FlatOut 2
The sequel to the first (and, well, only) racing game with ragdoll drivers is coming. Hands-on impressions await you inside.
Published: July 10, 2006
Y'know, there was a time when gamers in the US would pity our friends across the pond. The UK -- and Europe in particular -- often had to wait months for games releases while we happy played them through to completion before they ever hit stores abroad. But lately, things have been flipped a bit (not that we're complaining, mind you, turnabout is fair play); first LocoRoco gets released in the UK when we still have to wait for another couple months, and now we're stuck waiting another month or so before we get the FlatOut 2 love.
Sure, it's not Sony Computer Entertainment America passing on giving us the awesomeness that is Vib-Ribbon or something, but that doesn't mean we're not chomping at the bit to experience Bugbear Entertainment's upcoming racer/physics experiment.
See, it's a physics thing, really. If you didn't catch the Helsinki-based developer's first FlatOut experiment, we'll forgive the transgression... for now. Though the racer did indeed have a solid racing foundation in place, it was the unlikely addition of a single simple element that made the games so fun: ragdoll physics. Yeah, it's a little weird to even think of in a racing game, but it was implemented in a great way -- not just in the way physics were used on tons of stuff that broke apart and scattered across the track, persisting there throughout the race, but the driver himself could be ejected through the windshield if you hit something hard enough.
Yep, seatbelts are for pussies in FlatOut's racing leagues.
Not only was this comical (helped by a dorky "yaaaaargh!" scream from the driver), but Bugbear wisely capitalized on the way the poor guy tumbled and flailed as he slid across the pavement, and started using the makeshift catapult to devise some absolutely sadistic mini-games. What better way to make the most of high-speed impacts than to build a long jump around watching a guy sail gracefully through the air after being forcibly fed through a five foot wide length of protective glass?
The result was a solid racing game with a great little distraction, but in FlatOut 2 both aspects have been improved to make for a much more interesting game. We took a near-final build of the game through its paces last week, and the result was a kind of productivity-wasting tool the likes of which we haven't seen in quite a while.
It's a two-pronged attack, really. The Career Mode, which lets you pick from either male or female characters and then drops you into one of three different car classes, is broken down ingeniously enough to keep you going long after, say, someone has played enough to get the general idea of the game. Certainly longer than it would take for two people to get the idea, but such is the power of what Bugbear has done. Oh, sure, there are the usual online racing modes (which we'll get to in a later preview), and the single and offline multi-player races to be had, plus of course all those fun new mini-games.
But it's the progression that makes the Career Mode so fun, not just in completing objectives, but in actually exploring the different types of races available in the game. See, things are split into three main race classes; Derby, Race and Street, each with their own cars, track styles and bonus mini-games. The Derby class is where we spent most of our time, though we did dabble in the other career paths as well. We spent plenty of time racing (the Derby tracks are mostly off-road, countryside affairs), and like the name suggests, offers up a handful of demolition derby races. Most of the vehicles in this class look like something out of Mad Max; dirty, slightly junky affairs with exposed pipes and peeks of engines.
Sure, it's not Sony Computer Entertainment America passing on giving us the awesomeness that is Vib-Ribbon or something, but that doesn't mean we're not chomping at the bit to experience Bugbear Entertainment's upcoming racer/physics experiment.
See, it's a physics thing, really. If you didn't catch the Helsinki-based developer's first FlatOut experiment, we'll forgive the transgression... for now. Though the racer did indeed have a solid racing foundation in place, it was the unlikely addition of a single simple element that made the games so fun: ragdoll physics. Yeah, it's a little weird to even think of in a racing game, but it was implemented in a great way -- not just in the way physics were used on tons of stuff that broke apart and scattered across the track, persisting there throughout the race, but the driver himself could be ejected through the windshield if you hit something hard enough.
Yep, seatbelts are for pussies in FlatOut's racing leagues.
Not only was this comical (helped by a dorky "yaaaaargh!" scream from the driver), but Bugbear wisely capitalized on the way the poor guy tumbled and flailed as he slid across the pavement, and started using the makeshift catapult to devise some absolutely sadistic mini-games. What better way to make the most of high-speed impacts than to build a long jump around watching a guy sail gracefully through the air after being forcibly fed through a five foot wide length of protective glass?
The result was a solid racing game with a great little distraction, but in FlatOut 2 both aspects have been improved to make for a much more interesting game. We took a near-final build of the game through its paces last week, and the result was a kind of productivity-wasting tool the likes of which we haven't seen in quite a while.
It's a two-pronged attack, really. The Career Mode, which lets you pick from either male or female characters and then drops you into one of three different car classes, is broken down ingeniously enough to keep you going long after, say, someone has played enough to get the general idea of the game. Certainly longer than it would take for two people to get the idea, but such is the power of what Bugbear has done. Oh, sure, there are the usual online racing modes (which we'll get to in a later preview), and the single and offline multi-player races to be had, plus of course all those fun new mini-games.
But it's the progression that makes the Career Mode so fun, not just in completing objectives, but in actually exploring the different types of races available in the game. See, things are split into three main race classes; Derby, Race and Street, each with their own cars, track styles and bonus mini-games. The Derby class is where we spent most of our time, though we did dabble in the other career paths as well. We spent plenty of time racing (the Derby tracks are mostly off-road, countryside affairs), and like the name suggests, offers up a handful of demolition derby races. Most of the vehicles in this class look like something out of Mad Max; dirty, slightly junky affairs with exposed pipes and peeks of engines.
