Full Auto Q&A - The Progress Report

Full Auto is the upcoming Xbox 360 racer from Sega that aims to set itself apart from the sizable pack of games already representing the genre on the system. The original game has been in development for the past two years at Toronto-based Pseudo Interactive. Though it was originally expected to be a launch title for the Xbox 360, Full Auto has since moved into next year, as the team cranks away, fine-tuning its next-gen debut. While it's technically categorized as a car-combat game, Full Auto is more of a hybrid, drawing elements from modern arcade-style racers such as Burnout, Twisted Metal-style car combat, and some Prince of Persia-esque time-shifting into a surprisingly cohesive package that's flashy and fun. We checked in with producer Cord Smith to see how things are going and what to expect from this promising game.

GameSpot: How is development of the game going?

Cord Smith: We've already submitted what we feel will be one of the 360's most popular demo downloads, the full game's gone through precert, and we're looking to submit the final code for the full cert process well before the Christmas break. At this point, we're in the typical crunch of doing everything we can to both finish and add as much quality as possible. By that I mean 12- to 18-hour workdays, coders and designers forgoing sleep entirely, miracles occurring on a daily basis, and a small number of unexpected setbacks forcing us to create the most elegant and time-effective solutions possible. When I say the game is 99 percent there, I couldn't be more serious. We can truly see the light, and I'm happy to report that the fun factor, graphics, multiplayer, and overall look and feel have come a very long way since E3.

GS: Why did you decide to delay it?

CS: I suppose there were lots of great reasons to push the ship date a bit, but the most compelling for us was more time to increase the overall quality of the game. We've honed multiplayer, beefed up the original career mode by nearly 40 events, finely tuned every car for independent handling, optimized each of our tracks for performance, and buffed every small element we could find in an effort to ensure that Full Auto's debut is one the industry won't soon forget. As for the business side, ramping up for a February release with a full-court press of marketing and PR efforts (including the recently launched segalabs.com) behooves Sega and Pseudo.

GS: What did you think of the Xbox 360 launch and the launch titles?

CS: You'd be denying the obvious to say it wasn't a solid launch, but besides the hype about the hardware shortage and the true arrival of high-definition gaming, I couldn't single out a truly killer app. I was particularly impressed with PGR3, NFS: Most Wanted, and Call of Duty 2, but while these all improve upon their predecessors, they fail to deliver a fresh experience--which I think is fair to expect of next-generation content. At Pseudo, we've worked tirelessly to tap into something new, combining the many powers of our technology to create an experience that only next-gen gamers can enjoy.

GS: What's the biggest misconception about the game that you've seen out there? Why is it wrong?

CS: It's not a misconception per se, but the endless comparisons to Burnout can give people the impression that we're just a fast arcade racer. We love the Burnout franchise, but we didn't set out to remake it--we set out to reinvent the genre. Whether it's the fully interactive environments, massive weaponry, or the ability to turn back time, we feel we're providing an experience that can't really be described through comparison to current-gen games.

GS: How did you settle on the car handling in the game? From what we've played, it seems more arcade-like. Why did you settle on that direction?

CS: You'll find that the final handling parameters are arcadey and accessible, but with apparent nuances for each and every car. We didn't set out to make a sim-racer, so there was no way we wanted players to have trouble just staying on the track. And then there's the issue of the weapons: How can you possibly utilize two weapons (one usually fully aimable with the right stick) while driving at top speeds through fully populated city streets if your car handles like a pregnant cow? We went for responsive controls representative of each type of car archetype, and I'm proud to report that from my perspective, our hard work has paid off.

GS: What can you tell us about the modes in the game?

CS: Our core modes pretty much describe themselves: circuit, point-to-point, down-and-back, and lap knockout. We also feature a rampage mode where your weapons don't overheat and you get to take out traffic with unbridled vengeance. Offline, we offer the first three modes with two-player split-screen, and you can also go crazy with eight players over Xbox Live. In arcade mode, you'll have access to all 18 tracks and our track settings let you modify most events for opposing starts (half the pack is "coming right for you"), reverse races, and any sort of class match you desire (A, B, C, or S classes, or even an opponent field identical to your player car).

In the career mode, you get more than 80 events as well as some unique event parameters in series: Sudden death means no respawns, so you have to use unwreck wisely; time trials means no weapons, so these are solely about speed; in dominator, you take on a full pack of weaker vehicles with a far superior machine; impossibles equals no unwreck, one life; and beefed-up opponents makes for maximum intensity and the ultimate Full Auto challenge.

GS: How has it been to work with the 360 hardware? Does it live up to the hype?

CS: Hype's a dangerous thing, but from what I've seen--and given what we're able to accomplish with the hardware--the 360 lives up to every promise it makes. As is usually the case, I'm really excited to see what the second wave does, once developers really get their heads around fully exploiting the hardware. At launch, you're usually most concerned with getting everything to work, but you learn so much along the way that your sophomore effort--at least techwise--should always eclipse your first. Even as we're finishing up Full Auto, we're chomping at the bit thinking about everything we can do "next time."

GS: Do you think your game lives up to the hype?

CS: Absolutely. Up until E3, we really weren't sure where we stood with regard to next-gen competition, but although we expected a solid response to Full Auto, we were blown away by the hordes of gamers lining up at Sega's booth waiting for their turn to play the game. It wasn't really about generating hype as it was about confirming that gamers were enjoying playing our game as much as we were enjoying developing it. When you focus on making a game fun, but you stare at it everyday, you can easily misgauge how well you're winning the battle. As hype for the game has continued to build, we've been working strenuously to ensure that Full Auto lives up to expectations and ushers in something that's fresh, fun, and captivating.

GS: Tell us about the game's presentation and why you've settled on your approach.

CS: We started with the standard fare: four types of drive cams (far, near, hood, bumper) and then began crafting presentation cams to track the big-action items (when players jump, take out opponents, or wreck), but we didn't want to be too invasive and we realized even though we let users shut off any of the presentation cams (some people want to stay locked behind their car on jumps), we wanted to allow them access to that level of presentation at the touch of a button.

There's so much happening in the game at any one time that it's easy to miss everything that's going on around you when you're throttling forward at 120mph. Our unique One-Touch Replay feature lets users instantly relive the last 12 seconds of gameplay through the eyes of cameras that are procedurally placed in real-time within the world. If that doesn't do the trick, you can actually pause the replay and track the camera around the car yourself while progressing time forward or backward with the left and right triggers. For those of you anxious to put a next-gen game under the microscope, this is your chance.

GS: Considering the effort made to keep the visuals strong, how did you work to make sure the audio complemented them?

CS: I'm going to have to give full credit to our Lead Sound Designer, Michelle Frey, and her team of audio programmers. They've worked insanely hard to create, tag, and test more sound than I've ever witnessed in a game. When you consider that engine sounds, road noise, skids, scrapes, and wrecks were just the basic foundation of what was built, you start to understand the trials of audio on a racing title this ambitious.

Michelle and her team have created collision sounds for every material type and every unique object within the game. They've also fine-tuned weapon sounds, explosions, fire effects, shattered glass, and a long list of destructive sounds I can't even keep my head around. More than that, they've also incorporated an adaptive music system (exclusively composed for Full Auto by John Roome and Rom Di Prisco) that reacts dynamically to player position, onscreen action, and track location. Keep in mind that all these elements mix into aural bliss when heard in fully mastered 5.1 positional sound.

GS: Given Full Auto's beginnings, how do you feel about the game it's turned into? Has it ended up where you expected or has it changed into something entirely different?

CS: This has been a wild ride for everyone involved. We've grown our team to more than 50 people, we've watched our garage of cars grow from one to 21, our weapons evolve and flourish, and our city take on a level of detail we only imagined last fall, and we've somehow been fortunate enough to retain all the fun and excitement we were so confident the mix of these elements would someday produce. Were things cut along the way? Definitely. You don't start a project this ambitious and not lose a few gems along the way; but since we've always viewed Full Auto as a franchise, whatever sacrifices we've had to make will only make future games more robust, more polished, and more destructive. I'm so proud of our team for what they've accomplished, and I personally can't wait to get started on what's next.

GS: Thanks for your time, Cord.