Auto Assault preview

Having pre-ordered Auto Assault, I got an invitation to participate in this weekends beta event. So based on one weekend of play, this is my preview.

Auto Assault turned out to be pretty much what I expected it to be: A standard MMORPG on wheels. You have a character with stats, experience points, and levels, who is doing quests and killing mobs to level up and get better loot. Only that instead of running around in person and swinging a sword or wand, you are driving around in an armored car with a gun turret, shooting at stuff. Both you and your opponent tend to be in constant motion, with you either auto-targeting him, or keeping him in your mouse-controlled firing arc. That works rather well, and has the big advantage that combat looks a lot more realistic than two guys swinging swords at each other without moving from their spots.

At the start of the game you have the choice between 3 races, human, mutant, or biomek (cyborg). Then you chose between 4 classes, which are named differently for each race. The biomek versions for example are called terminator, constructor, mastermind, and agent. The 4 classes correspond to the 4 stats combat, tech, theory, and perception, with each class being strongest in their corresponding stat. Starting stats are fixed by class, and rise with level, but with level you also get some bonus stat points which you can distribute yourself.

Both your class and your race give you access to skills, with you gaining skill points when leveling. You can use these points to learn new skills you have access to, or to improve old skills to a higher rank. As biomek constructor I had a self-healing skill from the start, and learned three bot (pet) skills afterwards, a flying laser bot, a static flamethrower bot, and defensive nano-bots.

At the start of the game you can chose the look of your character, but you only see him when in a city. Outside you only see your car. But you can "pimp your ride" with paint, and lots of pipes and vents you get as loot. That doesn't change anything in the cars combat characteristics, but allows for a more individual look. But your car also has lots of slots for a motor, armor, weapons, and other gadgets. In the early level you only find turret weapons, which fire in all directions, but there are slots for front and back weapons that have a more limited firing arc.

The world is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, with the big advantage of being mostly destructible. It is nice to have good-looking trees, but even nicer to be able to shoot them and see them go up in flames. :) Many building can be destroyed too, either by shooting at them, or ramming them with your car. That is not just for fun, but there are quests that might require you to not only shoot mobs, but also destroy specific building, or shoot crates to get something from them.

You can get quests from people or from terminals. The quests are varied enough, but I had some frustrating ones. For example I was told to jump with a ramp over a mob lair to make it spawn, but had to give that up when after one hour of jumping I still only had one of the four mobs I needed. You always only have one "active" quest, with helpful blue dots on the mini-map, or even a waypoint arrow showing you where to go. I had some problems of the game switching between quests when I didn't want it to, but otherwise the system is easy enough.

There is a highly complicated crafting system, which I didn't explore much. You learn crafting disciplines, reverse engineer items you find to break them, fix them up with some enhancements and salvaged parts you found, and end up with better items. Of course during the beta I didn't have a manual, and could only half figure it out. But it seems as if finding the right salvaged parts is just a matter of luck, you can't gather resources in a controlled way. Didn't appeal much to me.

All in all not a bad game, I'm certain it will have some success. Only I had to cancel my pre-order, because Auto Assault turned out to be one of the handful of games that cause video game motion sickness in me. I don't regret it much, post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi isn't really my cup of tea. I think I would prefer slower moving battle mechs in a MMORPG to fast moving armed cars.
- posted by Tobold @ 9:36 AM Permanent Link