controls suck on this one.
I do not yet own the GoG version of this game, but I have the most recent patches for the original CD version. For a Diablo II clone, this game is alot of fun. Like Diablo, you get to choose between a few archtypical characters (melee character, magic user, etc) and will spend most of the game hammering the mouse button. But it's more open than DII and it 'feels' like you have more control over the game. The graphics are clean and pretty; as you walk from forest to desert, to snowy moutaintops, the transitions are very natural, making the game feel more like a world than a series of levels. Horses are nice too. Unfortunetely, what could have been a very spiffy title is marred by some serious issues. In particular is the unbalanced difficulty of the game; one minute you're slashing through enemies by the thousands with no problem, the next your getting knocked around like a lightweight and porting back to town every three minutes for more potions. The problem is more serious with melee characters than magic users; towards the end of the game, my warrior got to a point where I basically couldn't progress any further in single player. It's possible that that had something to do with how I built the character, since the stats on equipment are difficult to understand. When the game was first released, it was BUGGY. Most of the most offensive game-breakers have been fixed in patches, but it still has it's share of issues (my favorite causes the character to stand up and ride his horse like a surfboard). Ditto on the balance issues; it's been leveled out a bit since release, so if you played it when it came out it might be worth another shot, but the problems do persists even now. Still, if you likes you some Diablo-esque action, for ten bucks it's definetly worth a spin. Not terrible at all, despite it's drawbacks, and you'll probably get plenty of fun out of it. Alot better than it's recently released, dismally bad sequel too.
