Full Auto Review

When the Xbox 360 launched at the end of 2005, one of the launch titles was Condemned: Criminal Origins, developed by Monolith and published by SEGA. Two months on, and the former console war contender is back with a second title that's very different to it's first, the arcade combat-racer, Full Auto. Developed by Cel Damage creators Pseudo Interactive, Full Auto aims to be the most destructive racing game ever with vehicles mounted with everything from automatic weapons, rear-grenades, and missiles - but does it deliver on its promises, and does it deserve the title of being 'next-generation'?

On its announcement at E3 2005, the events of Full Auto took place in the near future in and around the fictitious city of Staunton, and followed the story of a driver who's brought out of retirement by a group of racers known as the Shepards (a mysterious group holding the city hostage with their lethal brand of combat racing). Nearly nine months on and the narrative seems to have been dropped, leaving players instead to focus on the explosive (literally) experience of racing the Full Auto way.

So what exactly is the Full Auto way? Well besides the well-marketed 'cars-with-guns-doing-a-hell-of-a-lot-of-damage' idea, the game features a second chance dynamic called 'Unwreck', which allows gamers to rewind mistakes and take another pop at a certain corner - or an opponent. Although Full Auto does include online and multiplayer options, the bulk of the gameplay takes the form of a Career mode made up of 16 separate championships and a number of short tutorials. With a certain level of variety (well, within the restriction of driving an armed vehicle around various tracks at least) the modes range from Class restricted events (the slow but durable Tough Guys through to the high speed, low armoured Speed Kills) to the more aggressive sounding Hunter races (hunt down and eliminate a certain number of opponents), Underdogs (racing against superior classes of vehicles), Sudden Death (only one respawn) through to the Impossibles (one life, no Unwreck.)

Most of the championships are locked at the start of the game and become available as players progress through the mode. Finishing first isn't necessarily the aim of Full Auto however with players given certain objectives to fulfil in order to successfully gain medals, complete championships and unlock others. Obtaining medals also unlocks new colour skins for the vehicles, and additional tracks for the Arcade Mode, not to mention that it acts an incentive to increase that ever present Xbox Live Achievement Gamerscore...

Sporting over 20 different vehicles from the E-Type Jaguar-esque Phantom to the aptly named roadster the Demon, the 1967 Mustang-like Vulcan, and the stretch limo the Guardian, Full Auto breaks down the cars and 4x4s into classes according to three distinct specifications: Durability, Handling, and Speed. Such distinctions would perhaps suggest a need to understand each vehicle, but the fact is that because it's an arcade racer, those subtleties are for want of a better word, subtle. Players won't find a massive difference between the cars in terms of handling overall, and all of the vehicles will explode given the right amount of damage, however it's the speed where the difference is noticed most especially in the Underdog races where one mistake can end all hope of recovery - thank god for Unwreck.

So that's the vehicles dealt with - what about the weapons? Mounted with munitions that wouldn't look out of place on an attack helicopter, players are able to select from eight different weapon-types split into forward and rear positions including missiles, machine guns, and mines, which are graded from Level 1 (least powerful) through to Level 3 (most powerful). Some can be aimed by using the right thumbstick while others rely on the position of the car, but all can be quite devastating in their execution. In order to stop some of the more trigger-happy of gamers, the weapons are prone to overheating when overused, though the actual balancing between them is about right.

It has to be pointed out with all sincerity that the visuals in Full Auto are generally crisp (if a little flat), and the visual effects such as smoke trails from the missiles, reflections off the over-waxed vehicles (so shiny in fact that players are just short of being able to see their own faces in the paint work), and the occasion use of HDR blooming, are present. However Full Auto's visuals are perhaps best described as being 'Xbox 1.5' rather than full next-gen, much like several other titles already released on the system (you know who you are.) Rescuing the largely insignificant visuals however is the physics that's been put in place, enabling the vehicles to destroy opponents, bystanders, sections of buildings, and even cliff-sides to good effect. Smashing through a shop front in order to shave off a split-second, or creating a short-cut through a barrier is all part of the gameplay of Full Auto, and again the Unwreck feature comes in handy if you've missed an opportunity to use a side-road. The destruction goes further than just totting up points to achieve an objective or save a half-second of time however; destroying a cliff-side or an overpass can hinder lagging opponents, and the persistent destruction means that if you missed them on the first lap there's always the chance of getting them the next time around.

But whilst the physics are all very impressive and certainly one of the reasons that make Full Auto a next-gen title (since the level of destruction simply couldn't be achieved on current-gen formats), the most surprising, and disturbing, feature is the slow-down that the game suffers from on occasion. Granted the visual effects such as smoke, debris, and the actual physical destruction of objects require a certain amount of processing grunt (especially when some of the explosions occur close to the player's vehicle) but such anomalies shouldn't be occurring on new hardware. Something else that shouldn't be occurring on new hardware is the popping in of elements such as buildings or textures, but that again occurs in Full Auto. It's just another little disappointment that doesn't fail to raise an eyebrow when it occurs.

One of the most talked about features of Full Auto is Unwreck, which enables players to rewind time and rectify mistakes or missed opportunities. It's easy to dismiss such elements as gimmicky, and to a certain extent it is when you consider that Full Auto appears to be the poor cousin of Burnout, which doesn't use a similar feature, but when races hinge on missing a trail of mines laid down by an opponent or hitting them, Unwreck becomes very handy indeed. Building up the Unwreck meter is accomplished by destroying things, contrasting to the Boost (nitrous) meter, which is regenerated by skidding around corners and jumps.

Breaking away from the looks, the gamemodes, and the weapon-mounted vehicles however, there remains a level of doubt in the execution of Full Auto, which seems to be down to the desire to remake Burnout. The thing is, Pseudo Interactive couldn't develop a game where the cars themselves destroyed opponents because that would have been exactly like Burnout; so instead, they added guns - let's face it, who doesn't like guns in games - and added a rewind feature instead. Peel away at the 'new' features however, and what you're left with is essentially that: Burnout with guns. Full Auto, despite claims to the contrary, doesn't feel like an original game.

Besides the Career Mode, Full Auto also includes an Arcade mode, which has a selection of different events found in the main game including Point-to-Point, Circuit, Down and Back (players reach the end of a point-to-point track before turning around and racing back to the start - the actual turn can be critical in the final standings), Lap Knockout (the Full Auto elimination mode), and Rampage (players have to destroy a certain number of vehicles). The range of tracks and cars are limited at first since the mode requires players to progress through their Career, unlocking a greater variety to choose from. The mode's longevity is compromised somewhat by the game's real lack of attraction; Full Auto without the feeling of progression in the Career mode just doesn't have a reason to be played, especially in the single player. The two-player mode does have a limited appeal, but any longevity heavily relies with the Xbox Live gameplay.

Somewhat obviously the online play in Full Auto takes a very similar structure to most Live games with ranked and unranked races available; Xbox Live Achievements are also attained by playing online (which adds a further attraction to the mode), but what lifts the game above its offline modes is the human competition. For significant reason the Unwreck facility isn't available in the online play (there goes one of the selling points of the game), instead focusing gamers on being ruthless in their desire to win races - much like Burnout and any other racing title. Like the main slab of the game the online play is fun - for a time - but doesn't seem to have any reason for sustained play.