Right off the bat, this game is a decently enjoyable racing/shooting hybrid. The graphics are fairly good, some of the licensed music tracks are pretty awesome when you notice them, and the racing mechanics are more arcade-style than realistic. Whatever, it gets the job done. If you like racing combat, you’ll be modestly satisfied for a short period of time and that’s all that matters. Let’s talk about something else, though. The story.
Full Auto 2’s story is my favorite part of the game, and it’s utterly retarded. Upon starting a career, you’re treated to a series of static images with text overlaid detailing the complete subjugation of humanity by a weather-predicting supercomputer called Sage. Interestingly, this supercomputer is a gigantic cube that spits flames. Nothing more is said about the state of Sage’s rule; I’d guess it’s actually fairly benevolent, but, thankfully, the player and rival racers come into the equation here. In order to throw off the shackles of Sage’s peaceful reign, your task is to battle against other factions to cause damage to property and lives on such an unprecedented scale that Sage messes up somehow and can’t predict things anymore. I’m not sure what happens after that, but, apparently, the best way to break a supercomputer is to drive around blowing up giant hamburgers and dropping segments of bridges on busloads of people. Enough of this, and I guess the supercomputer bluescreens and humanity wins. Oh, and for some reason you still have to come in the top three in a race.
Anyway, I’ve come to realize that Full Auto 2 is more than just a semi-shallow racing game with a completely tacked-on storyline that doesn’t even serve as reasonable justification for the racing action, it’s a manifesto. Full Auto 2 taught me what it means to be a patriot. When your governing body gets dissolved and a supercomputer enforces peace in a dictatorial fashion, you damn well do not stand for it. No, you rise up, hook your car up with cannons, and murder the living hell out of things. You do it for the greater good!
At any rate, this game is not rocket science. You unlock more weapons as you win races, but many basically work in the same fashion and some appear to be semi-useless. The fun part of the game is destroying landmarks, like the giant clown face, and causing it to collapse on top of the other racers. There is a little bit of depth to this as you get to know the courses better over time, but overall it’s not very difficult to figure out.
Which brings us to the next point. Basically, any single race is enough to tell you everything the game is about, except for the arena battle levels where you drive in circles trying to blow up a new car so you can unlock it. For any other level, though, you’ll basically drive in and out of traffic, traverse a few alternate paths, crash into fruit-stands, and blow up landmarks and other racers. There just isn’t anything else to it. It’s fun enough for 5 minute blocks, which is suited to handhelds, but don’t expect to be utterly enthralled by the plot twists here.
There is also a loading time for every single car you rotate through in the selection screen before a race, and it is INFURIATING. Other than that, there are no glaring flaws. Combat racer fans with a PSP will enjoy this, but others may not play past the first few courses. If you do end up picking this one up, enjoy the race.
