Crashing derby cars in the great outdoors. I love Sundays.
If most of your time behind the wheel is spent commuting, hauling groceries, or shuttling a bunch of freeloading kids around, FlatOut 2 for the Macs can help you recapture the thrill of get out your frustrations by ruthlessly smashing every car in sight.
FlatOut 2 started life on the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Windows in 2006, this is an arcade racer with a heavy emphasis on destruction. It’s got three car classes—derby, race, and street—and you win by wrecking your opponents, either by smashing into them or by running them into the destructible scenery. Combining speed plus aggression earns you credits to buy more cars or upgrade your current ones. Completing each short cup series unlocks a demolition derby (smash up your opponents to be the last car standing) and a stunt minigame.
In this FlatOut stunt, our driver goes through the windshield and into these giant bowling pins. That’s gotta hurt.
The stunts are quite ridiculous, but mercilessly short and super fun to play over and over. Each one has you smash your car and launch its driver through the windshield and into the air, where you control his sickening flight to aim him at the goal. In one stunt, he smashes into bowling pins; another has him flying through rings of fire; in another you try to get him to flop lifelessly through a basketball hoop. The rag doll physics cause the driver to flip and flop realistically as he bounces off objects and slams into the ground, and the bone-crushing thud had us cringing every time. A Party mode lets you challenge your friends to a set of six stunts, and you just pass around the controller and take turns playing on one Mac. Our biggest complaint is the hard-rock soundtrack (Nickelback, Audioslave, Megadeth, and so on), which seemed dated and a little too “high school weight room.”
Speaking of controllers, you can play FlatOut 2 with the keyboard (which we hated), a proper racing wheel (if you are a big enough racing-game fan to own one), or a USB gamepad (we used a Logitech Dual Action gamepad, which was perfect considering this game’s console origins). ToCA Race Driver 3 can also be played with the keyboard, a racing wheel, or a gamepad, and we found the Logitech Dual Action’s analog sticks capable of fairly precise control if you don’t own a wheel.
FlatOut 2 can be played online and uses the GameSpy service for matchups, meaning you can play against PC or Mac users, battling up to seven opponents at once.
FlatOut 2 is aimed at smash-’em-up fun. We’re glad to have both in our garage
Fun arcade driving with an emphasis on destruction. Ragdoll minigames for extra diversion. Online multiplayer against PC or Mac users. ESRB Rating: Teen.
Intel Macs only. Lame soundtrack.
aremis2000
February 09, 2009 at 11:39pm
Nothing more than another Carmageddon rip off. Nowhere near as good as the first, and once more, a dead-end game port that is mediocre at best.
