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First Impressions are Everything
semajin
Member UncommonPosts: 47
I've just crashed out of Auto Assault for about the tenth time, so I figured I take the time to write a bit of a review, enjoy.
Finally, the four-hour patch of Auto Assault had finished, and it was time to get in and drive! I quickly clicked the PLAY button, and immediately I'm worried. I was lagging through the LOGON screen with a top-end system?! Oh well, quickly I enter my information and choose the single server available for Beta play, and proceed to the next step:
CHARACTER CREATION: With a whopping 3 factions to choose from (which offer NO variance to character type whatsoever) and an incredible 4 character types (fighter, fixer, leader or rogue) this game offers little in the way of variety. Any and all options during character creation are entirely superficial, and the few superficial categories that can be tweaked offer even fewer variances. You get to name your character and your vehicle as well, and then it's time to:
GET STARTED: I'm never much of a critic when it comes to newbie areas, as they don't last very long and are mainly geared to teach you how to play the game, so I won't make overly much of the fact that Auto Assault offers little in the way of a newbie area. Basically you must attempt to navigate your new vehicle through a maze of torn down or futuristic looking buildings, as well as a swarm of lag, and head from waypoint to waypoint. At each step you get a bit of experience and some priceless advice from each person (or waypoint) you hit, you also learn how to click to target and right click to fire, but don't get TOO daunted, it's really quite easy. Finally your kicked out to a small newbie playfield complete with it's own mini town for repairing and buying/selling. Through several more missions you waypoint your way around the newbie area, until you are given a mission to kill some lower level critters. Which brings me to:
COMBAT: There is no ammo to worry about, no fuel to fret over, and absolutely no depth to the combat system whatsoever. Combat can happen one of two ways, you can either click your target to "lock on", or you can leave your weapon systems untargeted to wreak general havoc on whatever area your weapon affects. Throw in a completely autonomous controlled creater if your a leader which will aid in fighting (though you may never notice), and that is the combat in it's entirety. Yes there are quick repair kits in case your health drops too low (though death in AA means nothing but a few minutes) and some speed boosters, but 99% of what you will be doing for combat purposes is holding the right mouse button down. Exciting, huh? Well, don't you worry, just because combat isn't all that great, there is still:
STORYLINE: As I have only played the humans, I can only comment on their storyline... or lack thereof. You pick up bits and pieces of the history and present situations as you visit various people to get your next mission. The story is fairly simple, it's post apocalypse, the world is unstable, and every other cliche you can imagine from the Mad Max era of movie. That's it. Period. Which brings me to:
GAMEPLAY: Thought combat sounded dull? Gameplay involves steering through laggy terrain to reach the next waypoint, upon reaching the waypoint you either kill something or are directed to the next waypoint. After you have gone through enough waypoints you probably completed your quest and head back to whoever gave it for another one, or the name of someone who can give you one. Want to stray from the beaten path and just go killing for experience? Go ahead, you will level at about 1/100th of the speed of those who stay in line and follow the waypoint. If you managed to drive through enough waypoints, however, and visit enough people, you will finally gain a level! Which brings me to:
LEVELING: Every level you gain one skill point, every other level 2 character points. The skill points can be spent on faction or class skills, which have a Diablo-esque tree layout, only with way less branches. Skills range from direct damage to healing, to summoning creatures to fight for you, and from the looks of them AA put a decent amount of time in to the creative process used to come up with them (maybe the time between pizza and ice cream). Character points can be spent on 1 of 4 attributes to raise combat, health, power and defense respectively. Some equipment has attribute requirements, most however does not. Im sorry to say, but that's it folks, that's IT. So I will simply say my:
FINAL WORDS: If you like racing games, or the Twisted Metal series of video games, feel free to give Auto Assault a try (that is if you have a monster high dollar system). If, however, you desire any kind of real depth and reward for spending your hours online, do yourself a favor and never, ever, ever ever ever ever think about Auto Assault. The game is simply WAYPOINT after WAYPOINT and occasionaly mashing down the right mouse button to blow something up, all of which numbs the mind to such an extent that you would need to watch paint dry to slowly bring your senses back while avoiding a shock to the brain.
Doc
Comments
Had this posted in the general as well. heres My FI
all you beta testers out there. what are your first impressions? i tried out Auto Assault last night after the client patching finally finished and i gotta say....not too impressed. At first glance, Auto Assault looks like it may have been a more unique and polished game than ive come to expect from NcSoft, but after playing for about 30 min or so, it seems to me it would be best describe as 'Guild Wars with wheels and guns'. The character creation, alto a 'TAD' more in depth that Guildwars, is fairly limited. 3 races (Mutant, Bio-Mech and Human), 4 looks or costumes per race, male or female and 3 classes. so 72 different base models. Colors are minimally customizable, theres a main and a secondary. theres 3-5 hair, accessories, face/mouth peices and helmets per character. The starting cuztomization for vehicles is very lean as well, 3 wheel sets, 4 'decal' like designs and 1 model per character, the vehicles saving grace is u can find junk parts like spikes, metal plates etc etc and cuztomize ur vehicle. Character creation aside, first load into the game, a very linear short tutorial to learn basic controls and GUI controls. Some positives are the driving is pretty responsive, simple and fun. The character models themselves are actually pretty cool, not so much unique as well done. You can mod ur vehicle via hardpoints. Ive only made one character at the moment and theres a turret and 2 sides as well as melee kits and armour kits etc. Think mechwarrior/freelancer style. The disappointment i feel is, as i said, its basically Guild Wars with guns without the need for a party. Walk to a generic NPC, press X, accept mission, go kill whatever, experiance/money awarded, repeat. The entertaining thing is theres alot of ppl doing the same mission, so theres duplicate enemies for everyone to fight so its sorta a pseudo-party. and everything explodes makes them fun, buildings and structures etc blow up and are descructable. the enviro is semi affected. The combat works basically like Guild Wars, its semi-twitch based. using skills as they are available.
Remember this is FIRST IMPRESSIONS. im by no way impressed with the game at this point, but it is sorta entertaining for a while like guild wars. Im not trashing the game, its just how i feel after my first 90 min of the game (had to work this morning so i didnt long haul it) So if liked guild wars, and you like guns and explosions and car chases, you will in fact like Auto Assault
First Impressions rating (out of 10)
(mmorpg in mind)
Graphics - 8
Sound and Effects(particle etc) - 7
Fun Factor - 6
Character creation - 6
Combat system - 6
economy - 1
i gotta say though, it wasnt really laggy for me and i havnt crashed as of yet.
Baleted.
Was gonna post something else but.. anyhow, i agree with the original poster. And with 90% of the other posters.
Tab, hold down mouse button watch the hidin dice rolls decide a hit not you.. Wash rince and repeat. Car combat game for dummys. Graphics look cool but, mechanics of the game are below the grade of any car combat game out.
FoE Fist of the Empire
Overall I agree with semajin. He's correct on most points.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
But I'd rate AA as more of a mediocre game than a bad one. I have two reasons for this. One, it's still in beta and not a release version. And two, I didn't get to try out the end game or pvp content.
The main reason for the lag/bad frame rate is most likely because it's still in beta. The devs have even stated that they know you need a super high end computer to play it currently and are working on fixing it. Now, I'm not saying that between now and when it's released that all the fps problems will go away. I'm just saying that it should get better. Also I heard people in-game complaining about some quest bugs and hopefully those will also get fixed.
As I said I personally didn't get to try the end game or pvp content, so I can't comment on it. If both those areas are done well, this might (repeat might) just end up being a good game; if not, it could break the game as a whole. I'm actually a little hopeful about the end game. As semajin said the skills and items are kind of lacking, but that's when you're level <10. I think the skill and item systems could be far more diverse and satisfying at level 80 (the cap at release). But as I just said "could be", meaning of course that I can't know for certain at this time. And if the skill and item systems do get better with age, that might make pvp interesting and fun.
All of that is just speculative. If I had to rate it right now, just based on what I've already seen/done and not taking the future into account; I would have to rate it as a poor game.
I'd love to give you my impressions
But after 6 hours of patching (60MB download to patch to a 6GB client!) all I got the game to do was crash after pressing the play key.
Followed the advice in the 'crash thread' on the forums, didn't help. Posted my own thread with my crash details, 48 hours later about 50 people had read it but not a single reply. Guess I wont be trying it out then.....
Still thats 6GB of disk space I got back (which is the only good thing I have to say about it)
Be aware when (not if ) you uninstall this pos, the script actually only uninstalsl the shortcut on the desktop. Seems the games devs cant even do that properly. You have to find net devil folder and delete the 6 gig of dross yerself.
oh and to the mod who thought that to send me a warning without actually speelling it right or linkin where i said a nasty word that upset people (searched my posts and cant find it so go figure) here this is for you;
,!,,,
[quote]Originally posted by RipperjackAU
FALLEN EARTH > Auto Assault[/b][/quote]
lol you mean VaporWare > real product?
Odd that I hear so many people say they are crashing and lagging. I played the beta all weekend with no crashes and no lagging at all. I do have a very fast 6Mb/sec cable connection...but that is becoming pretty common now. As for crashing....WoW or EQ2 crashes more than AA has crashed for me all weekend....actually ZERO crashes with AA. I can't wait till release...I have faith they will take care of any major issues that the majority consided problems.