Auto Assault

Published by: NCsoft
Developed by: NetDevil
Genre: Persistent Online Action RPG
Number of Players: MMO
Release Date: US: April 2006
ESRB Content Descriptors: Alcohol Reference, Blood, Violence

Auto Assault Review by Geek Woman

Get woken up at 5 AM by a jackhammer? Had a frustrating day? Play Auto Assault. It is the perfect therapy. PMS, road rage annoying neighbors - Auto Assault. I think it will take a bite out of crime. Auto Assault. What a crazy, crazy game. It is literally smokin’. There were several times when I had my tank airborne, upside down, and shooting the crap out of enemies with the machine gun turret all in midair. It is a very thrilling game. The pace is very fast.

The game is rich and deep beyond merely shooting up enemies. It has a very well written story that reads like a novel. I am glad I got the box version rather than the download because the manual is a fine narrative. Although refreshingly it isn’t the same old tired WW3 plot-line.

Everything in the game is blow-upable. The environments consist of old bombed out buildings and roads in tatters that are the backdrop of a post apocalyptic catastrophe. You create a character very much in the same way that you do with the City of Heros and City of Villains games also by NC Soft. You choose from three races. One is a sort of shamanistic mutant and the other is like a bio-mech cyborg race, the third choice is human. These three groups are fighting it out over the territories that they hold and the limited resources that they have. The conflict derives from a clash of philosophies over the choice made by the humans hundreds of years before to nuke the planet, and live under ground rather than submit to an alien invasion. There is a variety of professions to choose from. Each race has interesting new abilities that you haven’t seen in other MMO’s.

Graphics

The graphics for this game look quite a bit like the design in the CoH series. The environments don’t have much color in themselves. There is a dull cratered landscape devoid of trees or greenery. Odd mutated animals wander around and vegetation is rarely seen. Running over a tree will make you feel guilty. There is an unspoken message of caution in this game about how much we need to protect what we have on this planet. No one wants to live in a world like Auto Assault. But it’s hella fun to visit and blow stuff up.

The characters look great. The humans do have a bit of color and light effects on them from accouterments and shielding. The vehicles that you can design for your character to ride in have limitless possibilities. You can choose colors and paint jobs so that your tank like vehicle is far from dull.

You can drive almost anyplace, up steep walls, down deep gorges and it even becomes an Amphibious Vehicle when you drive through rivers and ponds. You’ll see weird spider like metallic critters, as well as disenfranchised scavengers that add even more color to the scene. That is when you run them over and your windshield is spattered with blood, green or yellow goo.

Game-play

Basically you drive, shoot and smash. You can drive right through walls and buildings, and blow things up with your roof mounted cannons. Go after enemies who are either driving, on foot, or tentacle and run them over. I enjoyed surprising enemies by backing up over them. There are many missions that are easy enough to find right up through the more difficult levels. You don’t need to group all that much to play the game, and that doesn’t have an application until much later in the game experience. If you want to play for an hour or two to blow off steam it is perfect for that. It isn’t like an MMORPG where you are holding your breath for four hours, ignoring your hungry cats and making your dog do the pee pee dance while you execute some strategy that you’ve had to plan and coordinate for days.

But Auto Assault isn’t that simple. Granted you can just play it like GTA on acid. Or you can enjoy the subtler aspects of “tinkering” or crafting modifications for vehicles and armor. I am guessing that this is the consummate guy game? If you have ever had road rage and wished you had a roof mounted cannon to settle things then this game is for you.

The game has a lonely high-tech futuristic feel to it. It is very imaginative. The game also has this pervasive sense of humor to it. There are many things that can be taken two ways. I even noticed a funny message in the load screen that said “Removing Copulating Insects from our Beards” rather than just saying :yawn: “downloading”. There was obviously lots of time spent on every detail of this game.

You get to drive a customized tank / car, semi, or even a motorcycle. It has the the Havok physics engine which works great. I made insane jumps and even got a few medals for stunts. You can send rocks, buildings, poles and fences flying too with the car-mounted rockets. Debris, ash and rain plop all around giving it realistic touches. When you wreak which was often in my case, a helicopter transport comes along and clamps an electromagnet to you roof and hauls you back. The vehicle then sits on a lifter that puts on a light show while your HP and Power get restored. As you get farther into the game you can summon help - for a price. As recharge stations become fewer and farther apart.

Sound and Music

The music for the game is good. It is sort of a mix of rock, pop and techno that is very stimulating. The background sounds can get pretty loud. When you play Auto Assault your family and possibly your neighbors are going to know. This is a good game for headphones but even better to put it through your big stereo speakers. Kick back, and get very rude.

When it rains you have the realistic sound track of a thunderstorm. The vehicles make rumbling engine noises and the tires squeal. In my case there was the ever present sound of crunching metal or crashing glass, as I blithely drove up rock escarpments to flip my car into the air. One of the most humorous things in the game is the screams of the guys that you run over. (Why does that make me feel so happy?)

Enjoyment:
The game is fun no doubt. It has a very high ratio of enjoyment to play time. It benefits from having onion - like layers of game-play. With the opportunity to play either quick and easy or long and involved styles, the game does have a little something for many different kinds of gamers. Again - feeling anti social? Auto Assault. This game just might be the cure for PMS.

Overall Impression:

You’ll need something that is even faster than the recommended specs. With the minimum specs or less you can just forget it. There is too much going on. You can drive as fast as you want. It is thrilling to look down and see the speedometer going above 90 miles an hour. But you aren’t going to go anyplace if your PC was made by the Flintstones. This is a downside at this time, but it won’t be as people upgrade their computers. You need a fast processor, a top of the line video card and plenty of RAM. If you have a crap broadband provider like Comcast that resets every 20 minutes then you are going to be in trouble there too. There are still some glitches in the game that they are working on. Every time you log in the game is updating and patching itself in a convenient fashion. The downloads don’t take very long. I’ve seen very few complaints about it. Auto Assault gets a very solid 8 out of 10

It is a welcome change to switch off from the sword and sorcery genres. If you enjoyed the Tank Girl movie than this world is for you. I think alot more people are going to be playing it in the future as word gets around. The interface is intuitive and readable. Plenty of information about the game is right at your finger tips.

Multiplayer:
The game is a bit of a sleeper right now. You need a top of the line system to run it. There aren’t as many people playing it yet as there are in other MMO’s and I think it is because most systems can’t do the game justice. For now the game is lacking in the community aspects but that can be a plus to some people. It’s massive, it’s multiplayer, but not massively multiplayer at the moment.

Marketing Efforts Towards Women:
Some market research has shown that female gamers like racing games… Ok but research also shows that we enjoy just about every type of game genre there is. This game is about going fast. If pedal to the metal is something you enjoy, then you will enjoy Auto Assault. The costumes do tend to cover up more than many other games do. In fact this game might even offer the most clothing coverage of any of NC Soft’s titles. Right now the games population is sparse, and that cuts the harassment factor down for female players. As far as marketing this game to women, the advertising shows the girl-next -door look of the human female character, and she is fully clothed. The game is devoid of sex, set in a harsh environment and it skirts the issue entirely.

PROS: It is lots of fun.

CONS: You need a monster computer to play it well.

Total Rating - 8
Game-play - 8
Enjoyment - 8.5
Graphics - 7.5
Sound/Music - 8
Multiplayer - n/a

Minimum System Requirements:

Windows® 2000/XP
1.6ghz+ processor
512 MB RAM
16x CD-ROM drive
6 GB free hard disk space
ATI Radeon 8500 64MB or NVIDIA GeForce 3 64MB series video card
DirectX 9.0c
DirectSound compatible audio hardware
56K Internet Connection

Recommended System Specifications:

Windows® 2000/XP
2.5ghz+ processor
1 GB RAM
16x CD-ROM drive
6 GB free hard disk space
ATI Radeon 9800 XT or NVIDIA FX 5950 series video card
DirectX 9.0c
PC audio solution containing Dolby Digital Live required for Dolby Digital audio
Broadband Internet Connection

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