Auto Assault

I don't really like MMORPGs. I have played single player games for a long time and the thought of me not being in control and not being the center of the universe (or at least, the game's universe) made me uneasy. Before Auto Assault, I had never played a multiplayer dedicated game. I had had some short passed experience but not at this level and this magnitude; and the part I feared most, it happened. I became addicted.

Story: I can only imagine the brainstorm meeting that took prior to this game. "Ok people, we have a new project? we have to do a MMO. I know what you think - not another MMO! - but the shareholders are getting anxious. They want more money so we have to come up with something. "Ideas anyone?" A thin, dorky guy, with a WOW t-shirt gets up: "I know, what about a war between orcs and humans?" "Shut up Stanley, I don't want to hear anything that involves orcs." "What about elves?" "One more suggestion and you're fired!" A voice speaks up: "Mutants?" "Mutants aren't bad? go on." "Mutant orcs?" "That's it; I'm canceling your subscription."

And so on, until some Carmageddon fan, an RPG lover and some dude that thinks Mad Max is still possible met for a beer, and voila!, we got Auto Assault. The plot could only be post-apocalyptic. Therefore, we got this story. Some unidentifiable objects fall on Earth and a part of humanity starts exhibiting the classical symptoms for mutation: three hands, two heads and glowing eyes. After all efforts were made to contain this problem, the humans used the nuclear arsenal and retreated underground in five cities, with the hope of someday returning to a mutant-free surface.

Suffice to say the plan didn't work and not only the mutants thrived on this new environment but a new race emerged, the Biomeks, part man, part machine, part AI. After a long slumber underground, the humans made a slow, but progressive comeback, establishing bases and trade routes.

I will outline the background for every race just the way NetDevil present it:

Humans: Under the organization of the Hestia Company, the remaining Humans spent many decades living underground in extensive Arks. Originally composed of the world's power elite society, Humans were responsible for the apocalyptic release of the world's cache of weapons of mass destruction in an attempt to cleanse the Earth of Contamination.

Humans regard Mutants and Biomeks as vile, disgusting perverts who revel in misshaping the glorious and perfect human form. The Humans' central belief is that true humanity must be preserved at any cost.

Available Classes: Commandos, Engineer, Lieutenant, Bounty Hunter

Mutants: The Change came upon us quietly. Even those that would become the first of The Changed did not yet realize their destiny, the destiny brought to them when the sky rained stars upon the world. The first of us were very much like Man, only the color of our flesh separated us. It was enough. To Man our differences were plagues, The Change was an unfortunate affliction to be cured with their science. To them we were helpless victims. They did not understand The Change, or what it meant for us all. They soon learned the truth, and their folly brought the time of troubles to us all in a Night of Righteous Fire?

Mutants regard pure Humans as inherently evil heretics, as they so obviously resist the divine changes the Mutant people embrace and worship. As for the Biomeks, The Changed believe their approach to evolution grossly sickening and harbor a deep resentment towards Biomeks as their historical oppressors.

Available Classes: Champion, Archon, Shaman, Avenger

Biomeks: The Biomeks have embraced technology and intellect to adapt for surviving the Contamination. Like the Mutants, they now care little of the hazards of the Contamination, as they commonly replace vulnerable body parts with immune mechanized prosthetics. The essential Biomek view is that any person, place or thing that is not with them is against them. Logically, if the Biomek Order can 'enhance' every suitable life-form, they can then enjoy a hard won peace: Pax Bionicus.

Biomeks hate the re-emergent Humans, labeling them 'The Betrayers' for their genocidal treachery of the past. The Biomek leadership has vowed to make its headquarters in 'The Ark I' when the Humans have been destroyed. Elimination of Mutant-kind is also at the core of Biomek Doctrine. This concept is older than the Biomek Order itself. In fact, two centuries ago, the Mutant insurgency resulted in the creation of the original 'Biomechanical Raiders.'

Available Classes: MasterMind, Constructor, Terminator, Agent

Gameplay: NetDevil managed somehow to make this game easy... yet hard to play. The lack of any tutorial in the beta version made things interesting and frustrating at the same time. Although the gameplay is rather simple, commanding a car and shooting at the same time is not everything. The difficult part and the one that's going to occupy a lot of you're subscription time is the constant upgrading. You cannot find a configuration that will last for a long time. Almost every time you go on a mission, there are all sorts of items to be found.

The developers took the RPG and combination skills of any normal game even further. At first, you will find a lot of junk in you're inventory, or so you'll think. After playing a while, the moment you enter a city, the gameplay becomes a whole lot more complicated. Every city has refineries to process all the junk out there, shops for every little thing and even a shop that can mod your car, NFSU style.

I'm not saying that hundreds and hundreds of pieces that can be used on thousands of combinations is a bad feature, but I hope there will be extensive tutorial material on this matter.

In short, the game is about getting missions that provide you with money; more money means bigger weapons; bigger weapons give you larger assignments. You've got the picture. This simple and effective recipe will probably last for years.

Concept: Combining third person-car driving with an RPG style doesn't seem to be a very original concept but when all the elements are put together they form a strange but attractive, new genre that stands just a little bit higher than others. I am not yet convinced that we will see to soon 5 million subscriptions to Auto Assault, but it will become an important game on the MMO market.

Video: I have to say I was fairly surprised with the video quality of Auto Assault. I wasn't expecting much because we all know that MMO-s don't have state of the art graphics for a simple reason: a lot of people, with not so powerful system configurations, have to play it and not many people have dual 7800 GTX at home.

I'm issuing an warning here: not everyone will be able to play this one. Maybe the beta isn't too optimized or this is as good as it gets... For a smooth gameplay you will need at least 1GB of memory, a minimum of 2 Ghz processing power and at least a Geforce 6200 or X600. It can be played at lower resolutions but it will look rather crappy and it isn't worth it.

The most distinctive feature is one I didn't expect to find: completely destructible environments. Everything can be obliterated either with the car or with the weapons on board. From what I understand, Havok is the one responsible here and I'm glad to see it making its way on the MMO market because it was really needed.

Auto Assault is fully DirectX 9.0c compliant. This translates in heat haze, specular lighting, pixel shader 2.0 and some full screen glow that I didn't quite enjoyed. All and all, it's more than a pretty title and can even compete with some single player dedicated games that emphasize more on graphics.

Multiplayer: What can you say about multiplayer in a MMO? Well the server connection isn't too bad and you won't need broad band to play but modem-like speeds won't help either. The only complaints I have are related with the auto-patcher which acts abnormally from time to time and the size of the patches (when they update, they mean business), but it's understandable giving the fact is still in a beta phase.

Sound: Actually I'm a little disappointed with the sound and I sincerely hope this issues will be fixed. All the sound effects are just average with no high points whatsoever. I would like to hear a more detailed motor sound after the car has been upgraded and a chaingun that sounds like one, not a tack spitter. There is no distinctiveness about the weapons and they are not making me too proud of buying them.

Conclusion: Mutant orcs would have been a bad idea but this one might work. It's pretty enough to attract the skeptic ones and complicated enough to steal other players. Auto Assault took me by surprise and its almost original gameplay will make a fine addition to what I thought to be an oversaturated market. Prepare to become addicted and please don't forget to eat and sleep!