June 6 2006
It could be a guy thing, but a lot of us find beefed-up cars, wreckless driving, and blowing stuff up to be irresistable, especially when all three are combined into an action-packed video game. Auto Assault takes a fairly standard MMORPG formula and applies it to sci-fi vehicles, which is definitely a departure from the swords and sorcery that dominate this genre. It's a bold effort from NetDevil, the game's developer, who are also known for their online space title, Jumpgate.
Auto Assault is set in a post-apocalyptic future where humans retreated underground to avoid a holocaust, only to emerge years later and find the surface of planet in an ongoing state of chaos. Humans, mutants, and biomeks, the game's playable races, are now on separate sides of the conflict fighting for survival. Each race has access to roughly the same 4 classes, which fall into the familiar lines of tank, healer, stealther, and pet master.
Your New Wheels
Although Auto Assault doesn't have the prettiest graphics on the market, the physics go a long way toward making up for it. Player-driven cars look great, are highly customizable, and leave cool skidmarks on the road. Objects in the environment are a little bland, perhaps because almost all such objects can be destroyed. Sure, they respawn after a while, but blasting through buildings, fences, and anything else that gets in your way is remarkably satisfying after playing so many games with completely static worlds.
You will notice that your car is nowhere near as fragile as a real car. While your movement is influenced by the game's physics, you can survive incredible falls and collisions, which is part of the fun.
The only time you'll see your avatar is when you're in a city, where you leave your vehicle behind and set off on foot. Serving mostly as crafting and trading stations, towns are functional but not very memorable.
Auto Assault's interface cleverly combines action-based targetting mechanisms with RPG-like dice rolls. Your movement is controlled with the keyboard and the mouse is used to aim and fire your weapons. While it's an intuitive system that is easy to adjust to, they've included joystick and gamepad support as well.
The game has integrated voice chat to facilitate group communication, which can be helpful when you don't want to stop moving in combat. Although it works, the current absence of any configuration options can be frustrating. You can't adjust the volume of voice chat independently of other game sound, and microphone settings are also missing.
Running Missions
The central concept behind Auto Assault is pretty close to what we've come to expect from fantasy MMORPGs. You earn experience by completing missions and killing an assortment of bad guys on the way, gaining levels and filling out your character's skill set.
Missions come in the usual varieties, ranging from FedEx deliveries to escorting NPCs through dangerous territory. If you're the type that reads the text, you'll come across a few well-written stories in the mix.
There are no shortage of navigational aids in Auto Assault, and you even get an arrow on the top of the screen which directs you through every mission. You can progress much more quickly by tackling missions than by farming mobs, although missions do get sparse at certain levels. Traveling to zones you have already visited can be accomplished instantly using the world map.
Death penalties are very light, amounting to a free airlift back to your last repair pad. This usually doesn't take you out of the game for long, and if you needed to repair anyway, it's almost a bonus.
Regardless what class you choose to play, Auto Assault rarely requires you to group to complete a task. It's such a solo-friendly game, in fact, that low-level players hardly ever bother forming into convoys, Auto Assault's equivalent of groups.
Combat Driving
The Organization of Combat Driving (OCD) gives you access to Auto Assault's arenas and tournaments. There are arenas of different shapes and sizes, some of which accommodate 3 teams. Tournaments are regularly scheduled PvP events which include a ladder system for tracking the best players. Unfortunately, despite technology that allows teams from different servers to do battle, these features are very difficult to access due to a lack of participation. It can take hours for a suitable match to be found in the arena, and the queue window is one of the only windows in the game that won't stay where you put it, popping inconveniently back to the middle of the screen.
Some of the arenas and tournaments have dynamic components that are triggered by players. The 1-on-1 arena has a hoop situated such that you can jump though it and cause a set of doors to slam shut, blocking the path of any enemies on your tail. Auto Assault begs for more of this kind of content, perhaps some sort of racetrack feature, open to players from the early levels of the game. Why not have a circuit where drivers can complete for the best time, or, if someone else is around, race head-to-head with integrated start and finish controls?
