When it comes to
turning vehicles into twisted scraps of metal, nothing comes close to the
appropriately titled Twisted Metal series as well as EA’s own addictive Burnout
series, which have been popular on the home consoles. Luckily for us PSP owners,
both of these games have graced Sony’s handheld and with much success. Now
Sega’s own Full Auto (a series that was introduced on the Xbox 360 and continued
on Sony’s PS3) finds itself on the PSP with Full Auto 2: Battlelines … a port of
the PS3 sequel.
Full Auto 2’s
main Career mode actually has a story attached to it but don’t expect this game
to have cutscenes or anything that weaves a very deep or compelling tale.
Rather, we are treated to a setup that tells of a not-so distant future when
natural disasters manage to wipe out millions of people and threatens our very
existence. The NSA and a technologies company called SecWare Industries have
created the ultimate supercomputer called Sage to track weather patterns to
respond to the growing crisis. Sage was great at predicting disasters but in the
end it became self-aware and has taken complete control. A group of
revolutionaries have gathered together with their vehicles and weapons and
decided to confuse Sage by creating their own man-made natural disaster with a
series of Velocity Death Battles. I know, it doesn’t make a lot sense but then
again fans of the racing/demolition genre aren’t in it for the story.
Much like the
console version of the game, Career Mode comes complete with race objectives you
must complete in order to successfully finish the race and move on to the next
one. The objectives range from destroying a set number of rivals to a set number
of civilian cars and then there’s the main objective you must see through such
as finishing the race first or even third. Full Auto 2 does mix things up a
little in the objective department such as completing a race before the timer
runs out but the game remains just as repetitive as the console version.
Still, there is
fun to be had in this repetitive game and it doesn’t come in the form of the
racing aspect of the series. Unlike the Burnout series (where destruction and
racing are mixed in nicely), Full Auto 2 does destruction right even on the PSP.
Not only can you trash other vehicles that get in your way, you can also destroy
your environment. A rocket to a shipping container, for instance, will bring the
shipping container down on whatever rival just so happens to be under it. You
can smash right into a store window and create a new shortcut through the store
itself. Oh, and if a rival happens to be racing near the vicinity of a gas
station you can fire a few rounds into the gas pumps and now only blow away your
rival but also the entire gas station. Yes, these are the elements that make
this game so much fun to play.
Also, like the
console game, you can pick vehicles from a short list of cars (you can always
unlock more cars the higher you advance in Career mode) and decide on the paint
and decals. The cars range from muscle cars – like the Brute – to customized
pick-up trucks like the Wasp and each car handles quite differently. The most
important “customizing” features to add on your car, however, come in the form
of the weapons. You can have machine guns on the hood or your car as well as
attach dual guns on the sides and add a mine launcher on the back. Then again,
you can mix things up by adding machine guns on the side and a rocket launcher
on the front. Either way you do it, your car will be well-armed.
You can mix and
match weapons to fit the race courses in the game since each race course is
designed differently. Many races have you moving through wide-open spaces such
as the construction site, or narrow alleyways in the city or even through
traffic-filled streets. There are also power-ups scattered throughout the course
that allows you to do everything from repairing your car to weapons that can
instantly destroy a rival within range. Like the console games, you will also
have the benefit of the Unwreck feature that allows you to “rewind” the game
right before you made a mistake.
The problem with
Full Auto 2 on the PSP is that much of the controls and gameplay elements aren’t
as smooth. Targeting, for instance, is a quite a gamble. Will it target a rival
that’s ahead of you or oncoming civilian traffic? Your guess is as good as mine.
Secondly, there is no telling how injured another rival car is so for those
gamers who like locking out of one car to target a car ready to explode will
have to get close enough to see the damage done to said car. Sometimes, Unwreck
can be unresponsive and thus leaving you to respawn at the spot where your car
was demolished.
Unfortunately,
the game’s visuals aren’t as striking or as impressive as the console game but
that is to be expected. Still, we have seen better on the PSP and environments
that are far more detailed than the one seen in this game. The cars in Full Auto
2 have their own look and while they’re not as beautifully detailed as they
could have been, they do manage to show the damage done to them throughout the
game. Then there are the environments that offer plenty of destructible objects
that play a hand in giving you an advantage (or disadvantage) during a race.
Nothing is cooler than watching a segment of an overpass land on top of a rival.
Thankfully, the
game’s sound effects are actually nicely detailed. You’ll hear your car crunch
into a twisted heap when you crash one too many times and you’ll hear machine
gun fire and the explosions as rivals run into a mine or a gas station blows to
pieces. There’s licensed music in the game as well that ranges from metal to
hard rock that fit’s the game quite nicely.
In the end, Full
Auto 2: Battlelines just doesn’t deliver a solid experience on the PSP nor does
it do the series justice. Yes, the game does bring the same style of destructive
racing and yes the game modes (including multiplayer) are pretty much intact.
The problem is that in its bite-sized format the game suffers from a number of
glitches and problems that keep this game from being an enjoyable racing game
fit for the PSP.
|
Review Scoring Details for Full Auto 2: Battlelines |
Gameplay: 6.0
The game modes
are everything you would expect from a Full Auto game and so is much of the
gameplay. Unfortunately, the controls leave much to be desired and everything
from targeting to using the Unwreck feature just doesn’t work as well as it
should. The race modes are also quite repetitive.
Graphics: 6.0
Visually, the
game isn’t appalling but it could have been a lot better. The cars look decent
enough and the destruction that unfolds around you looks good … just don’t
expect much in terms of environmental details.
Sound: 7.0
The soundtrack
consists of music from Megadeth to Sum 41 as well as other hard rocking tunes.
There are some wonderfully detailed sound effects that sound great through the
PSP speakers.
Difficulty:
Medium
Your rivals
will not make it easy for you to make it to the finish line but the real
challenge comes in meeting the race objectives that gets a bit harder later in
Career mode. The opponent AI is actually pretty smart and you’ll find that your
rivals will make good use of everything from the power ups to the environment.
Concept: 6.5
Career mode is
filled with plenty to unlock such as better cars you can use during Event
Attack. While repetitive, the events offer short bursts of fun. There is also a
multiplayer mode that runs rather smoothly.
Multiplayer:
6.5
The lack of an
online multiplayer mode is quite disappointing but at least there is Ad Hoc
multiplayer fit for up to four players.
Overall: 6.2
Full Auto 2:
Battlelines for the PSP fails to maintain the exhilarating car battles found in
the console version of the game and brings us a game that can be both fun and
frustrating at the same time. Even if you loved the console version of the game,
I don’t recommend this one. Hopefully, Sega will make the right adjustments for
the sequel and bring us a game that will give Burnout and Twisted Metal a run
for its money.
