Auto Assault's Tradable Card Game Preview

Brian Perry looks at this product coming out along with the MMO

Editor's Note: To be clear, this is a preview of Auto Assault's tradable card game that launches this weekend, not the game itself. You can find more information on it here.

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With the pending launch of Auto Assault, it seems only fitting that something special would be planned for the launch. NetDevil, Worlds Apart, and NCSoft haven’t failed us, and are bringing us Auto Assault: The Card Game.

The card game is an interesting mix of concepts from the current card game market, as well as drawing the content directly from the MMO that shares its name. Every race is equally represented as well, just as in the MMO, with 4 types of vehicles each. This was done to keep parallel with its namesake game.

When I first looked at the card game, I was very confused. So many choices for vehicles, three ways to win, and several different card types got me disoriented at first. Thankfully, there’s a very detailed tutorial mode to teach you the ropes. When starting out you get a preconstructed deck of your choice, as well as three packs (at least in the beta you do), and believe it or not, most of the preconstructed decks are tournament viable.

Looking at the card types, there’s several types with various uses. Gear cards attach to your vehicle for all sorts of increases in strength, such as tires to raise your speed (Auto Assaults version of defense), armor to protect your vehicle (more hit points), weapons with various effects, and other sorts of deliciously clever add-ons. Maneuvers are used to grant various effects as well, but are primarily used for two features; swerving for speed (swerving is Auto Assaults form of “tapping”, “bowing” or “exerting”) or to leave unswerved to stash at missions, allowing you to complete them. Tactics are one shot cards used in combat. They too have various effects but the most common uses are to raise your attack rating or raise your speed. Units are either infantry or other vehicles you deploy to defend missions, or directly attack your opponent’s vehicle.

Once I understood the concepts of the game, I went into their deck editor mode to better learn the various factions. While it’s true there’s only three races (human, mutant and biomek), there’s also several unaligned factions that will cooperate with any type deck; basically speaking they’ll work for whoever pays them. I’ve seen the expected Scavs and Thugz, as well as the Pikes. There were others as well from the smaller factions in the MMO.

What I found to be the best part of the card game was the sheer variety of play styles available to use, and they are all completely tournament viable. I spoke briefly to the devs about this, and they told me when they were making the game that their intentions were to make rares a nice addition to any deck, but not necessary for tournament play. This opens up the door for people to try out all sorts of unique concepts.

Sounds complicated, but it’s really not. If you’ve ever played any sort of collectable card game, you’ll catch on pretty quickly. I found it plays out more like chess and less like a card game with all the strategy involved. It should be noted that since it is in beta, they are tweaking some cards still for release. This is definitely worth watching if you’re interested in the MMO, as you’ll be able to acquire things in the MMO for the card game, and win prizes in the card game for your cars in the MMO.

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