Auto Assault Previews

Both IGN PC and Shacknews are offering up new previews for NCsoft and NetDevil’s upcoming vehicular MMORPG, Auto Assault. A snip from IGN PC’s article:

Even more fun awaits those strong enough to enter the high level areas of the game. A player vs. player outpost mode brings competition and fast action into Auto Assault in a capture and hold style game. At the three points on the edge of the map sit bases for the three different factions in Auto Assault: the Mutants, Humans, and Biomeks. From here, players from all of the teams can come rushing in to capture each of these points. The fun part of this is that each of the capture points are surrounded with defenses, some of which are static turrets and some of which are soldiers running around on foot. So not only do attackers have to contend with defenders in cars, but also any automatic defenses. In order to capture the point, one car has to sit on the capture point and hack into the defenses for a long enough time without interruption (no getting shot!) to transfer the base over to the new team. Immediately after capture, new defenses will pop up and start attacking any enemies in the area. This game should provide a non-stop explosion of action even though it’s pretty much impossible to actually win.

And a snip from Shacknews’ article:

Combat in Auto Assault, like many of its other aspects, has fundamental MMO principles at its core but with an action slant. The mouse controls a radial targeting arc extending from your vehicle’s turret-mounted weapon, and in order to hit an enemy, they must be either under that arc or within the line of fire of your front- or rear-mounted stationary guns. If this is in fact the case, then the game will do all of its MMO combat business, factoring in stats and determining whether the shots hit and how much damage they do. It is also possible to lock onto a single target and have the turret auto-aim on it while you drive around. The nice thing about this is that you can be a lot crazier than you can in most MMOs. Rather than carefully pulling my target while trying to manage aggro, I just sort of barreled into my targets, locking onto one of them at a time and crashing into the rest while spraying my stationary guns around.