FlatOut 2

Good choice of rock music in the playlist.

This is a purely arcade racer, and its sense of speed isn't nearly as good as, say, Burnout Revenge. Car crashes themselves are fun, but not nearly as satisfying as a destruction-oriented racing game should be.

FlatOut 2 is one hell of a fun racing game. Sure, many of its elements feel a tad generic, like the track and character design, but what it really comes down to is the racing itself and Bugbear has done a great job at drawing a line between control and complete chaos.

Satisfying and technically proficient carnage. Watch that bodywork fly. [Sept 2006, p.103]

It's not a game you'll still be playing in a few years, but in the meantime its destructible racing at its best.

If FlatOut 2 proves anything it's that there's room for more than one type of racer that strongly encourages wreckage at every twist and turn, and it's refreshing to see that despite EA's undeniable might smaller developers are willing to have a go at competing, often showing them a thing or two about game design in the process.

The single-player Career won't take all that long to complete, but with a hugely entertaining multiplayer mode both on and offline, there's a good chance you'll continue playing for a while after.

Once you get used to the steering and can take the corners, FlatOut 2 is an awesome racer with enough destruction and mayhem to last you awhile. And if you do get frustrated, the game provides plenty of ways to relieve stress - like launching your helpless driver into really hard objects.

Although not as flashy or well-funded as EA's "Need For Speed" series, Flatout 2 blazes a unique trail through the arcade racing world--one collision at a time. [Nov. 2006, p.118]

FlatOut 2 is one of the most chaotic racing games ever made. Whether you’re playing on or offline, you’ll be lucky if you can last two minutes on the track without eating twisted metal.

It's somewhat juvenile, but that's a pretty big part of its drawing power. It's a digital portrayal of the ugly side to motorized vehicular sports: metallic, mechanized destruction and speed.

There’s no getting away from the fact that FlatOut 2 is damned good fun, and will bring you back to the days of Destruction Derby and its ilk. However, as much as we appreciate the tweaks – and that’s really all they are – to the first game, there are still a few too many fundamental flaws which bring out a wail of frustration or a tut as you consider how easily certain annoyances could have been avoided.

Awesome paint job and horsepower, but you might not rack up a lot of mileage on this puppy.

If Flatout 2 was (just) music, it'd be a second album of commercial punk rock. [Sept 2006, p.92]

The larger number of tracks, cars and mini-games feel like only relatively minor improvements over the original and the whole thing ends up feeling like more of an expansion than the next evolution. [Sept 2006, p.62]