Guns mounted on the front of fast cars, with everything available to you to destroy. A combination that appeals to almost every gamer. And that is exactly what Full Auto offers. Some say it’s Burnout with Guns, whilst others speculate that it’ll be a flop like it’s original on the PC, we say it’s somewhere in between.
Full Auto made its debut on the PC back in 1999, but it really didn’t take off at all, with very little interest from gamers. Pseudo Interactive, the company behind Full Auto, are hoping to change that “little interest” into something far greater. Have no fear those of you who played the original on the PC, apart from the general concept of the game, there is very little in common between the Next-gen version, and the old one.
Full Auto takes on the general idea of most racing games — get over the finish line first. But it’s not that easy, as guns are strapped to your enemies bonnet, ranging from missile launchers, to machine guns. You’ll be able to put up a defence with your own weapon set however. Not only that, but pretty much everything you see environment wise is destructible, allowing for massive explosions and ultimate wreckage. This seems to be the main focus of Full Auto; to get from one end of the track to the other, and make as much destruction as you can in the process! There are no scripted sequences, so you could race the same track fifty times, and each time something else could be blown up by yourself, or those you’re racing against.
A new feature, something that we’ve never seen before in any racer, is the ability to “unwreck”, or go back in time and avoid a crash. If you’re going to plough into the wall, or are about to wrap your car around a lamppost, you can simply press the Right button (RB) and you’ll go back in time, depending on how long you hold the button down for (obviously there’s a limit, based on your unwreck meter). It’s all done pretty quickly, so you won’t be sitting around waiting for it to load or anything — allowing you to rethink your corner and avoid the crash. You won’t be able to unwreck your car after the smash has finished, so you’ll need to be aware as to when you’re going to smash out and unwreck in time.
To encourage you to actually spend time wrecking things on the way to the finish line, your unwreck meter slowly fills every time you destroy something. Some “hot-spots” will create a domino effect wreck — if you hit the right spot, you’ll send a chain-reaction to other destructible objects, boosting your unwreck meter and your wreck points.
FA will feature 20 playable cars for you to hack around in, and 10 single player modes. Coupled with that will be over 60 career events to keep you busy. Two or Four players will be able to hook up split-screen and blow each other up, or you can hook your 360 up to Xbox Live and play up to seven OTHERS. Pseudo Interactive have also hinted on an arena mode. If you remember back to Destruction Derby, you’ll know exactly what that means! This however, is yet to be seen.
Customisation will also play a part in the game. By picking up bonuses along the track, you’ll be able to swap your guns around and try out a bit of everything, but your class and car type will limit that.
Graphically, Full Auto is looking solid, with nice textures and impressive scenery, but in all honesty — it’s not a touch on Project Gotham Racing 3. The game is shaping up to be great fun however, and with the amount of destruction available, Full Auto could well be an alternative if you get bored of the realistic simulation handling of PGR3. Whether it’s a touch on Burnout: Revenge is another matter — and we won’t know that until March.
I was lucky enough to get my hands on this game and give it a go, and it was great fun. As a boy I always used to try and destroy toys, and this game is my dream come true! Every single thing is destructible, on a large scale — allowing for my childhood shenanigans to come back to life in a computer game. It’s worth mentioning that there was a drop in frame rate when a lot was happening on screen, but I wasn’t playing the final build so it’s yet to be seen if that gets ironed out.
Look out for a full review of Full Auto upon its release later in the year.
