Full Auto 2: Battlelines
Score: 80% ESRB: Everyone 10+ Publisher: Sega Developer: Deep Fried Entertainment Media: UMD/1 Players: 1 - 4 Genre: Racing/ Racing (Arcade)/ Action
Graphics & Sound: The genre of combat racing hasn't seen many updates in a while, but for some reason it still manages to be very popular. The wanton destruction of property must be a factor. The fact that road rage doesn't pay in real life may also play a role. When I think about the last combat racing game I really loved, I think back to the launch title for PSP, Wip3out Pure, that is still in my drawer and in rotation from time to time. What I like about Full Auto 2: Battlelines is that the environments are attractive, diverse, and destructible. The graphics aren't a huge leap from other games we have on the system now, but there isn't much slowdown either. The fact that you drive around blasting out huge pieces of the track has its appeal and nothing quite like this has shown up on PSP yet in quite this form. On the downside for graphics, it is hard to get a bead on your enemies. The enemies behind you are there and gone. But for a target lock, there wouldn't be any way to take out enemies. Most of your objectives revolve around how many other combatants you can take off the track, so the battle controls become pretty important. A batch of tunes from bands like Wolfmother, Sum 41, and Megadeth round out the offering but why did getting licensed music mean getting so little music? In other words, I hope you like listening to Wolfmother, Sum 41, and Megadeth.
Gameplay: A few notables come up in this otherwise very standard offering. The destructible environments are a nice touch and really can add to the immersion you feel during the game. Replay value is obviously higher when the level doesn't always look the same from race to race. Another neat feature is called "Unwreck." Think of this feature as the love-child of Burnout and Prince of Persia. If you haven't punked out your energy through the race, you'll be able to press a button and rewind the game back to the moment before you wiped out. The main alternative to using energy this way is through Boost, so you're given the option to drive fast & careful or slow & reckless. Go figure that out... The story behind the game is so abstract and weird that it probably doesn't warrant retelling, but I'll do anything for a chuckle. It seems that in the future, a machine is put in charge of defense and goes berserk (*cough*Terminator!*cough*) after it was originally set up for peaceful purposes. Now rogue mobs of cars battle to distract the machine so rebel groups can win back humanity's freedom. Does combat racing really need this kind of preamble? Apparently, this was the only way to explain why you would be battling in the streets with vehicles laden with high-powered weapons. Your rank in the early part of Full Auto 2: Battlelines is clearly Rookie, so you'll have to drive hard to get street rep. The Career Mode allows you to play through various tracks and open up locked content. There are ways to decorate your vehicle, so a bit of the street culture made its way into the game. After you open up new tracks and cars, you can race them in several competitive modes. These are similar to a Deathmatch battle, where racers go after each other in an open environment, with additional goals like destroying other objects or placing first in the race. Multiplayer is a saving grace for Full Auto 2: Battlelines, in that it justifies playing the game for more than a few hours. The A.I. opponents are impossibly cheap and elusive and the addition of some human fallibility makes for a much more enjoyable experience. The combat modes are varied enough to make this a fun party game for you and a few friends, but don't expect to come back again and again. The game just isn't that deep.
Difficulty: Each race is almost a complete crap-shoot, thanks to the wide variation in each opponent's ability and the vagaries of stray objects. I find that the problem with a destructible environment is that game designers feel compelled to absolutely litter the world with junk that you can blow up. That approach doesn't leave much subtlety or element of surprise. The tracks are filled with junk and then there are solid obstacles you can't overcome. The frustration level with crashes is alleviated somewhat by the Unwreck feature, but you start to wonder if that is the only reason for the feature in the first place. The addition of the target lock feels similarly crafted to offset an otherwise unbalanced experience.
Game Mechanics: Full Auto 2: Battlelines does a nice job in the handling department and uses all the controls intuitively, with the exception of the rear-view mirror that requires you to take your foot off the gas. C'mon!? Just as I've always liked a FPS with the ability to hold two guns and fire them at the same time, I love the primary/secondary weapon design in this game. There are heavy or special weapons that have to be configured in a particular way on your car, but, in each race, you can take advantage of two weapons in one of three places on your vehicle. The early weapons are the machine gun, the rockets, and the mines but it gets better from there. To again go back to Wip3out Pure and draw a comparison, there isn't anything nearly as fun as that game's Quake weapon in this ditty. Comparisons are easily drawn to cool racing and combat games that incorporate destruction as a theme. Full Auto 2: Battlelines tries to walk a line between too many styles or draw from too many wells and ends up feeling like a complete mutt. Many interesting ideas here which, if further developed, could make for a nice game.
-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock
Quickspot Armored Core 4