Full Auto at first glance appears to be just another racing game with suped up, blinged out cars and huge crashes. But the addition of Spy Hunter-style weapons, and the "unwreck" feature mixes it up enough to make it feel original. The entire game revolves around racing against rival vehicles, all while racking up a huge score by either blowing them up or causing as much damage to the environment as possible. The actual driving involved is basic, arcade level stuff at best, and definitely isn't deep by any definition. Even with all the crashing, flying cars and explosions, it's usually not a problem to keep things under control.

Each vehicle can be outfitted with a pair of weapons, which can be fired either forward or backwards. Munitions such as mines and smokescreens are used to deter/damage enemies which are trailing you, and guided missiles and machine guns can rip through innocent and enemy vehicles as well as blow apart trackside structures. Naturally, these rivals will be gunning for you as well. Your car has a number of shields to protect the four sides of your car, and when one is compromised, the next hit may mean the end of your vehicle. Although being destroyed just delays you for a few seconds and places you right back in the race, it's better off to not make a habit of it, especially later on in the game.

Besides the weapons, the developers added the somewhat original unwreck feature that can be utilized in a number of ways. As an on-screen meter fills up, you can basically rewind up to several seconds of what has just happened. If drove over a mine which destroyed your vehicle, just rewind to the point before you hit it and make sure to swerve around it the next time. You can also use unwreck to score double kills (along with double points), if you destroy another rival/structure, rewind, and do it again. Certain missions literally require you to use the feature, and it really changes the way the game is played. Some may say that the game "allows you to suck" by letting you fix your mistakes, but in practice it adds an interesting gameplay twist.

The meat of the game is a career mode which takes you through about 60 missions, in which goals range from completing a race within a certain time, to causing x amount of damage during a race. It takes a good number of hours to unlock everything and to fully complete missions with gold medals, so longetivity isn't a problem. On top of the Career mode, you have your typical arcade/time attack and multiplayer modes to also help waste some time. Online play via Xbox Live is pretty solid, though it has a few problems. The tracks actually seem too large for the number of racers that are restricted to them, especially since, unlike the single player modes, there is no other traffic on the road. It's definitely fun to blast away at some human controlled rivals while racing, but it was surprising that a simple stunt arena-like deathmatch stages weren't included. On top of that, unwrecking, one of the game's standout features, was impossible to implement; I'm sure both technically and otherwise. While the game begins to feel like the same thing over and over at one point, that's pretty much par for the course for any similarly designed racing/action game. To be honest, I expected to be bored after several races, though thanks in part to Microsoft's addictive Xbox Live achievements I found myself striving for the best possible score/medal for every mission.

Visually, Full Auto is just bordering on looking next-gen. The amount of stuff going on at once is impressive, but the engine bogs down a bit when things get intense. Those running in widescreen on an HDTV will most likely witness the worst of these issues, as the game seems to struggle a bit more so then when played on a standard resolution/definition TV. The damage model on the cars and buildings/structures is well done and it doesn't take much to cause a screen-engulfing shower of sparks n' shrapnel. Artistically, the game is purposefully overdone and garish, and the look will definitely turn off a certain segment of gamers at first glance. Even the most modest of vehicles is stocked with huge rims, a spoiler, large amounts of chrome, and an overly shiny topcoat. Ugly? Kinda. But it shouldn't be enough to stop someone from playing the game.

The audio definitely syncs up with the game graphically, which is to say it's also very "in your face". I'm not a fan of the soundtrack, but it does fit the action. Sound effects and such do their job properly, with the sounds of thumping explosions and screeching twisted metal.

Full Auto isn't quite the Xbox 360 showpiece as expected originally, but it has a certain addictive quality to it that sets it apart from your typical arcade racing game. It's still a bit difficult to swallow the $59 retail price tag, although at this point the game could be obtained for quite a bit less.

I also have to commend Sega for taking chances lately, and I'm glad to see them realizing that not everything needs to be about Sonic or their long and impressive arcade history. You would never peg them to release a game like Condemned or Full Auto, but they have, and hopefully gamers respond.