| Date Posted: | Wednesday 16th August, 2006 | Author: | Alfreido | |
| Subject: | Game Review | Views: | 2232 | |
| Comments: | 1 Make a comment |
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Flatout 2 Review Written by Ben Thomson (Alfreido) With first-person shooters becoming all samey these days, not offering the required amount of destruction and violence to soothe my bloodlust (yes, I am indeed very bright, as you can see), it was good to finally be able to give Flatout 2 a go to get some metal-crunching and petrol-leaking action that might calm the inner mass-murderer. The Flatout series have been very much like EA's Burnout series which graced the consoles, in that you are given a car, and you must use that car to wreak as much wanton destruction as possible. However, unlike Burnout, Flatout allows you to upgrade and buy cars, play hilarious mini-games with the ragdoll physics and scoot around in various different environments. While the original Flatout was indeed a good game, there were a few things they could've fixed. And fixed they have in this new edition of Flatout, but there's still a few things they could've done to make the game perfect... For those who haven't played either games, here is a small introduction. Flatout 2 is a car-racing game at the core, but it's not just car racing. Like the Destruction Derby series, like the Burnout series, this game rewards the gamer for smashing into other cars, or the environment, and encourages you to do this in order to gain nitro, which you can in turn use to speed up your car to win the race, or deliver an even heavier blow on your opponents. However, this game has one of the best physics engines in existence out of any of the smash-em racing games, and the cars crumple in all different ways, and very realisticly. This game also doesn't have those stupid small cutscenes like Burnout when you demolish another opponent, when you demolish another opponent, the game goes on, and that poor sod has to catch up. You also have a health bar, you can't be hit too many times or you may end up not being able to finish the race. Damage to your car is accurately represented as the slowing down of your car gradually, detrimented handling and sometimes fire and smoke coming out of your car. If that's not enough incentive for you to dish the pain and not receive it... I don't know what is. Well, now we go onto how the game has evolved in this second edition of the game. Aside from the pretty-much-expected graphical updates, including HDR lighting, bloom effects and motion blur (which I must add, is probably one of the best motion blurs I've seen, even better than Burnout: Revenge), the game has received some new locations to wreak havoc in, some new mini-games, a new sound-track and some tweaks. But for the most part, it's still the Flatout that we all know and love. One of the detriments of the first game was that pretty much all the locations were dirt tracks or roads in the middle of the country, not a lot of variety there. Well thankfully, not only are the country tracks all different in this new game, they've added city areas for you to scourge the land, and other environments like drainways and suburbia. The city areas are good too, great places to smash up. There's also new mini-games. One of the things included in Flatout 1 was ragdoll physics on the driver, which allowed to gamers to play mini-games like High Jump, which was launching your driver as high into the air as possible. These were absolutely hilarious add-ons, and is something that has been ported over to the new game. Not only are all the old favourites there, we got new ones too. Bowling, Soccer, High Jump and even a Flaming Ring Jump (which is one of the best looking tricks there). They are absolutely fantastically hilarious. The only problem is that the novelty wears off fairly quickly after you've played all of them. On the next page, we break the game down into the usual parts and find out how well it performs in each area... Graphics Once again, the brilliant Flatout engine returns, tweaked and upgraded to suit the hardware of today. Sporting some new graphical effects like HDR Lighting and Bloom effects only makes this game prettier. The outside tracks look especially brilliant, with thick vegetation and trees just looking fantastic. The graphical effects from the first game have been improved upon in the second game. The motion blur in this game is great... it's subtle which is a plus over the exaggerated motion blurs of the Need for Speed and Burnout series, but it's very smooth and very realistic. The particles and debris system are great as well, every bone-crunching hit on another car sprays metal, glass and tires all around the area of impact, and it really sells the idea. Another plus of the first game was that it was REALLY smooth for pretty much all types of computers. The code was optimized really well and 60 frames per second was really easy to achieve on even the ancient computers. Thankfully, it has followed to the new game and it's great to see games where you do not need a beast of a computer in order to experience the full graphical pleasure of the game. This game would easily run on 1280x1024 with some anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering on even a P4 3.2ghz with a 6600GT. More games need to follow suit and design with the majority of users in mind, as not everyone can afford to upgrade their computer every 6 months, as some of the games have wanted us to do lately. (Yes, I'm looking at you Bestheda Networks and your system-hogging Elder Scrolls games ) That being said, the game doesn't look as spectacular as the games that have been released lately. Some of the game's textures are pretty standard, not offering that WOW factor. The cars look pretty, especially with the reflections and light bouncing off the hoods, as demonstrated in the screenshot to the left, but aside from that and the effects, there's some graphics which could've looked better. And the game faces which appear in the bottom left which represent your driver look pointless. That being said, it's definately eye-candy. Sound The sound in this game is generally good. Like the first Flatout, there is nearly no speech, aside from the screams of drivers flying out of windscreens. The engines all sound different, but one thing I have noticed is that they don't seem very grunty. Games like Need for Speed have had really powerful engine sounds which really drive the sense of speed home but in this game, it's not as evident. Don't get me wrong, some of them sound authentic but... where's the POWER? Especially when you install new parts on to your cars, like new engines and fuel lines etc, your car should sound different. But it doesn't in this game. One thing that does sound meaty is when you fire off the nitrous. There's POWER in that. The game has a new soundtrack as well, but unlike EA Games and their sometimes terrible track selections for EA Trax, this game has some good songs. Bands like Nickelback, Megadeth and Underoath have all provided tracks for this game. While I'm not a fan of scream rock, Underoath's 'Reinventing your Exit' matches the game pretty well. Megadeth's 'Symphony of Destruction' however is one of the tracks I would've ditched for something else. The tracks included in this game are definately leagues ahead of the teeny-bopping crap that EA puts into games like Burnout and Need for Speed. The game features all the usual audio effects, like EAX and reverb. One effect which really jumped to me was the reverb effect when you do the mini-games. The mini-games take place in a huge stadium, with what looks like a huge crowd watching you hurt yourself. Before stunts there is music playing which echoes all over the stadium, and it really sounds like you are at a stadium. This is usually accompanied by the crowd cheering, and an announcer (although very faded and hard to hear) speaking over the intercom, firing up the crowd. Lastability The single-player portion of this game is relatively short. You have around about 30-40 races before you have completed all the cups, and to top it off, around 12 different mini-games and destruction derbies. The game can be easily completed in 10-15 hours if you know what you are doing, making a short, but sweet game. There is an online component to the game too, and I have been told that there is a few lag issues with the game at the moment. Nothing that can't be rectified with a few patches though, so here's hoping. Final Thoughts Flatout 2 has made vast improvements over the original Flatout, making it the ultimate game to release the road-rage induced anger. Definately a game that is worth a hire though, due to the short time-span of the game. If you are going to take it online though, be prepared from some lag issues which can easily frustrate. With new tracks, graphical updates, hilarious mini-games and various improvements though, Flatout 2 is definately a game to have a go at. |
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Sam 2 comments |
Nice writeup, Alfie :> | |
| Posted at Monday 19th February, 2007 - 10:09:51 pm | ||
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