Arnold-KatayevSega seems to be keen on turning Full Auto into a flagship series for the company. Though, of course, before a series can become a flagship, it actually has to be good. Alas, Full Auto 1 and 2 haven't exactly been unanimously accepted on either Xbox 360 or PS3. Some enjoy the series, some dislike it — but as long as there's a fan base, the games will keep coming. Thus we have Full Auto 2 for the PSP.
Developed completely from the ground up, the PSP version will not be a port and will be developed by another staff. Fear not, as developer Deep Fried Entertainment houses a staff that isn't new to developing frantically quick vehicular titles — a number of the developers have worked on the Need for Speed series in the past. That said, Full Auto 2 for the PSP will retain its speed, but most importantly will feature some enhanced combat features. As a PSP exclusive, instead of being able to mount your weapons on just the front and back of the car, you'll also be allowed to equip them on the sides of your car, in true James Bond fashion. Furthermore, exclusive content will be quite apparent on the to-go version, as the game will sport an additional 10 new cars to drive, with 10 additional weapons to choose from. Moreover, you can also unlock 100 unique skins to apply to your car.
The career mode is expansive and non-linear. Much like Full Auto 2 on the consoles, your missions will vary quite a bit. Each mission will require you to complete a certain task in order to clear the objective and continue on in the career mode. One event will require that you destroy a certain opponent before crossing the finish, whereas another one will just require you to stay alive and successfully cross the finish and so forth. In total, the game is expected to have just around 50 decently varied missions to complete. Once you're done with that, you can move onto the single-player arena-mode, as well as online multi-player for up to 4 players. If you've got two PSPs nearby, then by all means play Full Auto 2 against a friend using the game-sharing feature.
For the PSP, Full Auto 2 will continue to employ destructible environments and much of the other carnage present in the home console versions. The game has approximately another 8 weeks of development left until its March release. So far, the game looks pretty decent for a PSP title. The cars sport some good looking details, as do the environments. But because it's a PSP game, don't be surprised to find some sloppy texture work here and there. At the end of the day, the most important thing for Full Auto 2's visuals is to make sure it has a steady running frame rate. Allegedly the last available code of the game had some frame rate issues, but we hope that's all cleared up for the final release.
Look for Full Auto 2: Battlelines on the PSP this March.