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Review: Full Auto 2: Battlelines (PS3)

by Warren on March 19th, 2007

Psuedo Interactive’s latest edition in the Full Auto series is all about delivering more: More weapons, more levels, more cars and certainly not least, more explosions. The original Full Auto had it’s detracters. I wasn’t one of them. Full Auto is a classic blend of over the top racing and relentless action that scratched me right where I itched: Arcade styled gameplay.

If you weren’t a fan of the original Full Auto, there’s nothing to see here. The majority of “improvements” most negative reviews suggested are no where to be found in Full Auto 2: Battlelines for Playstation 3. What Full Auto 2 does is improve on aspects that fans will enjoy.

Released over a year ago, Full Auto for Xbox 360 was an entertaining, if not a little barren, combat racing game. Players were invited to complete the Career mode, comprised of five different event types across various tracks. It also featured an Arcade mode, for a quick jump into the action. While Full Auto 2 sports some new modes, this remains the basic layout of the title.

The first thing I noticed was how much faster Full Auto 2 seemed. It seems almost twice as fast as the original game, but the biggest change in Full Auto 2’s gameplay is the fact that the Unwreck and Boost gauges from before have been combined into one. Players have to use a bit more strategy then before if they want to stay ahead in a race by boosting. You never know when you might have to Unwreck your way out of a sticky situation, so I think linking the two abilities keeps things interesting, if not a little more difficult. Another big change comes from the addition of Power-Up’s such as Repair, Unlimited Fire and a destructive Mortar.

Another change for the better comes from custom weapon load-outs. Full Auto forced you to pick from a specific set of weapons to do battle with. That’s no longer the case, players can equip a primary and secondary weapon of their choice, barring vehicle specific weapon capability of course. Because of this, weapons are now sorted into weight classes. Things like rear shotguns and grenade launchers are considered light, lasers and ram plates are medium and homing missiles for the heavy class.

In Full Auto for 360, no explanation was given as to why you were in a race to the death, but anyone who understood the gameplay style didn’t care much either way. That’s why I think it was a little odd for Pseudo to have taken this complaint about the series to heart by adding in a storyline. Burnout doesn’t have a storyline, no one asked for one because it doesn’t need one. Neither does Full Auto. Why reviews for Full Auto suggested the game would have been more solid had it had “some meaning” behind it makes no sense to me.

Anyway, to quote the book, Full Auto 2’s storyline is a bit like this “You’ve been recruited by SAGE to take back Meridian City from the Ascendants…the only way you can succeed in the impossible mission is by completing in deadly vehicular combat and working your way through the ranks…” So, basically it’s another way of saying ‘do Full Auto’s Career mode, but this time it has a voice over.’ So, kudos Pseudo, any one that needed a reason to be shooting at other cars that are shooting at you can sleep easy at night.

As I said before, Full Auto 2 is about adding in more to what made the Full Auto formula work. Your favorite levels make a return, such as my personal favorite: ‘Revolver’, along with a few new battlegrounds, all of which are worth playing. Unlocking new skins is more interesting now thanks to the addition of sub-objectives into the Story mode. For example, by completing all your main tasks in one event, you’ll unlock a vehicle and weapon. However, if you were to complete all the sub-objectives for that event, you’d earn a nice pack of skins to go with that vehicle. The number of skins available for each vehicle has almost doubled, as have number of weapons, but the selection of cars has only increased to 25 (Full Auto has 21.) Story mode is still fairly short and tends to be repetitive, just like the original. Thankfully, Full Auto 2 isn’t about a storyline, it’s about playing with friends.

You and your buddies are treated to a slew of new modes Cat and Mouse, Base Assault and the most significant: Gladiator, an arena type deathmatch. Team Gladiator is a lot of fun and I’ve had more fun with it then any multiplayer mode on the original game. I can’t report on the 8-player online play, however, due to my Internet connection, but I read the community is growing as more Playstation 3 owners take their systems online. Anyone in the same situation as me shouldn’t give up on the game, though, it does feature local Multiplayer (aka. 2-Player) with CPU controlled opponents.

Most surprising is that Full Auto 2 looks better then the original in almost every aspect, with less slow down. The original Full Auto, while it looked great, had some pesky frame rate issues. These have been addressed on Full Auto 2 but they still rear their ugly head from time to time, but it’s not an issue like it was before. The selection of music has also been improved over it’s predecessor, with songs by bands such as Megadeth, Wolfmother and Methods of Mayhem (”Crash”, to be exact, which was also on Crazy Taxi 2.) Not really my cup of tea, but it beats generic Techno.

Full Auto 2: Battlelines is still a simple, arcade styled game. Like other arcade games, you’ll be sick of the game after 10 or 20 minutes of play, but you’ll find yourself coming back to play it for years to come. Fans of the previous Full Auto will feel right at home, while anyone who disagreed with the game will find little to enjoy again.

Full Auto 2: Battlelines is essentially Full Auto with a new paint job, a siren, flood lights and some hydraulics; If you hated it before, it’s even louder, faster and is still all about explosions, while Full Auto fan’s will enjoy the sequel because it’s louder, faster and is still all about explosions.

Full Auto 2: Battlelines for the Playstation 3 gets a 8/10 because I love arcade games with lots of explosions. Stop acting like you don’t…

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POSTED IN: Review, Sony PlayStation 3