Full Auto 2: Battlelines

There are office buildings to crash through, all kinds of power-ups (including powerful, temporary third weapons) lying around and buses and big rigs that suddenly burst in through the force-shields bordering the stage.

The new title also takes selective advantage of the PS3's impressive rendering abilities, by which we mean that the cars didn't look too special, but the environment looks awesome. Even cooler is the way the game world is reflected in your car's rear window, and the way said window cracks and shatters as your car's ass gets riddled with bullets.

Above: Sort of like Burnout, but with guns. And missiles. And mines

Of course, the real visual draw of a game like this is in huge, spectacular crashes, and Full Auto 2 delivers one every few seconds - every time we got killed our ride was thrown into the air in slow motion with flames shooting out the windows.

And while we haven't yet seen any of the massive, game-altering destruction that the final game promises to pack in, the smashed-open buildings and smouldering wreckage of our opponents left us hopeful. If nothing else, the multiplayer action was a lot of fun, so we're looking forward to seeing what else Full Auto 2 will have to offer.

Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.