The game may not be as fast or deep as some of its top-tiered competitors, but Bugbear has done a fine job at bottling chaos into a racer. With the number of things crashing down around you at essentially all times and your opponents constantly battling you and each other for placement, there's always something crazy and chaotic happening on-screen. This is easily FlatOut 2's greatest strength - the races are just pure fun. That doesn't mean that it's a total lottery drawing of whether or not you'll be able to win as skillful driving will almost always net you a finish in the top three, but it does mean that races never get boring. It's extremely common to find yourself (or any other car for that matter) move from last to first to last to first and so on before a race finally finishes. Cars will constantly smack into each other more and more as a race goes on. What this boils down to is that races become flat-out battles (pun not intended). This applies to each and every racer, so you'll constantly see one computer opponent trying to knock another one out. Everyone starts out calm and collected, but if you start pushing other racers around and attempting to knock them off the track, they'll turn around and do the same to you. The other really cool part about the other racers this time out is that they get vengeful. The result is that when you're in the fifth race of a cup and you're a point behind in the standings, you'll immediately recognize who you need to beat (or knock out) in order to stand on the highest step of the winner's podium. What does work, however, is that they always use the same vehicle for each class of car, making them easy to spot in the midst of a race. According to the splash screens during loads, each one is said to have a unique driving style and personality, though you don't really get a sense of this during any given race. They're fairly generic to be honest, but after a handful of races and looks at the leader board you'll come to know them all by name and curse them when they knock you out.
Another nice improvement is that rather than racing against a field of nameless drivers, FlatOut 2 pits you against a group of seven other competitors out for blood.
It's a great mix that makes the game feel much different than something like Burnout while still maintaining a nice feeling of chaotic competition. The game is certainly arcade-centric in almost every aspect of its design, but the game's handling does lean a tad towards the simulation side of racing in that you'll have to carefully manage how much gas you apply at any time. Rather than sliding all over the road like a Chihuahua on ice, the cars handle quite well and you always feel in control. One of the biggest improvements in FlatOut 2 is that vehicles handle a whole lot better than they did previously.
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