Latest version 1.1.5 Works Great

Two versions ago I tried to play Flatout 2 and had problems with my controller that I contacted their support about. They responded quickly to inform me they had done a rewrite of their controller code in the porting system they use for their games which would include this one that should fix the problem. Well, the next version did sort of but then it would not save the settings and it kept crashing in the menu while I was trying to add them again. So, I contacted them again in the morning. They got right back to me the same morning and for the rest of the day we we went back and forth working on it. They helped me to get them a spindump log to assist them in finding the crash which I was able to reproduce reliably here. After that they finally could reproduce it too. Before the day was out they had fixed the crash and the saving issue and asked me to test it. Since there is an approval process for each app on the App store that takes time, they had me download the new version elsewhere for testing which I did and then tested thoroughly. I have background in software development and QA so I did a good job I’ll have you know. ;-)

It tested out fine. Settings saved properly. I could not make it crash anymore. The game itself ran just great and I had fun for quite a while racing before I let them know all was well with 1.1.5. I did mention to them the issue of not being able to easily skip the intro video. I find that I sometimes can manage it and other times not. This is hardly a deal breaker but I hope they get around to fixing that at some point. It’s such a minor thing though that I won’t be shedding any tears if they don’t get around to it given other priorities.

This is a very enjoyable racer that is easy to handle even with a keyboard I noticed although I personally greatly prefer a gamepad myself for racing games. I use the Logitech F-510 which has switchable modes to be compatible with either Xinput (Xbox) or DirectInput (analog) control and I forget now which mode I used here, I think it was analog but it worked beautifully. As far as I am concerned the game is perfect now. It runs, looks, handles and plays great. Flatout 2 is one of the most fun racers I’ve ever played with great tracks, destruction, turbo boost you gain the more stuff you crash into, nice damage modeling on the cars as you go along, replays after the races that are fun to watch, a system of gradually acquiring all kinds of cool vehicles, etc. For the regular asking price this game is a steal if you enjoy arcade style racing games.

I’ve played this on OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 and 10.10.3 with zero problems.

I understand for some folks the loss of their profile was painful and I don’t blame them for being unhappy about that. I would agree that situation should have been handled better somehow even if just with a warning before installing the upgrade if the older profiles are in any way a problem for the new version which is possible even if they seem to work initially. My advice here to avoid any such pain in the future from whatever game upgrade or any change to your system is to run Time Machine all the time on a desktop and often on a MacBook, etc. Then you can always recover from such things when recovery is actually possible. I don’t know if that would even be true for this case because the data saved to the profile about gamepads is probably different in the new version with rewritten code supporting controllers. All I can say there is, better to fix a game with problems even if it costs user data than to let it die because it becomes incompatible with OS X upgrades, etc.

As for internet online multiplayer both the original Mac release of this game by Virtual Programming and the Windows release relied on the Gamespy service for this. Unfortunately, Gamespy closed down quite a while ago now and that is why multiplayer online doesn’t work. There may be some solution to this out there but I didn’t spend any time on Google looking for one. This game offers a lot of content to keep one busy having fun for a quite a while so personally, I’m okay with the loss of the multiplayer.

Linmukai about FlatOut 2