Diseasedyak
02-28-2006, 10:46 AM
Despite the mediocre and/or negative reviews Full Auto had been getting, I decided to pick it up anyway, as I'm a sucker for racing games, especially racing games that invite destruction on an epic scale. So far, I have to say it is a worthy purchase, if for nothing else than the online element, as well as the split-screen.
In FA, you race a variety of cars through different types of tracks, all with a varying purposes. There are several ranks of cars, the upper levels of which you must play the single player game to unlock. The cars range from large, lumbering beasts with little handling but massive armor, to quick and darting fast cars with tons of speed and quick turns, but explode when a gnat farts on the hood.
As I said, you unlock things by playing the single player game, which is pretty much a must if you want to use the better cars and have been weapons. And what weapons there are! I haven't gotten into the high powered stuff yet, but the machineguns are cool in that they are very rapid fire and tend to blow the crap out of stuff quickly. The shotgun has less range, but way more power, often blowing up an enemy in 3 shots or less. The missles have tons of range, but are very low powered, oddly. You also have special rear attacks, such as dropping mines or grenades, or laying down a smoke screen.
There isn't a huge variety of locales, but the game designers managed to wrangle out quite a few distinct tracks using the limited locations. I have to admit that the tracks do get a little repetative once you've made it halfway through completeing the game. I'm hanging on to the hope that more locations are upcoming.
There are some things I hate about the game. For one, yet again the designers have resorted to "rubberbanding" for AI (and I use that term loosely). For those that don't know what this means, it is basically when you are blowing away the enemy, like so far ahead that they aren't even on your mini-map, when suddenly at the end of the race they miraculously catch up, and pass you! If you've ever had the urge to throw your controller through a window, or the tv set, then you know how this feels. Sadly, this is often common practice in racing games (NFS:MW a recent addition to this nefarious ritual).
I can't attest too much about play on XBL, as I've been trying to unlock most everything before venturing out there (and I don't catch any AGE'ers out there in joinable games hehe), but I've played the splitscreen two player with my wife and it's great fun. In the few times I've been on XBL with it, it was great too, until some foul-mouthed kid started questioning my sexual orientation due to my better-than-his driving skills.
Anyhoo, to sum it all up, I recommend you all at least rent Full Auto and give it a try. It might not be your cup of tea, but then you might just discover a fun racing game with good graphics and lots of explosions.
DY
In FA, you race a variety of cars through different types of tracks, all with a varying purposes. There are several ranks of cars, the upper levels of which you must play the single player game to unlock. The cars range from large, lumbering beasts with little handling but massive armor, to quick and darting fast cars with tons of speed and quick turns, but explode when a gnat farts on the hood.
As I said, you unlock things by playing the single player game, which is pretty much a must if you want to use the better cars and have been weapons. And what weapons there are! I haven't gotten into the high powered stuff yet, but the machineguns are cool in that they are very rapid fire and tend to blow the crap out of stuff quickly. The shotgun has less range, but way more power, often blowing up an enemy in 3 shots or less. The missles have tons of range, but are very low powered, oddly. You also have special rear attacks, such as dropping mines or grenades, or laying down a smoke screen.
There isn't a huge variety of locales, but the game designers managed to wrangle out quite a few distinct tracks using the limited locations. I have to admit that the tracks do get a little repetative once you've made it halfway through completeing the game. I'm hanging on to the hope that more locations are upcoming.
There are some things I hate about the game. For one, yet again the designers have resorted to "rubberbanding" for AI (and I use that term loosely). For those that don't know what this means, it is basically when you are blowing away the enemy, like so far ahead that they aren't even on your mini-map, when suddenly at the end of the race they miraculously catch up, and pass you! If you've ever had the urge to throw your controller through a window, or the tv set, then you know how this feels. Sadly, this is often common practice in racing games (NFS:MW a recent addition to this nefarious ritual).
I can't attest too much about play on XBL, as I've been trying to unlock most everything before venturing out there (and I don't catch any AGE'ers out there in joinable games hehe), but I've played the splitscreen two player with my wife and it's great fun. In the few times I've been on XBL with it, it was great too, until some foul-mouthed kid started questioning my sexual orientation due to my better-than-his driving skills.
Anyhoo, to sum it all up, I recommend you all at least rent Full Auto and give it a try. It might not be your cup of tea, but then you might just discover a fun racing game with good graphics and lots of explosions.
DY