Back when the Nintendo 64 and Playstation were butting heads, Activision's marketing team released an ad campaign for Vigilante 8. The tagline was simple: "Blow sh*t up." What a shame that line was wasted on a game where the only thing exploding were the cars instead of holding it back for Full Auto. That singular line describes this superbly crafted action title, its hook, and the appeal.
When viewed in still frames, Full Auto doesn't look like it belongs on the Xbox 360. In motion, with glass shattering, flames pouring from opposing cars, debris sprouting from everywhere, missiles firing, bridges collapsing, and pedestrian cars becoming an insurance companies worst case scenario come true, this Sega title does pretty well for itself. These fancy effects cause some oddball frame rate problems, but also create the game's reason for existence. When you’re the only car on screen, you may see slow down. Even though the game may handle mass genocides seconds earlier with no trouble at all.
Career mode sets up the single player game, split into various sections that provide different objectives. Aside from the time trials, they're always a combination of three goals: blow up opponents, make it to the finish line in time, and stay alive. That will likely lead to complaints of repetitiveness, yet taking any of the explosive weaponry away from the player at any point would be a crime.
Solo gaming fans are only left with a limited arcade mode that offers the same game play modes that Xbox Live players can toy with. The meager selection outside of the career is disappointing, and exists solely to earn a spattering of missed Achievement Points. It also limits the options online since it follows the same path. The game is suited perfectly to a deathmatch arena, yet the only options that exist for the maximum of eight players are things they've seen before when playing alone.
However, all of this stays within the simple mindset of the game. Each vehicle has two weapons, and there are a variety of selectable mounting choices. To keep balance, these are all pre-set selections, whether mounted to the front or attached to the trunk for reverse firing at the poor sap behind you. A little customization to the speed or armor (a money system would have been great) would have gone a long way here.
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