Full Auto Review (no fat)

Game Description

Ever since the days of Carmageddon, gamers around the world have been thrilled by the idea of shooting and driving at the same time. By the time we got this kind of games, we were already bored of shooting and driving, but doing the both, simultaneously, proved far more interesting. Full Auto tries to bring the same kind of action on the Xbox 360. The developers have done a competent job, as we will see, bringing some neat and original ideas to the genre.

Full Auto Between the Weapons

You will have to take this title quite literally, because the game actually puts you between two weapons. More precisely, Full Auto gives you two sets of weapons. One stays in front of your car and fires forwards, while the other one will fire backwards. There are many weapons sets, which you’ll discover as you play. You will get the chance to use machine guns, mines, rocket launchers, shotguns and many other "toys". However, you are not allowed to pick them as you wish. Developers decided to make the game more balanced by providing the weapons in sets, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. While the idea of balancing the game is a good one, this doesn't really prove to be the best way of doing it. It will cause some frustration, because many choices are sort of weird, and you will often find yourself liking a certain weapon but not being able to use it because of its pair.

The gameplay itself is quite interesting at first. The action is fast-paced and the controls are responsive. Unfortunately, the developers ran out of imagination while working on Full Auto. The game features a career mode and, in theory, you could play it for hours and hours. The races have a number of additional objectives, besides finishing in the first place, and there are some interesting ideas (which we will discuss later), but this is quite it. The gameplay itself becomes rather repetitive after a while, and the fact that the weapons are limited to firing forwards and backwards limits your choices. You cannot do any dirty tricks to opponents with whom you are running side by side, or invent some new overtaking methods. Besides, despite having some additional objectives besides the traditional "finish first", even the races themselves become quite boring after a few hours. The AI is not too bright either, and you'll find yourself begging for some human being to play with you.

Full Auto Highlights

In spite of all that was said above, there are still some nice ideas in Full Auto. The developers have had some bright ideas in their heads, saving the game from being a wreck and making it enjoyable for a while.

The first thing you will instantly like is the boost meter, especially if you're a fan of sliding out the corners. Each time you slide, a boost meter starts filling, and, when it's full, you get a turbo boost. This is much more interesting than the traditional pick-up-the-box way, because it encourages the players to be more daring instead of making them slow down to catch the boxes.

The other interesting addition is the unwreck meter. You can use the unwreck meter if you have just done a horrible mistake and want to turn the time back. It's quite similar to the reverse-timer in Blinx, and it proves to be quite helpful the first time you run on a track. This is because the tracks are rather difficult to learn and you will hit a lot of walls before you finish one correctly. The unwreck facility is very nice to have in such situations. Unfortunately, as you learn the tracks, you'll use it less and less often.

Full Auto features several race types. Besides the usual lap, arcade and point-to-point mode, there are also some more entertaining modes. The highlight should be the career mode, which is quite long, but you'll hardly find yourself finishing it before you get bored. Still, there are two other modes which prove more interesting. One is the knockout races, a series of races in which the last placed is eliminated. The other one is the down-and-back, where you race to a certain point and then back to where you started from. Unfortunately, none of these is interesting after a while

Full Auto - The Art

The graphics in Full Auto are a funny example of what happens when coders write, but don't optimize. When everything is still, the graphics are beautiful. They are sharp and detailed, with an excellent attention to the minor things that give it a unique touch. But when things start to move, it gets worse. The frame rate is often horrible and, in some cases, the game starts looking like a slide show, and when it doesn't, you don't get any feeling of speed.

The sound is average, done so that it doesn't bother you. The music is some kind of electronic music, and the tracks are not exactly something to make Mozart feel like an amateur. You can choose your own tracks, but there is a bug that prevents you from doing that permanently.

Full Auto 2cent

Full Auto could have been a better game. It is simply too repetitive. Sure, you collect medals, unlock races and cars, but the challenge is not long-lasting. It's not that the game is too easy. It's quite challenging up to a point, but after a few days, the difficult part will not be shooting your opponents, but trying not to fall asleep. The multiplayer action is the redeeming factor, however, the glitches with the frame rate do spoil the fun there as well.

Not exactly everyone’s cup of tea, but if you are a fan of the genre, it is your only choice on the Xbox 360. There are some nice ideas in Full Auto, and a sequel perhaps won’t be a bad idea.

Full Auto Price

You will find Xbox 360 for 59.99 USD.