Full Auto 2: Battlelines Review - PS3

7

Gameplay: 8
Graphics: 7
Audio: 7
Multiplayer: 7
Innovation: 6

Introduction

Full Auto 2 is Sega’s follow up to the Xbox 360 game, Full Auto. The developers have added several things to make Full Auto 2 a better game than its predecessor. The first and biggest change introduces arena-style combat, a feature that would have been nice in the original. Most of the dedicated combat arenas are well designed, and will ensure some great battles. Pickups are abundant, and the terrain can be challenging at times. You can fight it out as much as you like, with time limited matches, and a full choice of weapons.

Gameplay

There’s a decent range of modes to choose from including arcade, multiplayer, online and career. The career mode is quite extensive, and will take some time to complete since you’ll often need to replay missions in order to complete secondary objectives which in turn unlock new vehicles, skins and weapons. It’s a decent system, and ensures that you will end up completing most of the secondary objectives (which can be quite challenging) along the course of the mode. You have a range of missions to complete, from straight out races, to arena brawls as well as time trials.

Control wise, the game handles quite solidly. If you’ve played Motorstorm (with the non-motion sensing controls, of course), then you’ll feel right at home, the acceleration and braking buttons are exactly the same. For those of you who don’t know, this means that you use the R2 trigger to accelerate, and the L2 trigger to brake. Boosting is set to L1, and you can fire your primary and secondary weapons using the X and circle buttons respectively. Square is used for the handbrake. All together, it makes for an easy to manage experience, the only thing that may give you a bit of trouble is aiming your weapons (if they need to be aimed), and driving at the same time. However, some of the weapons, such as the machine guns, only require you to be facing in the direction of another car to be effective.

The level of destruction in the game is quite massive. There are large structures (such as bridges and buildings) that actually change a small portion of a map when they are destroyed. Buildings will collapse downwards, crushing cars beneath, as will bridges. They can be quite a death trap, and add an extra element of destruction to the game. They can also be used strategically, since fallen buildings will obstruct your opponents. In the casino stage, as an example, if you destroy the structure in the centre of the map, a new (small) area is created. The debris and wreckage creates new jumps and drops pickups too. There are shortcuts in every map, which will help you shave those extra seconds off your time, and get in front of a pesky opponent. Learning where they are all located in order to take advantage of them however, is something you will have to pay close attention for.

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