Full Auto 2: Battlelines Preview

What’s more fun than ramming your friends’ vehicles into oncoming traffic? What beats a heat-seeking missile that causes your friends’ sports car to be blown into a thousand little pieces? What satisfies the need for speed more than a multi-car pileup that makes your adversary shout, “Burnout!”? 

Nothing. 

Full Auto missed the 360 launch, but its graphical prowess and extreme vehicular destruction left its mark on gamers everywhere. Sometime after PlayStation 3 launches, Sega will spread the love and crash more cars, create more explosions, and fill the screen with more eye candy than ever before in Full Auto 2: Battlelines. 

Developed exclusively for PlayStation 3, Full Auto 2 boasts more of the original’s hard-hitting content. Since none of the vehicles are going to be licensed from real auto manufacturers, the developers are free to do what they want with each and every part. Vehicles will show more body damage, burst into richer, larger flames, and give the city a headache so big that even a pool of Ambien couldn’t put it to sleep. Streets, buildings, signs, and other structures are more interactive, and as a result, much more destructive. 

Twenty-five vehicles will be at your disposal, many of which look like exaggerated, super-enhanced versions of the cars and SUVs that flood our nation’s highways. Customization will play a minimal role in the game, as players will be able to change the color of each vehicle. Nearly two dozen weapons can be equipped and used in battle, leading to some of the most intense battles ever seen in a vehicular combat/racer. 

Sega has not announced the exact number of new tracks they plan to include, but they’re dedicated to including at least 20 courses. Whether or not each of these will be entirely new courses, repeats, or variations from the first game remains to be seen. But on the bright side, the courses shown at E3 were new, looked beautiful, and will be hard to resist for PS3 owners looking for an eye candy feast. 

New to Full Auto 2 is the Arena mode, a team-based multiplayer feature with six different levels. Each was designed for a particular type of multiplayer racing / shooting / vehicle abolishment. Also new to the game is a multi-path single-player campaign. Meanwhile, the Unwreck technique that made Full Auto the game it is today, is coming back to save your skin once more.