Game Modes

• Career Mode – This is the main mode of the game where you can unlock new cars, color schemes and tracks.
• There are 16 different series to compete in. Each tries to offer a different challenge to overcome.
• Some series are just by class.
• Most give you the car and sometimes the weapons that you must use.
• Other series task you to gun down a specific car or a specific number of rivals, or accumulate a specific number of damage points.
• Others will try to make you overcome a disadvantage, like only having one life or not allowing the use of any unwreck.
• Each series has from three to ten different races, for a total 87 races to complete.
• Sadly, even though the various races present different goals and challenges, you only have five types of races that you’ll compete in.
• Point to Point – A zero-lapped race from start to finish.
• Down And Back – This is a point to point track where you must turn around at the finish and race back to the start.
• Rampage – A fun but simple diversion from a race against opponents. Here you must demolish as much of the traffic as you can while still completing the course under a specific time.
• Circuit Racing – Your normal lapped race.
• Lap Knockout – Fairly common in racing games today, in these races, the last place car of a given lap is eliminated until there is only one car left.
• As you can see, Full Auto doesn’t try to add anything new. Most of these types of races will be familiar to anyone who has played Burnout or Need for Speed.
• Head to Head – Allows you to race a friend in split screen action in any of the race types except Rampage.
• Arcade Races – Here you can play a single race in any of the race types.
• You can set the AI, cars of your opponents and what track you want to race on.
• Other than acquiring some of the achievements, there really isn’t any need for this mode.
• Xbox Live – Take your skills online. (See Multiplayer)
• Overall, career mode is where you’ll spend most of your offline time. Besides feeling a little generic and repetitive, each series does do a good job of adding some new challenge.

Gameplay

• The racing in Full Auto is pure arcade.
• The object is to destroy as much of the environment and other racers as you can while still winning the race.
• The cars you can use fall into three basic classes
• C-Class – This is your basic slow class filled with cars that are not very fast but usually more durable.
• B-Class – This is your mid range class filled with cars that have a good balance of speed, handling and durability.
• A-Class – This is your speed class, however, cars in this class are more fragile, so they will take a beating faster.
• Depending on the different car you have you’ll also get to pick a weapon set.
• Most of these sets include one front, and one rear mounted weapon. Some will include two front mounted weapons.
• There are a variety of weapons to choose from and when you have a choice, your selection will probably come down to one that matches your driving style.
• Machine Guns (front)
• Rockets (front)
• Missiles (front)
• Cannon (front)
• Mines (rear)
• Smoke Screen (rear)
• Shotgun (front, rear)
• Grenade Launcher (front, rear).
• Each weapon has three different levels which influence both the power and the ability of the given weapon.
• However, you cannot have the max level on both your front and rear weapon.
• The total of both of your weapons chosen levels must equal four.
• Playing with the different weapons and finding a favorite combination is one of the most fun parts of the game.
• Though each car has a different handling rating, I found most of the cars to be pretty much the same in this respect with speed being a larger factor in the handling.
• Cars are responsive and do handle easily. It won’t take long before your pulling off power slides and stunts like a pro.
• There are two special tools that each car in the game will have at their disposal: boost, and unwreck.
• Boost is earned by power sliding around corners, and catching air off jumps or other vehicles.
• Once the boost meter is full you’ll have a few seconds of blazing speed.
• Unfortunately the sensation of speed is not as high as other racing games.
• This does make it easier to handle while boosting but does also make it less thrilling.
• Earning and timing your boosts can be the key to victory.
• Unwreck is earned by destroying other cars, opponents and pieces of the environment.
• Once attained unwreck allows you to rewind the game and can give you a second, third or even fourth chance to avoid a wreck, make a kill, or take a corner correctly.
• This feature is fun and is a great help in those races that support it.
• Some races don’t and those become pretty hard, once you’ve learned to depend on the unwreck.
• Like other arcade style racers since Project Gotham Racing, Full Auto uses a three tiered success rating for completing a race.
• At its simplest, you will earn a “Survivor” rating. Usually this involves just finishing the race with a bare minimum of the overall requirement.
• The normal rating is called the “Semi-Auto”. These are usually goals that are attainable on your first try once you are used to the game.
• Finally, the hardest level to attain is the “Full Auto”. A lot of these can be had after a few tries and a little knowledge of each track and weapon. However, some are very challenging to achieve, and can take many, many tries.
• Overall, all three of these are tied to three different achievements. So which one you go for really depends on how much you care about achievements, though most people should have no problem at least getting all the “Semi-Autos”.
• Overall, the racing is fun. It’s not much below a Burnout Revenge, and the ability to blast your way through opponents and the environment is fun, and unlike anything found on the current gen racers.