Rocking Racing Action!
CARS & TRACKS (7/10)
This game doesn't feature much licensed cars (well, not any really) but all of them are cool and display characteristic. There are 3 car class: Derby - slow but tough and easy to handle, Race - a well-balanced car, and Street - fastest but less durable and hard to handle. You unlock cars when playing through levels in the Flatout Mode (single-player). When playing LIVE, you can choose all of the cars in the game.
The car also use upgrades like the previous game to boost some stats. Be wise though, some of them are a double-bladed sword, like nitrous upgrade - if you upgrade this, your nitrous burst capacity is increased but your strength is decreased.
You can have multiple cars of different class in your garage, provided that you have enough CR (credits) to buy them.
The tracks are all wonder to behold. From the race track in the stadium to the desert track, from the urban street to the water canal,... all of them are well-designed and very detailed. Sometimes you can burst through a cafe shop, or get hot with the gas station (note: don't do this in real life). You'll never get bored with the wide variety of tracks the game has to offer.
GAMEPLAY (8.5/10)
Just PLAIN FUN! The game mechanism encourage you to... crash into anything when racing. It could be a wooden box, a souvenir stand, a fence, or of course the other racing cars. You can be sure that it's paid off when you do it. First, you'll get nitrous to boost your car speed when use. The more ferocious the impact, the more nitrous you get. Second, if at the end of the race you do the most damage, you'll be awarded with CR for the Best Wrecker or Bulldozer... And third, it's just plain fun when crash into other cars and throw them to side of the road (or to the river). Anyhow, the impact effect is realistic when shown on the car.There are 40 destructible parts on each car, so you'll never see the same wrecked car again.
But sometime you'll forget what you're aiming at: the 1st place. There are a maximum of 11 AI-controlled car, so you can expect the competition to be hot. You'll always start the race at the bottom line, but it's not that hard. The AI seems to be wait for you when you're behind them, and try to get past you when you're in front.
In FlatoutMode, you race in 3 different class, each can only be entered with the corresponding car. With each race you earn CR and buy new car, upgrade your car. And finally you can enter the grand final.
In Carnage Mode you have about 50 event to play like: Stunt, Bombtimer, Carnage, Derby, Time Challenge... All of them are great fun and worth playing.
LIVE mode is fun. What more can you say? It's fun when playing in a derby crashout match with your friends.
TECHNICAL (8/10)
The graphics is really good. The environment is great, the car effect is catchy and flashy, the explosion is a wonder to behold. But if you don't have a fast CPU, the impact effect can be quite painful to get through. The game features some great soundtrack, includes rock-out song (and crazy too) to greatly increased the excitement.
RATING FOR RACE FAN: 9/10
RATING FOR COMMONER: 8/10