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First Full Auto Review?

S

sorryaboutdresden

Member
Saw this review over at AMN. It's a pretty good review, and the game got a decent score. Still don't know if i'll pick it up or not.

Intro

You’ve all heard it before. Developers and publishers have mentioned in passing that as each console generation comes and goes, the graphics are going to start moving out, not up. There is a limit on how realistic an object or a person looks. Once you achieve photo-realism, you cannot improve further. So the processing power is not going to go entirely towards making single objects look more and more photorealistic. Rather, the processing is going to go into honing those finer details. The lighting on the car across the street, the way the dog wags his tail, the fine details on each weapon you own, and hundreds of zombies on the screen at once, each with their own personal identity. Full Auto is a grand example of how the next generation isn’t about a high gloss image that you watch on the screen. Instead, Full Auto is about how you can blow up a bridge on one pass through, and on the next lap you have to drive through the rubble. It’s about how when you crash into a scaffolding, each individual plank will fall and careen off the top of your car. It’s about how all this destruction and mayhem doesn’t disappear after a few seconds. It stays where it is, and you have to work with it. From a purely visual standpoint, could Full Auto have been a game from the last generation? Probably. But there’s no way they could have crammed in all of the detail and environmental effects that play throughout Sega’s newest racer.


Conclusion
Full Auto is the beginning of a beautiful series. Much like just about every first game in a franchise, it has its flaws. The framerate drops, the maps aren’t varied enough, and the Xbox Live interface is a little clunky, but the core gameplay of Full Auto is truly fun. Sega and Pseudo Interactive had a great idea here, but the final product just feels like it may have been rushed out the door. Had this cake been let alone to sit in the oven for another month, you could have a Game of the Year candidate here. However, as it stands, you have an overly very solid experience that is tons of fun, offers a lot of replay and tons of unlockable content, and will leave you with more “Did you see that?” moments than any other game on the console. Remember that the one touch instant replay is a quick tap down on the D-Pad, because you’re going to experience things that you just have to see twice to believe. Burnout, beware: Pseudo Interactive is knocking on your door.

Verdict

Visuals The cars and tracks are beautiful, and the environments are amazingly destructible. However, the combination of these two things causes framerate lag occasionally. 9.0

Sound Turn up Surround Sound and you'll be blown away by constant machine guns and explosions. Music? There's music in the game? 8.5

Control Controls are very solid, if not a little on the loose side. Unwreck button is your friend. 8.0

Gameplay Tons of modes in single player campaign, but none of them are particularly different from each other. The core gameplay is fun, but playing alone gets old once everything is unlocked. 7.5

Replay ...which is why it is a good thing that playing with friends is such a blast. Prepare for some fun moments as you blast, destroy, and curse at your friends or rivals online. 8.5


This is a great start for Pseudo Interactive. Full Auto is an amazing game that simply seems to have suffered from rushed work at the end. Xbox Live could have been done better and more levels would have been nice, but this title is a fun experience and a jump start to the slow Xbox 360 season.


8.3
[not an average]

+ Holy destruction, Batman!
+ Lots of unlockable content
+ Multiplayer mayhem
- Frame... rate... chokes... sometimes...
- Xbox Live interface is clunky
- Stupid mine whoring
Click to expand...

How much is this game again? If it's $59.99 no buy, but I may spring for it at 50.
 
If you have a Fry's, it's $45

10523987



EGM and OXM also have reviews for Full Auto. Not so hot from OXM. EGM got 8.0+ from all 3 reviewers
 
Frame... rate... chokes... sometimes...
Click to expand...
This guy must have tested the game on a 4:3 SDTV. On a proper HDTV in 720p mode or even on a widescreen SDTV Full Auto is can get almost unplayable at times because of the horrible slowdowns.
 
Blimblim said:
This guy must have tested the game on a 4:3 SDTV. On a proper HDTV in 720p mode or even on a widescreen SDTV Full Auto is can get almost unplayable at times because of the horrible slowdowns.
Click to expand...

Well, thats not cool.

Was this the first Full Auto review posted on GAF at least? Hopefully I didn't double post.
 
Call me crazy but I think this titles a lot of fun, while not perfect its one of those games like SF rush that I can look past its faults and just sit and enjoy
 
*thumbs down*@framerate drops. i KNEW they wouldnt fix that shit


"we are working on it and will be done by launch!! promise!!" >_<
 
I played this game on SDTV and it ran at 60fps most of the time except for a few drops. Then I played it on VGA at 720p and it chugged like Half-life 2 on a 486.

720p is supposed to be your target for shit's sake, I can't believe Microsoft's TRC permits running a game at 60fps at SDTV res and 20fps in HD. This is not the PC market.
 
20 FPS makes it easier to WIN!

JUST LIKE HOW PEOPLE SAY LAG IS THE REASON I WIN IN DOA ONLINE! YES THERE IS A LITTLE TINY BIT OF LAG! YES I AM DSL! IT ISNT GAME BREAKING! I AM EXPERIENCING THE SAME LAG YOU ARE!
 
Sho Nuff said:
I played this game on SDTV and it ran at 60fps most of the time except for a few drops. Then I played it on VGA at 720p and it chugged like Half-life 2 on a 486.

720p is supposed to be your target for shit's sake, I can't believe Microsoft's TRC permits running a game at 60fps at SDTV res and 20fps in HD. This is not the PC market.
Click to expand...
Wow, that's pretty lame. :/ HD Era indeed...
 
Sho Nuff said:
I played this game on SDTV and it ran at 60fps most of the time except for a few drops. Then I played it on VGA at 720p and it chugged like Half-life 2 on a 486.

720p is supposed to be your target for shit's sake, I can't believe Microsoft's TRC permits running a game at 60fps at SDTV res and 20fps in HD. This is not the PC market.
Click to expand...
The framerate isn't perfect even on a 4:3 SDTV, but at least it makes the game much more playable. Widescreen SDTV is a bad as 720p.
 
Someone is flying the AMN flag :p

Same old shit - decent game, would've been better is given more care (seems to be the case with a lot of X360 titles).
 
MrAngryFace said:
20 FPS makes it easier to WIN!

JUST LIKE HOW PEOPLE SAY LAG IS THE REASON I WIN IN DOA ONLINE! YES THERE IS A LITTLE TINY BIT OF LAG! YES I AM DSL! IT ISNT GAME BREAKING! I AM EXPERIENCING THE SAME LAG YOU ARE!
Click to expand...

Seriously, I hate people who make excuses like that. Just accept the loss, jackass! I'm not rubbing it in your face, no need to belittle my win.
 
I tried Full Auto on the demo pods at the weekend, and can sum it up in 7 words:

Normal Mapping gone mad! - Shiny, Shiny Shiny.

Boring after 5 mins on the demo station, the road textures, shine, the cars, shine, in fact EVRYTHING shines and looks horrid horrid horrid.

The bumpmapping is overdone, and did I mention the shinyness?

Horrid.

HORRID.

You've been warned.
 
Yow... so we have to start reviewing games in various resolutions now to find out how well they work in each? Welcome to PC gaming on your couch!
 
Pixarfan said:
Call me crazy but I think this titles a lot of fun, while not perfect its one of those games like SF rush that I can look past its faults and just sit and enjoy
Click to expand...

Agreed. Personally, I've never really cared for slow down (though it IS kind of annoying in RR6) but for a game like Full Auto the slowdown is kind of like a reward for causing so much insanity, like in old 2D shooters when there would just be so much craziness on the screen the game would slow down. I've always liked that.
 
rastex said:
Agreed. Personally, I've never really cared for slow down (though it IS kind of annoying in RR6) but for a game like Full Auto the slowdown is kind of like a reward for causing so much insanity, like in old 2D shooters when there would just be so much craziness on the screen the game would slow down. I've always liked that.
Click to expand...


Slowdown? Where?
 
DaCocoBrova said:
Slowdown? Where?
Click to expand...

It's really rare, and I didn't really experience it until 2 months after owning the title. The worst case if you're playing splitscreen multiplayer, there's a level (I can never remember the names of the tracks) that has a bridge with red scaffolding, if you're both going over that bridge at the same time, then there's guaranteed slow down, and if you're doing level 3 nitrous at the same time the slowdown can get pretty bad. And it can happen briefly in single player, if you do level 3 nitrous with a car that has a big nitrous effect overtop of that bridge or when there's a lot of background scenery.

They're pretty specific circumstances, and it RARELY happens in single player, but it's pretty annoying in splitscreen multiplayer. Good thing nobody ever plays in that mode.
 
rastex said:
Agreed. Personally, I've never really cared for slow down (though it IS kind of annoying in RR6) but for a game like Full Auto the slowdown is kind of like a reward for causing so much insanity, like in old 2D shooters when there would just be so much craziness on the screen the game would slow down. I've always liked that.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately in widescreen the game does not achieve 60 fps all the time even when nothing at all is happening, like in the very first race where there is no opponents, no weapons and starting at the very first second it's already not running at 60.
If devs want to make a 60 fps racing game, more power to them. But slowdowns in a 60 fps game are NOT ACCEPTABLE, even the slightest framerate hiccup is enough to kill the whole thing, and in Full Auto it's not just a frame drop here and there, it's almost all the time.
I'd rather play a racing game with NFS:MW's low framerate than with Full Auto's "60 fps when I have nothing to display at all".
All this is when the game is played in 720p, as any Xbox 360 should be played and developed for.
 
This is stupid. I don't wanna hafta move my 360 to an SD or EDTV just to get acceptable frame rates. 20 fps IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. 30 fps is BARELY ACCEPTABLE only because I ultimately wanna play games and most games run at this frame rate.

60 or bust, developers, and consistent experience across resolutions.
 
Drinky Crow said:
This is stupid. I don't wanna hafta move my 360 to an SD or EDTV just to get acceptable frame rates. 20 fps IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. 30 fps is BARELY ACCEPTABLE only because I ultimately wanna play games and most games run at this frame rate.

60 or bust, developers, and consistent experience across resolutions.
Click to expand...

Agreed. The problem is there has been a major PCification of the console market that began the moment Microsoft built the first Xbox and developers from the PC side started majorly dipping their toes into console development. The background and experience of PC game making is such a different animal and many of these people just don't understand the importance of making console games work consistently well ALL the time and not SOME of the time.

It's damn frustrating, and this new wrinkle of having to make console games in multiple resolutions is only making the problem worse.
 
Sho Nuff said:
I played this game on SDTV and it ran at 60fps most of the time except for a few drops. Then I played it on VGA at 720p and it chugged like Half-life 2 on a 486.

720p is supposed to be your target for shit's sake, I can't believe Microsoft's TRC permits running a game at 60fps at SDTV res and 20fps in HD. This is not the PC market.
Click to expand...

thats just pathetic. Sega should be embarassed and MS shouldn't have let this shit fly though like that. It spits in the face of their "HD era". I hope this isn't commonplace with 360/PS3 games.
 
Yeah, umm...I'm going to refuse to buy games that run at noticable lower framerates on an HDTV than on a normal TV out of principle. As an HDTV owner this is a situation I was worried might arise due to lazy developers, and I certainly am not going to support those that chose this way out.
 
Bebpo said:
Yeah, umm...I'm going to refuse to buy games that run at noticable lower framerates on an HDTV than on a normal TV out of principle. As an HDTV owner this is a situation I was worried might arise due to lazy developers, and I certainly am not going to support those that chose this way out.
Click to expand...


I agree completely. The 360 and PS3 are supposed to be about high def gaming. If they can't provide that experience without a hit to the framerate, they are failing at the very thing they claim to be giving us with these $400 consoles.
 
http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3148023&did=1
It would be interesting to know if they have played it on a SDTV, like the horrible TVs we see in the 1up show, or on a proper HDTV. Because unless they did not review the game in 720p then I simply don't think we have played the same game at all.
1up said:
It's a miracle that Full Auto can handle the hectic John Woo-inspired action moments at all, but the Xbox 360 does a commendable job of keeping a sturdy pace right through the absolute chaos going on. Previous Full Auto builds suffered from frequent slowdown whenever a lot of action occurred on the screen at once, but with the final build, it seems that the developers have worked out most of the kinks and solved most of the framerate problems. Perhaps now, we're actually playing a game worthy of being called "next gen" -- the game runs beautifully at 60fps, superbly illuminating every bit of explosion, bullets, and car wreckages that it has to offer. Sometimes, though, the action gets too out of hand and the slowdown problems resurface to mar the experience. Furthermore, the game does have its fair share of graphical glitches, but they're only apparent when you truly do something weird...like flying into the side of a building headfirst and somehow getting stuck on the middle of the floor. Wow, that's weird.
Click to expand...
 
Blimblim said:
http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3148023&did=1
It would be interesting to know if they have played it on a SDTV, like the horrible TVs we see in the 1up show, or on a proper HDTV. Because unless they did not review the game in 720p then I simply don't think we have played the same game at all.
Click to expand...

It would definitely be interesting to know, because the disparity in reports are just baffling frankly. I would hope 1up would play it 360 games on an HD set (at least part of the time), if not, it's tough to really understand how they can give an accurate review.
 
I wasn't too crazy about the demo for this one, felt too linear, would have been much nicer to be able to go off track more, maybe I just didn't put enough time in.
 
GitarooMan said:
It would definitely be interesting to know, because the disparity in reports are just baffling frankly. I would hope 1up would play it 360 games on an HD set (at least part of the time), if not, it's tough to really understand how they can give an accurate review.
Click to expand...

I don't know the specifics of this review, but HD sets aren't exactly cheap. :P
 
Yeah, this brings up a good point. If a game runs badly at HDTV resolutions, but perfectly fine at normal resolutions, then the reviewers who only own non-HDTVs will be oblivious to the problems and score the games higher than they deserve (not to mention mislead those who buy the game only to find it runs terribly on their HDTV).

Then developers such as the Full Auto team say "Hey, look. We cheated and made the game only run nice on 480...and look at these scores...it worked! We got away with it!" Which is just going to encourage the team and other developers to start taking "shortcuts" and cheating everyone.

The bottom line is that games in this new gen need to be locked at a specific framerate (either 30 or 60) and every resolution needs to be able to stay locked on that.
 
Richard Li did the 1UP review... dude can't get away from controversy... anyway, I would hope 1UP/EGM were reviewing 360 (and PS3 when they arrive) games on an HDTV... if not, then I wouldn't really be able to rely on their reviews as much... any clarifications che or another 1upper?
 
jet1911 said:
xbox360-vga-hd-av-cable.jpg


;)
Click to expand...
Exactly, a VGA cable certainly shouldn't be a problem.
I like how Edge actually went out of their way when the Xbox 360 was released that they would always test their next-gen games as they should be played, with a HD set and a 5.1 surround set.
I'm sure people will be happy to discover that their game that was running fine on their old TV set now has a sub-par framerate on their shiny new HDTV. Pure joy.
 
TheDuce22 said:
So let me get this straight. If you switch your xbox to 420p with widescreen you can play it with no framerate issues?
Click to expand...
I did not try 480p, but I assume it would be the same as 480i as it usually is.
So 480i widescreen is the same as 720p. I guess it uses the same framebuffer size and uses the scaler to scale back to 640x480 anamorphic.
480i 4:3 is much smoother, my guess is that like in Kameo's case it uses a 640x480 framebuffer. Except of course Kameo's framerate was smooth in 720p too.
 
I did not try 480p, but I assume it would be the same as 480i as it usually is.
So 480i widescreen is the same as 720p. I guess it uses the same framebuffer size and uses the scaler to scale back to 640x480 anamorphic.
480i 4:3 is much smoother, my guess is that like in Kameo's case it uses a 640x480 framebuffer. Except of course Kameo's framerate was smooth in 720p too.
Click to expand...

Did you try 1080i at 4:3?
 
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