Full Auto Xbox 360: Hands-On

Cel Damage developer Pseudo Interactive gives Xbox 360 its first vehicular combat game.

What, exactly, is it that makes a game a next-generation experience? If it's merely being on a next-gen platform, we'll grudgingly allow Sega's Full Auto to be classified as such. But we're not letting it get away that easily.

Right now, Full Auto is a bit messy. The graphics, while understandably hampered by the chopped down alpha development kits running the demo we played, are lacking all the flair that is supposed to wow you when you first play a next-gen game. Textures are bland and flat and the colour design is deplorable - at least it was running at a fairly solid frame rate, which can unfortunately not be said of a majority of Xbox 360 software at this point in development. The game is, however, imbued with a good sense of speed when you do push the speedometer to breaking, necessitating some quick thinking on your part.

The visuals' saving grace right now is the great looking time-rewind Unwreck feature, which allows you to turn back the clock to repeat a part of the race - this can be any part, whether a crash or just a missed turn. You can activate it at any part during a race, but only once you've charged up the meter by destroying other cars or the multitude of destructible items (fuel tankers, gas pipes, filling stations, etc.) that litter the levels. If you're a fan of explosions, you'll be well catered for, as Full Auto teems with powerful bursts from cars crashing into building, cars crashing into other cars, cars crashing into tankers, and cars blowing up other cars.

Automotive destruction is hardly the most cerebral of game types, and from the limited time we got to spend with Full Auto you won't have to worry about flexing your grey matter too much here either. Simply point the front of your car in the direction of the garish green chevrons that set out your path through the city and try to make it to the finish line first, without falling victim to the aforementioned cascade of carnage.

The aim is to finish the race first, but you'll be able to do this either by being a better racer or having a better trigger finger. You have access to more than one weapon type, which comes in handy, as your opponents are not messing around. The game demands a certain amount of strategy, as you need to choose the optimal times to use each of the weapons (which reload at distinctly different types) and also when to use turbo boosts or the Unwreck command.

As with several of the first-generation Xbox 360 games, Full Auto is set in one fictional city, loosely based on some of Canadian developer Pseudo Interactive's local grounds. With no final release date set and pre-final hardware still in place, the team felt it was better to accurately model one large city with multiple courses layered over it than to sit adding level after level as better hardware an final specs became available.

The story of Full Auto at present is an unfinished one - there's simply too much missing from the game to tell how it's going to turn out. A good deal of the visual polish is still missing, mostly due to the early development kits the team has been forced to work with. As with most early games in a console's lifespan, Full Auto will be in the cooker until as close to launch as possible. While the developer hasn't confirmed that Full Auto will be released alongside the hardware this Christmas, the company's eagerness to get it out there in the first batch of titles practically assures that it will be there on day one.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games