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				Graphics: 8.7 Gameplay: 8.9 Sound: 8.0 Control: 8.5 Replay Value: 9.0 Live play: 8.8 Rating: 8.9 Publisher:  Sega Developer:  Pseudo Interactive Number Of Players:  1-2 (1-8 online) Preview Cheats Screenshots
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Editor’s note: Review preformed on a Sony 60” SXRD 1080p TV, ISF calibrated by me. Your mileage may vary.

  A demo does not a game make.

  A few weeks prior to the release of Full Auto a rather old demo was put on Xbox Live Marketplace for download. I thought it was ok, but I had played the game at other gaming events and had a better idea of what the final game would be like. It is unfortunate that a lot of people were turned off by the demo and therefore never gave the final retail version a chance. I know Sega would have sold more copies had they not put out that demo.

  On to the review.

  The fact that Sega decided to publish Pseudo Interactive’s Full Auto makes a lot of sense to me. As you may know, Sega used to rule the arcades with their racing, fighting and action games -- no involved stories, no complicated controls to learn, just drop in your quarter and hit the start button. When Sega entered the console arena, they brought their bread and butter titles and continued that trend right into the Dreamcast. The arcade-inspired Crazy Taxi comes to mind as a “quick fun” title. In fact, that game is timed so that if you don't get your fares to their destinations in time, it’s game over.

  Now on the Xbox 360, Sega brings us the arcade-inspired car racing/combat hybrid, Full Auto. There is no lame story to follow and no cheesy characters or voice acting, just pure adrenaline-fueled mayhem.

  Upon firing up Full Auto, you are presented with four different modes of play. First on the list is Head-To-Head, which allows you to play split-screen with a friend and up to 6 AI bots. In Xbox Live you can jump online and race with up to seven others in both Ranked and Player-Matched games. Arcade Races hooks you up with a quick single player race of your choosing. Career Mode is the meat of the single player game, where you will unlock more events/tracks, cars, skins/colors and weapons. Finally, there is a shortcut to the online Leaderboards where you can check out how you stack up against the rest of the world.

  In Career Mode you will find 17 chapters, each containing anywhere from three to 12 events. You start off with the Tutorials chapter as most of the others are locked and are opened up as you progress. You will need to earn a third-place finish (Survivor) in order to move on to the next event. There are 21 cars in all, ranging from sports cars, muscle cars, sedans, pickup trucks and 4X4’s. You will find no licensed vehicles here but a lot of lookalikes. Each is rated in 3 different categories, Durability, Handling and Speed.

  Guns of Fun.

  Depending on the event, you can also choose from different weapon load-outs, which consist of both a primary and secondary. You can have one forward facing weapon and the other rear facing or sometimes both forward. Machine guns, missiles, rockets, tank cannon, shotguns, mines, grenades and smoke screens round out your choices, but not all of them are available for every event/car in career mode.

  At a certain point in your career, you will unlock the ability to tune your weapons. By default both your primary and secondary are at a value of 2, but once tuning is unlocked, you can tune one to 3; the other goes to 1. This is done to keep a balance and give the game a little more in the way of tactics. Depending on the event and track, you will want to try different weapons load-outs as some are better for offense at a distance or close up. Setting the rockets to 3 will give them a seeking ability that will have them fly above your target and then at the last second drop down and deliver their payload of pain. All the weapons have their plusses and minuses, so you need to think ahead about your strategy. Are you going to hang back and take out your opponents from behind to rack up a lot of wreck points before you cross the finish line, or do you need to be protective of your backside as you race to keep yourself out in front before the clock ticks down?

  Prior to the event starting, a description of the task at hand is posted along with the criteria needed to earn a Full Auto medal (1st place), a Semi Auto medal (2nd place) and a Survivor medal (3rd place). Also during the race, besides the HUD keeping track of your laps, time, position, wreck points and unwreck status, it will also put up medal icons as you earn them. I love this, as you don't have to search the screen to see how close you are to obtaining your medals. Therefore, as soon as I see that gold Full Auto medal glistening in the upper right hand corner its time to go for broke, baby!

  The game makers call Full Auto “the most destructive video game,” and I am not sure if that is true, but it definitely is the most destructive racing game ever made. While most events are won based on placing in the top 3 positions, there are others solely based on how much carnage you can rack up within a given time or how many civilian or enemy cars you can take out. Wreck points play a big part in the game, as not only will you need to obtain a certain number of them, but also doing so fills your unwreck meter. This is one of the game’s big selling points as you are able to turn back, or rewind time, which enables you to recover from your fiery death and try a different path, hit the brakes sooner or dodge that rocket that is currently headed up your tail pipe. Holding the “RB” activates it, and it will last as long as you hold it down or until your meter runs dry. This feature definitely comes in handy, but sometimes it feels it comes a bit too easy. I guess it will depend on your driving style and if you prefer to concentrate on racing vs. destroying.

  Pressing the “X” button actives your E-brake and allows you to fishtail around corners, which in turn fills up your Boost Meter. It must be filled to 100% before you can use it. Tapping the “LB” once will use 50% of your boost, while holding it down will suck it dry. The rest of the controls are very straightforward: right trigger to accelerate, left trigger to brake, left stick to steer, right stick to aim certain primary weapons and clicking it to fire, “A” to fire primary weapon, “B” to fire secondary and “Y” to look back. You have a rear-view mirror for all camera options, and the game is so hectic I doubt you will ever use the look-back feature.

  The game has four camera views to choose from (third-person far, close, hood and bumper), and you can cycle through them at any time by pressing up on the D pad. I normally use third-person close in all my driving games but found the hood cam in this game to be far more satisfying as it put me more “in” the game. It feels like a first-person shooter with your huge hood mounted gun right in front of you. Also, it seemed to keep the framerate smoother through the more chaotic moments.

  Speaking of framerate, there is a feature that I disabled in the options menu called “Kill Cam,” which kicks in every time you take out a baddie. The camera does a quick zoom in and can cause the framerate to stutter a bit, so I turned it off. It also seemed to take you out of the moment during some of the most exciting parts of the race. There are two other “cams” you can turn off if you wish; one is a “Jump Cam” that cuts to a more cinematic camera angle when you take a jump or just get some air. The third is “Death Cam,” which puts the spotlight on you when you go up in a fiery ball of steel and glass. None of these cams work while online.

  Environments that crumble.

  At first glance, you may not be all that impressed with the graphics in Full Auto, but unlike all the other racing games out there, these city streets are not window dressing. They are fully interactive and desructable, creating an ever-changing environment with both hazards and short cuts exposed. When you pelt buildings, they peel away in layers, exposing more of the inner structure. First glass shatters and awnings fall, then large chunks of concrete and brick fall to the ground. Large water towers can be brought down, and, while train trestles and other bridges can be shot up, they cannot be fully destroyed. But the trains riding on them can be. The list of destructible objects goes on and on. During one race I took my time, about 20 minutes or so, and destroyed every single thing that I could. When I made my second lap it looked as though I was racing in some war-torn city, as nothing was left untouched. Environmental scarring, including cracked asphalt, was everywhere.

  When racing through the game at full speed you miss so much of the destruction, which brings me to the next cool feature known as “One-Touch Replay”. You can activate it any time during a single-player race by tapping up on the D-pad. You will go into a replay loop that rewinds the last 10 seconds or so. Now click in on the right stick to clear the HUD. Tap “A” to stop the action and then use the right and left triggers to slow down or speed up. You can examine all the destruction a frame at a time if you wish. Pushing up or down on the left stick will zoom in and out on your car, while the left or right on the right stick will do a 360-degree pan. Also, pushing up and down on the right stick will raise and lower the camera.

  If you are not impressed with the destruction seen in real time, then you must give this a whirl. One of my most memorable moments was rocketing a gas station, causing a hellacious explosion and tossing three enemy cars across the road into oncoming traffic. As the first gas pump exploded, it propagated both up and out, igniting another and pushing the roof into large chunks that then rained down. All the while the asphalt cracked in an outward pattern. Another cool sight was igniting a parked fuel tank that shot across the screen, hitting the upper floors of a neighboring building. The physics engine at work, as it treats each object with weight and substance, is truly a sight to behold. Another point of interest is watching your driver steer the car and even shift gears, and seeing his rag-doll body ejected from the car and flying across the screen is a good reminder of why seatbelts are so important.

  Sound off.

  The music soundtrack in the game is mostly forgettable techno tunes. Some may find it rather benign; others may prefer to listen to fingernails down a chalkboard. Music is such a personal thing that no matter what you have you are not going to please everyone. Well, no worries here, as you can use the Xbox 360’s custom soundtrack feature, right? Well, here is the rub -- this is broken. That’s right: a big bug in Full Auto that should have been squashed but was let loose is the fact that after every race on or offline, when the game goes to a loading screen, it stops “your” music and goes back to the game’s. It is such an annoyance that is was not worth the trouble resetting it every race.

  The rest of the sound effects are satisfying but not as deep or as polished as I would have liked. You do get good 5.1 separation, but all Xbox 360 games provide that. The cars do sound different from one another but very synthetic. When I’m playing from my favorite “Hood Cam” position, the engines do have a bit more bite, which I prefer. Some explosions sound good when very close, while others are barely heard. Machine guns make the appropriate “ping” sounds when piercing your opponent’s backside but still lack punch.

  Play with your friends.

  This game is an absolute blast on Live! It is here where the game kicks it up a notch and never looks back. Setting up a friends-only room where you and seven of your buddies can take it to the streets is such kick in the pants. It is always 10 times more satisfying taking out your buddy than an AI bot, and you don’t have to worry about any funky rubber band AI shenanigans. For those who do venture onto Live I highly recommend setting up a six-lap “head-to-head” race where half of the drivers race the course in the opposite direction, making for some wicked head-ons. Also, with the higher lap count, the course continues to degrade and change a bit.

  Full Auto does a great job of filling a niche within the arcade style driving/action game. It could use a little more polish, and I would love to see more weapons like a flamethrower and maybe an “arena” game mode more geared toward destruction only. Also, I really want the ability to save races or slow-mo replays. Hopefully this game will be successful enough to warrant a sequel.

3/9/2006  Eric 'Jetson' Pfoutz