Multiplayer

• For a real challenge players will want to go online to test their skills against real people.
• One feature missing from the online play is the unwreck button.
• This means you better know your course as there is no room for mistakes.
• Also of note is that there really isn’t any traffic online. There are the stationary tankers and such on the roads, but no moving traffic.
• It can be hard at times to find too many people online.
• Most likely you’ll run into some of the long playing veterans of the game, and you will see just how bad you really are when you go to race them.
• Online play is broken into ranked and unranked matches, but you really won’t find anyone playing unranked as there just isn’t any reason to do so as all the achievements come from ranked matches.
• Since the game’s release there has been a patch applied to the online play. This has fixed some of the game’s lag problems and I found the online play to be really smooth.
• Overall though, there isn’t a lot of fun to be had online.
• There can be a big experience factor between racers which means you’ll more or less be left in the dust, no matter how good you think you are from playing offline.
• Since there is no way to race against only those in your own skill class, if you plan to put any time into online play be prepared to suffer DNF after DNF unless you are lucky enough to play with only friends you know.

Graphics

• Graphically the game looks pretty good in 720 HD.
• The most impressive use is the destruction of so much on the screen at one time.
• However, eight cars unleashing on each other and the environment can cause the game to slow down at times during the most chaotic moments.
• Still, some of the particle effects for smoke and fire as well as the shear amount of destruction that can occur, does make this game feel next gen.
• Collision detection is spot on, and the damage modeling of the cars them self is quite extensive.
• Maybe that’s why you won’t find any licensed cars in the game.
• Most of the cars are good representations of real cars but don’t expect to see brand names.
• Overall, the graphics aren’t too bad for a first generation 360 game, but I would expect to see a lot more in the future.

Sound

• The sound is nothing but uninspiring.
• All that plays while you race is some very forgettable, instrumental music.
• The music does fit the game in terms of style, but it wouldn’t have hurt to have some sort of soundtrack.
• Then again that’s why the 360 allows custom tracks, because for this game, you’ll sure want to use them.
• Besides the music, the sound effects are done nicely.  
• Explosions are loud and each gun/weapon makes its own sound. This can help you avoid some attacks.
• The rest of the sound effects do a good job in conveying the chaos of breaking glass, twisting metal and all other forms of destruction that can be created.
• Overall, the sound is pretty bland with the effects being the best piece.

Captivation

• Unfortunately the captivation just wasn’t there.
• It took me almost 15 hours to get all of the “Full Auto” rankings on all of the races.
• Considering that a few of those took about an hour to finally achieve, a lot of the game felt more like a chore.
• However, there was some amount of fun in blowing stuff up, so it did push me to keep going until I completed it.
• Some of the races though did feel, very challenging.
• But it was more of the “This is impossible..” feeling than a “I have to get better..” feeling.
• Besides getting all of the “Full Autos” and other offline achievements, there really isn’t any thing else that will make you want to keep playing.
• You could check your high scores for any of your races against those on Live or on your friends list. But unless you have a bunch of friends with the game, that’s probably not going to drive you forward.
• With little else than a career mode to master, captivation was average at best.

Final Thoughts

• Full Auto is definitely not a bad game, it just doesn’t offer anything new and ground breaking.
• Also, there are other slightly better games on the market that you may want to go for first.
• But if you like, arcade racers, and you want to experience some pretty fun vehicular combat, then you should at least give the game a rental.

Bottom Line

• If found cheap, it’s a good pickup for fans of the arcade racer or gamers on a budget.