Why are the reviews so horrible?

[Andrew]

?

[Janek1697]

Reviews are mixed because game is really fun, but it has some issues like bad optimisation and some physics glitches

[Sebastian Peril]

Yeah, the physics are what destroy it for me. Every time I start having fun my 4x4 will drive over a penny on a flat road and front flip four hundred times as it hurtles through outer space. The vehicles feel like they have absolutely no weight.

[CrashTestDumbass88]

And the lack of content compared to Ultimate Carnage, 1 and 2.

[thenowhere]

there's no 'penny' on the roads, but there are small gutters/ramps that you must slow down for in faster upgraded cars, once you know where they are it's no problem, seeing the AI bounce over it ahead is a hint.

i've not had any glitches and still loving it 18+ hours in...the career is a bit repetitive tho, but must complete it to unlock more than 4 tracks.

it's so good i voted it for The “No Apologies” Award

[Sebastian Peril]

I've had plenty of occasions where there was literally nothing in the road and the car just took off and started bouncing end over end. Having to adjust how you drive to learn the game is one thing. Adjusting how you drive to accommodate for buggy physics is something else.

[thenowhere]

if you take note, it happens in the same place each time, you can't see the gutter/hump as it's so small, but they are on each track somewhere - 1 of the forest tracks has 1 right before the finish line. you can't prove whether that's a bug or intentional design, as these are mostly dirt roads not smooth tarmac.

[Sebastian Peril]

If it isn't a bug it is absolutely awful design.

[thenowhere]

don't blame the game for your bad driving, you wouldn't drive down a real dirt road at about 200km/h without slowing to the road conditions would you? if you did and hit an unseen pot hole you'd roll it just like in the game and die.

not that i'm saying FO4 is realistic, but these cars are going way faster than the typical rally sims do, so flips are amplified when they happen, if you don't like that then drive a slower car, as i never noticed it in the 1st league.

[Sebastian Peril]

You're right, I'm wrong. The physics are amazing and I'm bad.

[thenowhere]

if you had this issue in the 1st league with non upgraded cars then you would be right, but i'm guessing you didn't, so maybe just stay in the 1st league longer until you know the tracks better.
only times i usually flip in 2nd league is when i use to much nitro at the wrong times -my fault not the games, too much power in the wrong hands can be dangerous.

[mittelfinga hoch!]

It seems like people want a racing sim instead of an arcade racer. For me i really love the handling and arcade feeling of this game. Its just like in the good old days

[Sebastian Peril]

I loved the first few Flatout games (and arcade racers in general). Being arcade shouldn't excuse dreadful handling :)

[Janek1697]

I have to admit that handling in FlatOut 4 is really good for arcade racing game.

[thenowhere]

i'm now on 3rd & final league, with the fastest beetle fully upgraded, the 1st track is industrial and mostly tar and i only flipped on a so-called 'penny' once over 6 laps - in the water canal where there is a lot of junk [car bodies] and debris from all the gates that get smashed by the lead racer, so that confirms my statements that the flips are by design, as it never happened on the clear tarmac sections.

the forest tracks are the worst for flips, which makes sense since there are logs, rocks, train tracks and gutters on the dirt track. these treacherous roads at later high speeds are what makes this game so much fun, & fixing this 'awful design' by removing track obtructions would make it boring and predictable. Flatout has always been about pushing physics, and FO4 is no exception.

[Sebastian Peril]

You are either not getting what I am saying or are deliberately missing the point because you like the game. You are allowed to like the game, I'm not disputing that so don't be so defensive.

I have played countless arcade racing games, plenty with track debris and NONE of them behaved like Flatout 4. I'm not suggesting to remove the debris at all. Plenty of other racing games had minor bumps on the road without sending the car cartwheeling through outer space. If the only possible solution you can think of to prevent this happening is to flatten all the game's roads and remove the debris then it is absolutely a problem with the game's physics, is it not?