Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Review - Full Auto

Posted by Zonk on Mon Feb 27, 2006 02:10 PM
from the bang-bang-vrooom-screeetch dept.
XBox (Games)
If you look down the line, into the future of Xbox 360 titles, you see some pretty complicated games coming our way. The likes of Elder Scrolls IV and Mistwalker Studios' Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon are designed to change gamer perceptions of Microsoft's console. Out of the gate, though, Xbox 360 titles have fallen back on the themes that made the original Xbox so popular: sports, FPS games, and racing. The Xbox already has two popular racing franchises to its name. The exclusive Forza Motorsports is a powerful sim, while the multiplatform Burnout series finds its shiniest home on the Xbox. Full Auto, by developer Pseudo Interactive, tries very hard to interest the 360 owner with a brand new way to race. Strapping weapons to cars can only lead to good things, right? Unfortunately this modern title, in the vein of SJ Games classic Car Wars, fails to do much more than explode prettily in the interested gamer's face. Read on for my impressions of this disappointing title.
  • Title: Full Auto
  • Developer: Pseudo Interactive
  • Publisher: Sega
  • System:360
There shouldn't be much here that can go wrong, right? The concept, at least, seems like a sure thing. Fully destructible environments, impressive weaponry strapped to interesting vehicle designs, racing through the streets trying to gank your opponents. There's even a new use for a design element we've seen elsewhere: the application of the Prince of Persia time-rewind to the racing genre. On paper, and in E3 previews from last year, the game looks like a sure thing. Not a testament to the storytelling power of gaming, to be sure, but a solid action game that will distract folks from playing Halo 2 on their four hundred dollar console.

Things start off well. The game's tutorial makes it clear from the get-go that your aim is speed, to an extent, but the real way to impress the title is by blowing stuff up. The game walks you through the various components of racing the Full Auto way. You have your boost bar, refilled by doing slides and jumps. You have your unwreck bar, which is refilled by blowing stuff up. Weapons can be mounted front and back, giving you a number of options when you're out on a course. There are several gameplay types, including basic racing, time trials, wreck point targets to hit, and qualifiers to run. There are also 'underdog' races to run, where you're outclassed by every other NPC and still have to make it to the finish line in one piece.

All of these elements somehow combine to make the most shallow and uninteresting game I've yet played on the 360. The first time you play you find dark satisfaction when a car explodes, hit by one of your hood-mounted missiles. The first time you make a mistake use unwreck, you smile in appreciation. By your third or fourth race you're settled in, driving your opponents into trucks and laying open building facades with machine guns. You're playing by rote already. You keep opening up new matches, hoping there will be new elements revealed by different race types, but you're disappointed. Within the first half hour of play, you've seen every trick this game has up its sleeve. At least it looks nice.

As a 360 game it would be hard for Full Auto to look bad, and it doesn't. Graphically, the game is solid. The textures are nice, the autos are bright and move well, and the user interface is well thought out. Even here, I don't feel entirely satisfied. With a few exceptions, the backdrop you'll be racing in is very bland. The game that Full Auto begs comparison to is Burnout, and the intricate and highly themed tracks of that game make the dingy street corridors here look quite sad. There's a jump-cam effect that gives you a cinematic view of any aerial maneuvers you perform, but when the camera returns to a first-person perspective there is a jarring sense of discontinuity; Even if your car hit the pavement in the other camera mode, you're still in the air when control is returned to you.

Most frustrating, though, is the stuttering that persists throughout the game. In heavy traffic, you can pull the trigger in rapid succession and rack up an impressive number of kills. Vehicles respond in a realistic fashion, explosions bloom, shrapnel flies, all while you speed along the track ... the system is placed under a heavy load not just occasionally but frequently in this title. Knowing that, the pausing that takes place when in a heavy combat situation is intolerable. At times there is a disquieting 'driving through butter' sensation as the action slides to a crawl. This slowdown doesn't take place during every crash or explosion, but it happens often enough to be a distraction from the only thing this game has going for it.

The most frustrating aspect of this title is the purity of the experience. The game may only do one thing, but it does that one thing fairly well. I really want to like this game. I could see myself occasionally popping into Full Auto for an online match with someone on my friends list, or trying for a new wreck point max to blow off some steam. The key is that, in this vision, the game is a $20 download from Xbox Live. The depth of this game is very similar to what I've seen from some of the better Live Arcade titles, and the simple gameplay bears a resemblance to those downloadable morsels as well. The price Sega is asking for this game is a slap in the face to anyone browsing the recent release wrack. My vision is false, and in reality this is a $60 title you have to physically drive to a store to buy. I recommend against that. If you're in the mood to blow stuff up while driving, rent this one instead. It's just not worth the money for the variety or consistency I've seen here.

+ -
story
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Review - Full Auto 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.
  • There's even a new use for a design element we've seen elsewhere: the application of the Prince of Persia time-rewind to the racing genre.

    What's the "new use"? Oh wait, there isn't one: it's a direct ripoff. Please don't try to sugarcoat at all what is an obvious grab at existing genre money.
    • There's even a new use for a design element we've seen elsewhere: the application of the Prince of Persia time-rewind to the racing genre.

      What's the "new use"? Oh wait, there isn't one: it's a direct ripoff. Please don't try to sugarcoat at all what is an obvious grab at existing genre money.

      I didn't know that Prince of Persia was a 100% original game. That's amazing, really.

    • And Price of Persia just ripped it off of Blinx: Time Sweeper.

      It's very hard to come up with a completely new concept. Implementing it well however can make all the difference.
  • designed to change gamer perceptions of Microsoft's console

    And that's the problem. Instead of focusing on public perception [msversus.org] a game designer should focus on a great gaming experience. Again it's marketing and greed driving a game instead of artists.
  • The Xbox already has two popular racing franchises to its name. The exclusive Forza Motorsports is a powerful sim, while the multiplatform Burnout series finds its shiniest home on the Xbox.

    What about Project Gotham Racing?
    • Yeah, especially since those were Xbox games and this is Xbox360, with PGR3 being the only of those represented as yet on the new platform. Oh well, what do you expect from Zonk?
      • Uh, yea. Idiot. Power oversteer? Traction limits?

        Oh sure in some soft rich boy benz you might find it easy to control, but a real high powered sports car is anything but.

        • Disclaimer: I don't own a sports car. I don't actually own any kind of car. I do the website for the official swiss importer of Lotus and Caterham cars, so I know lots of sports cars owners and get to drive their cars from time to time.

          Oh sure in some soft rich boy benz you might find it easy to control, but a real high powered sports car is anything but.

          I think the point here is that at equal speeds, a sports car is easier to keep on the road than a "normal" car. The Caterham cars are actually nothing

  • And I thought to myself "That's it?". Just like in Zonk's review, I was surprised by how little depth this game has.

    C'mon, this is the 360! Next gen! I want a hundred tracks to race through(big ones, too, think Carmageddon or something), I want 30 unique weapons, I want 60 types of vehicles(cars, trucks, etc), and maybe some variants. how about a "defeat the big rig" a la The Road Warrior or something just to spruce things up? Crazy power ups? Power downs?

    Nope, it appears to be a 187 ride-or-die like game.
    • The next generation only refers to graphics. All that extra processing power and hard drive space is only there to make the games look more fun.
    • I've always thought it would be cool to have a racing game based on real physics, where you have a variety of track types (Autocross, drag, road, "streetrace", etc), and you get to build your own car based on real parts, not Just the stage 1, stage 2, etc nonsense.

      It'd be fun to race a $4000 striped Datsun 510 with a Carburated/MSD/headworked/camed/headered KA24E, aluminum flywheel and brake disks, and tight suspension against a $50000 turboed Corvette. You could PWN them at simulated autocross, then get
  • "Pseudo Interactive"?

    I mean, come on. That says it all...

    (What marketdroid imbecile thought that would be a good name for a company? Why not go the whole hog and call it 'Games On Rails' or 'Recycled Ideas'?)

  • ...fails to do much more than explode prettily in the interested gamer's face.

    Sorry, I have never really been all that excited to have anything explode prettily on my face, no matter how interested in it I was. This review, and game for that matter, gets a Brokeback Mountain award. Of course, I am a male gamer, so the female gamers out there may have a completely different view on the matter.

    Yes, in case you were not paying attention, I just insulted male homosexuals and women inside of two sentence
  • I have Full Auto - I bought it the first day it came out. Every review I've read is negative. I just dont get it. Yes, full auto is Oblivion, it doesnt have hundreds of hours of single player game. But ya know what, when I get home from work, tired, maybe a little bit frustraited - its A HELL OF A LOT OF FUN TO BLOW STUFF UP.

    Thats what this game is made for, its not Project Gotham, its not Oblivion - its a game about blowing stuff up. If you don't like blowing stuff up, fine - but dont call it a bad g
          • "possibly because of some unstated conclusion that I am overqualified"

            Yeah, that's a hot-button of mine. I don't believe in the term 'overqualified' and think that HR and other hiring resources in companies should not be able to disqualify candidates based on that notion. Example: If you have 40 years of experience, imagine how much you could teach my team in the three years that I may get to keep you?? You'd have seen software/hardware errors that my team hadn't ever experienced, and could relate that e

  • My $0.02 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AusG4 (651867) on Monday February 27 2006, @02:33PM (#14810888) Homepage Journal
    The really cool thing about the 360 is that you can go Live Marketplace, download the demo to this game, and try it out. If you like it, buy it. If not, don't... makes reviews less necessary when everyone can review the game themselves. I tried the demo, didn't like it that much - is fun for a few minutes but nothing I could really get into - so I didn't buy the game. Conversely, I tried the Fight Night 3 demo and never expected to like it but had a total blast - so I'm going to buy the game.

    The 'shooting at other cars' part of this game isn't as fun as the 'crashing into stuff' part. That said, Burnout is a better 'crashing into stuff' racer... Project Gotham 3 is a better 'sim car' racer, and Ridge Racer or NFS are better 'drift' racers. With an uber-tuned-up version of Burnout due on the 360 next month, just wait for that.

  • What's the *point* of a console? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Phanatic1a (413374) on Monday February 27 2006, @02:35PM (#14810905)
    You know, I read stuff like this, and it occurs to me that I just Don't Get It:

    Vehicles respond in a realistic fashion, explosions bloom, shrapnel flies, all while you speed along the track ... the system is placed under a heavy load not just occasionally but frequently in this title. Knowing that, the pausing that takes place when in a heavy combat situation is intolerable. At times there is a disquieting 'driving through butter' sensation as the action slides to a crawl. This slowdown doesn't take place during every crash or explosion, but it happens often enough to be a distraction from the only thing this game has going for it.


    Snuh? WTF? Why would you go through all the expense of designing, manufacturing, and marketing a console system, for the advantages of a known, discrete, and predictable hardware set, making an API to market to developers, all so that you can release games that the hardware can't keep up with? Sure, I know that on my PC, I can't run Battlefield 2 at 1600x1200 resolution with all the eye candy turned up to max with 4x antialiasing and expect to achieve a playable framerate. But some other people *can*; maybe those people want to spend extra money for dual Geforce 7800s in SLI mode. Maybe they've got their own liquid nitrogen cooling rig for their 7.2 kW power supply. There are people who can do that sort of thing, and moreover, want to do that sort of thing, so when PC games push the limits of current hardware, at least there's a market for it.

    But with Xbox 360 or PS3, nobody can do that. You can't sell a new video card to 360 owners by telling them it will let them run games better. You can't sell games to 360 owners by telling them their 360 can't quite run it fast enough.

    So why do such games get released? I for one know that if I'd just spent all that money on a new console, only to find that it chunks like a fudge factory on offically-licensed software, I would not be happy at all.
    • Exactly. With PC games there are so many variables that it's hard to pin down what the requirements are, or how fast a game will run on any particular system. With Consoles it should run the same on every console. If it doesn't then the console is broken. I think games should have to pass some sort of test by MS/Nintendo/Sony before they are released for the console, so that you don't get games coming out that make you system look bad.
    • This is exactly why I don't understand people buying consoles to play the types of games available for PC. The PC will ALWAYS be one step ahead of the console. You will never have the absolute BEST graphics on the console.

      That said, there are reasons to buy a console: fun games. If you are looking for latest and greatest graphics and sound, the PC is it. But for games that aim for the fun factor, consoles have a lot more to choose from. I've got a Gamecube and PS2 at home and there is no shortage of in

      • Conversely, when Doom 4 comes out and your new $1400 system becomes obsolete, and you need a new $250 blazing PCI-XXX videocard just to get it to run at 640x480 with a decent framerate, some dude will be playing Halo 3 on his ~$350 360, which will be optimized to the best of the developers' ability for the system. This discussion has been a non-issue for years now, dudezilla.
      • This is exactly why I don't understand people buying consoles to play the types of games available for PC. The PC will ALWAYS be one step ahead of the console. You will never have the absolute BEST graphics on the console
        the problem is that the PC game buisness is obsessed with making the best games possible no matter what the requirements. To keep up with the latest PC titles you need to spend several thousand a year at least.

        wheras buy a console which is generally a few hundered at most and you will see n
    • ### But with Xbox 360 or PS3, nobody can do that. You can't sell a new video card to 360 owners by telling them it will let them run games better.

      While you can't buy a new gfx card for a XBox360 or a PS3 you actually can run the games in different resolution, thanks to HD-TV, so I am wondering if it makes any significant difference to run this or other games in PAL/NTSC instead of 720p HD-TV, it are after all only half or less the pixels to calculate.
    • but it *still* happens.

      it's been happening since the SNES days, if not earlier.

      I know for a FACT Metal Slug 3 would slow down at random spots. That was for the 500USD NEO GEO. The cart cost more than X360 Value Pack.

      However, the console's gimmick is that not every game does it and if it does, it's consistent.
    • Ever see "The Matrix"? It's just like the action scenes in that movie. Are you sure it's not intentional? Or if it wasn't intentional, it could likely be written off by a quality tester as an "additional feature" to help the player navigate through hectic gameplay.
  • The xbox 360 really has to struggle against its own features in order to have good games. The great graphics are ... well, great, but because producing them requires work, that's all work not going into things like entertainment value or playability. That's why the old Nintendo games are more fun -- they didn't necessarily spend more or less money, but the vast majority of the money was not going into modeling 3d textures or stuff like that.
  • dead rising is where it's at

    You, a mall, thousands of zombies, plenty of things to hit them with. No rules :)

    I apologize for linking to ign, but the gameplay video is insanely awesome:
    http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/748/748396/vids _1.html [ign.com]

    I mean, what game can you take traffic cones and stick them over the heads of zombies? Or take shower heads from a hardware store and stick them into the zombie's heads and get an instant blood shower? Or use a giant cactus to fight them with?

    Another good upcoming Xbox
    • .. is the way it features rubber banding, so no matter how far ahead you are, the enemy cars will always be snapped up to within a certain range of your position. Don't believe me? Just try watching the dots on the car radar and you'll see what I mean. As for Dead Rising, it looks good in the trailer, but what is also evident from the trailer is that the zombies don't actually seem to pay any attention till you're close enough to rub noses with them. Doesn't sound much fun at all if they're not a threat.
      • Yeah, but isn't that what happens in real life? erhh... wait a second ;)

        I was wondering about that myself, but I guess we'll see what it's like when the game is released. I would imagine the level of the zombies' awareness is something they'll heavily test and tweak.
  • I wish they had mentioned Live For Speed [liveforspeed.net]. It doesn't have as many cars or tracks as the big name games, but it is a REALLY impressive offering for a development team of only three people. They appear to be putting a lot more effort into the physics than into flashy features, and it is the only racing simulator I know of that has an autocross editor so you can build your own autocross tracks.

    They win brownie points with me by using ogg vorbis for their sound files. :)

  • I played an early demo of this game that was released on a magazine CD and liked it. Stupidly I thought some of the apparent short comings were because this was a demo and purchased in on release day... ha stupid me.

    What the review fails to mention is how often this damn game actually *CRASHES*. It locks the whole bloody 360 up! The screen freezes, the remote stops responding, and nothing short of pushing the power button on the 360 itself will get it back. And this is in single player campaign mode!

    Int

  • Now that was a cool game. Wish they'd bring that one back.
      • There was the splatters, of course. But a lot of the fun was the physics. Especially when you managed to snap off a light pole or a tree. Stuff would go flying and bounce around. Cool!
  • Colin Mcrae Rally 2005.

    On a decent PC, nothing comes close. Most beautiful and challenging racing sim. Ever.

    After playing it, I can't imagine why anyone would want to engage any other sim ... especially a NASCAR one.

    NASCAR drivers see 1 turn 1000 times. Rally drivers see 1000 turns 1 time.
    • Who knows, it could be from an oil producing nation with subsidy. I'm sure there are more than a few Saudis and Venezuelans wondering if we are loopy when they compare $.14/gal gas to our $2.10-ish prices. Heck, just check out Iraq [usatoday.com].

      "For years, Iraqis have enjoyed subsidized fuel prices, with gasoline costing about 5 cents a gallon. Last month, prices increased to 27 cents a gallon as part of a phased plan to remove subsidies and bring prices into line with other Persian Gulf countries."
    • And not only that, but $1.79 for all three grades. Lunacy!
      • Furthermore, I think it was 3 years ago that you could get gas for $0.98 in southern California. That lasted for almost the whole summer.
    • I agree wholeheartedly with this.
    • "Until I can go down to my chain store and buy a console for MSRP or less, I could give crap less. As far I am concerned the Xbox 360 so far is a failure."

      So you don't own one and have made up your mind? Very grown-up of you. MS has sold 600,000 of them and it's a 'failure'.
      Well, I actually own one - bought it from Best Buy a month ago - it's very cool. Hardly a 'failure'.

      Wait a couple weeks - MS says they're going to flood the market. 'Supply issues will be gone', so sayeth Mr. Moore.

      Then, when you've trie
    • Where have you been looking? They're pretty easy to find these days. I saw them at at least 3-4 stores over the weekend, including quite a few at the Walmart near me (I almost picked up a second one...)

      That shortage thing is so last month.
    • Suckage indeed. Interstate 82 ranks down there with the movies Alien 3 and Highlander 2 as sequels that not only sucked, but managed to crap all over their fine predecessor in the process.
    • Now that was a cool game... burning around the desert in a 1970s hotted up car with guns... fun times... the car driving model was great too, you really felt like the thing was rocking and rolling on its springs... great stuff.

      A new sequel to that would be great... actually, a prequel would be excellent, 1960s cars... nice... or actually 1940s would be pretty cool too... real gangster style car chases with tommy guns.
    • Actually it was done even before I'76 on the playstation (Although I'76 was a vastly superior game). Twisted Metal was released for the playstation in '95, infact it became quite a popular series (Twisted Metal 2(PSX), Twisted Metal 3(PSX), Twisted Metal 4 (PSX), Twisted Metal: Black (PS2)).

      I remember playing the orginal on one of those demo discs that come with magazines. Good fun actually, remember playing the demo a few times. Never bought the full game however as i felt I'd got everying I was going to

    • RE: enjoying blowing stuff up

      The environment itself is static, to the extent that you can't blow up buildings and other hardware, but when it comes to cars Burnout:Revenge is awsome in my opinion. I've had the game for a month or so, and I think I'm almost 70% done. I can't really speak to 'racing mechanics' but I can tell different cars by the way the 'feel' when I excellerate/corner in them, if that's what you mean. There aren't any cars in Burnout that I can compare to real-world cars.

      The single-box m

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.