Had a chance to try out the arena mode in Full Auto 2: Battlelines today…
Wow. THIS is the Full Auto game that Sega promised us last year when the original game was announced for Xbox 360.
The original was released a few months ago, and I, like so many others, was underwhelmed. What fun is being able to blow up the whole city if you can't do it against a bunch of live opponents?
It seems Sega heard those complaints, because Full Auto 2 for PlayStation 3 delivers the mode that is so sorely absent from the 360 game, arena deathmatch (and five other multiplayer modes).
I had such a blast today, driving around a large chunk of the city and blasting away at my three opponents (who were situated at kiosks to my right). The game totally feels like a first-person shooter done up with cars. Each car has its own weight and armor ratings, and you can equip whatever primary and secondary weapons you want based on your personal needs. For instance, I chose machine guns and missiles, which left my rear end defenseless but gave me potent frontal firepower. The city, though it was a small-ish contained environment, afforded numerous streets, intersections, and alleys to drive around in. Darn near everything in the environment can be damaged or destroyed. Also, much like Sony's Twisted Metal series, you can go pretty much anywhere.
Oh man… the feeling of driving past a rival at high speed, doing a quick power slide to turn the car around, and then launching a missile up his tailpipe. Such fun!
From my vantage point, it appears that Full Auto 2 uses the same graphics engine from the original Xbox 360 game. Buildings and cars are crisp and have the same glossy look, and you can blast everything in the environment into chunks, bits, or shards.
That's about all I have to say about Full Auto 2: Battlelines for now, since all they have here at E3 is this single arena deathmatch mode. The full game is set to ship in November, during the PlayStation 3 console's initial launch window. From my brief playtime with it today, I can tell that the reception for this one is going to be much warmer than the original game received.
