Auto Assault Preview & Interview

MMORPG.com has revealed a new preview and interview for NCsoft and NetDevil's vehicular post-apocalyptic MMORPG, Auto Assault. The interview is with assistant producer Todd Keister and starts out like so:
Q: Is the game more mission or free-roam oriented (i.e. GTA 4), and what sort of tasks will players be able to undertake?

A: There's a substantial story arc in Auto Assault that sends players all over the game world as they progress through many varied and exciting tasks. However, at any point on that journey, players may 'roam' to investigate new areas, annihilate enemy groups, or level everything in their paths. That's actually a very cool aspect of the game. Because of the way everything is modeled in the Havoc physics engine, you can just go driving and have some fun. So rather than just running to the next quest or mission, perhaps avoiding aggroing mobs on the way, you can now blast across the land, mowing down NPC enemies and see them rag-doll into the air; you can leap a giant chasm (and get a medal for it!), blow up an enemy outpost (smash it to the ground with your weapons or by using your vehicle as a bettering ram) and so on. Missions will vary widely from recon maneuvers to kill-tasks to sequentially triggered events and on and on.