It's okay. There's nothing to worry about. They haven't done anything daft like mess with the winning formula. FlatOut was a surprise hit a couple of years ago, bringing silky-smooth arcade racing to Xbox and adding loads of very enjoyable, but morally dubious, crash games where you fling your driver through the windscreen to much neck-snapping hilarity. It was great - and this is the same.

The A button is your nitro. You earn nitro not just by ramming other cars, but also by destroying the trackside scenery. So instead of just racing you have to get stuck in. You're expected to mix it up. On our first go of FlatOut 2 we forgot about this and hammered into the lead. We were about 20 seconds ahead by the end, feeling really good about ourselves and extremely positive! But the game only rewarded us with 100 credits for this crushing victory, while the Xbox-controlled losers got 300 or 500 for doing stupid stuff like smashing into each other and ramming their opponents off the road.

So in the second race we messed about, randomly ramming the pack, holding back if we accidentally took the lead and generally causing as much carnage as possible. We only finished fifth but our reward was 500 credits. FlatOut 2 positively encourages dangerous driving if you want to buy the cool stuff.

So this isn't really so much of a smooth arcade rally game once you get into it - FlatOut 2 is part destruction derby simulator and part Burnout. But one thing hasn't changed, though - the driving feel. It's still part Sega Rally as well. Whoever reviewed this a couple of years ago must've gone on about it controlling quite a bit like Sega Rally, which is, as you know, the benchmark by which all rally games are judged and will be judged against for all eternity.

When you're concentrating on actually driving rather than smashing into stuff, FlatOut has the same light and flippable feel as all the best off-road racers. You sort of surf along the muddy surfaces and powerslide around every corner. It feels cool and well, right. It's easy, you'll win the first load of races with no problems at all, you never find yourself struggling for control or grip: FlatOut 2 has a quite superb rally feel to it.

It's not just that simple. There's modding galore, with more powerful engines, exhausts and all the bits that make cars go fast to tweak in the Upgrade shop. FlatOut 2's very generous at handing out the credits, especially if you rough up opponents for all the aggression bonuses, so within 20 minutes of playing you're racing some super-tuned, twice-as-fast monster of a car with more grip, better acceleration and a nitro gauge that won't stop piling on the speed.

Everything's split into three groups - off road rallying and destruction derbies, race car events and a powerful street car series. All three have one thing in common: you race around wide tracks, tracks that are surrounded by breakable objects for you to smash through. There are no awkwardly placed trees designed to catch you out if you slip wide, everything's breakable and perfectly designed to keep you in the race.

The wide tracks are also ideal for Xbox Live racing. No one's going to complain about getting rammed into the barriers, because there aren't many barriers and the few there are break into bits when you touch them. The courses feature hedges and trees and fences, but they can be smashed through. If you're pushed offline you're usually okay, as there's just some bumpier edge to drive down instead of a brick wall to end up in.

Think of FlatOut's tracks as golf courses - there's a wide fairway to race down, but if things go wrong you can still save your race by bouncing through the rough for a bit.

There's the odd bunker to get stuck in, though, with occasional brick houses in the way. But they're visible and in most cases you can go around - or through, or even over - most solid obstacles. There are jumps, alternate routes, wide paths and if things do go massively wrong the Y button immediately resets you back on the racing line. You won't ever get annoyed or frustrated playing FlatOut 2.

Stuff blows up, too. Petrol stations go off if you drive through them, small aeroplanes blast to bits on contact and there's usually something exploding or falling apart (while on fire) in your line of vision - especially in the destruction derby games that pop up once in a while during the racing series. No one's ever managed to make a destruction derby game that's anything more than you driving around in endless circles trying to randomly crash into another car, and FlatOut's the same. The DD events aren't much fun.

But they look good. Bonnets come off, which is nothing new. But so do doors, side panels, back sections and pretty much all the bits of the cars you smash into, often stripping them down so naked you can see the other driver sitting there, all vulnerable, waiting to be smashed into again and have his racing life ended once and for all. And you're encouraged to go in for the kill - FlatOut 2 rewards you for hitting other cars, with bigger bonuses for harder, faster hits.

Key to fast hits is the nitro system, which is, well, it's Burnout's nitro system. The boost gauge that surrounds the speedo goes up each time you smash an opponent particularly hard or bend some scenery out of the way, and firing your nitro does that weird camera foreshortening viewpoint Burnout also does, whooshing you instantly quite a few miles per hour faster.

The aggression-monitoring system isn't as clever as Burnout's. You get points and boost for slamming into the back of cars, but nothing for taking them out by nudging off the track into a brick wall. Which seems a bit odd, but then we really ought to stop comparing everything to Burnout...

Where FlatOut kicks Burnout's arse is in the smashable stuff. The amount of debris that gets chucked over the track is frankly awesome. Lumps of car, trees, bits of house, kitchen sinks (probably) - by the time a race is done, most of the scenery is dotted around the race track. You can't help but admire all the physics and clever technical stuff going on that lets the game world crumble and get thrown around so well. It's like a B&Q delivery truck has jack-knifed and spilled its load everywhere, and you're driving through it at 80mph with your nitro burning up. It's great. It's Burnout Rally.

The only problem with all this clever physics stuff is you sometimes feel a bit out of control. When your car rears up, spins around and smashes into a wall because you happened to drive over a lump of wood that's been thrown onto the track, you feel like you're at the mercy of some clever game developer and his new physics engine rather than depending on your racing skills.

It's also a bit of a shame that there's not more difference between the various cars and tracks. If you're racing a 4WD pick-up truck on gravel you slide about all over the place like it's a crazy rally game. But if you're driving a tuned street car on tarmac, it feels the same; there really ought to be more of a change between car types.

Still, if you want other stuff to do you've got the mini-games. There are more this time, too - 12 of them now - all glorifying the art of flinging a car driver through a windscreen. If you're new to it, these are the rules: drive fast, hammer the brakes, then angle your driver as he or she smashes through the windscreen and scores points on impact. You now have a little aftertouch facility and are able to slightly alter the trajectory of your soon-to-be-dead driver as they go, whether you're chucking their corpse toward basketball hoops to score points or hammering them towards a rack of giant bowling pins.

If you're not squeamish, these mini-games are great. They serve the same purpose as the Crash games in Burnout - short bursts of stupid fun to break up the racing action. New for FlatOut 2 is the chance to play these online. Which makes them immediately 1,000 times more interesting when you're competing against the world.

FlatOut 2's a more interesting racer than most, one that's smooth, nice looking and as easy to get into as a really big hole. It's not exactly moved on in any way since the original FlatOut, but if you missed out on that one, or really loved it and want more of almost exactly the same arcade racing insanity, go for it. .

1. Very fast and enjoyable arcade rallying business. It's one of the best rally games around.
2. The wide tracks give you plenty of room for error - and make barging people on Xbox Live much more fun.
3. Simple garage and tuning system makes tweaking your car straightforward - unlike the complex modding hell of other games.
4. It's pretty. FlatOut 2's all burning sunsets, autumn leaves and blaring sunshine. You're smiling before you've even raced.

1. All road surfaces feel the same - gravel, tarmac, concrete - it could be a bit more varied in its handling system.