Traffic Assault is a first-person motorcycle game that runs in a browser tab. You ride from the handlebars through four-lane traffic on the south-east coast of Spain, around Almería. The bike tops out at 300 km/h on paper. The police are the ones giving chase, and you are who they are after.
The game was made by MAVA Games. It is free, with no download and no account. It also runs on a phone held sideways with touch controls, and the menus come in English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. I played on desktop with a keyboard, so that is the version I am describing here.
Riding from the handlebars
You see the road the way a rider does. The dash sits at the bottom of the screen with a small speed readout on the bike and a big one in the corner. Two round mirrors hang at the edges, and they show the road behind you. That is where the patrol cars turn up.
My first mission started in the rain at sunset. The road was empty. Dry scrub on both sides, bare hills, a power pole now and then. The headlight made a faint pool on the asphalt. I was doing 109 km/h in third gear. The scenery is simple, flat-shaded stuff, which is fair for a game that loads in a tab.
The controls are a short list. Arrow keys handle throttle, brake and lane changes. H is the horn, and the cars ahead move aside. Space or Y pops a wheelie. T and U look left and right. R and F shift gears if you switch the manual gearbox on. E cashes in your bounty once you shake off a pursuit. P or Esc pauses.
The police side
The first mission is called Trigger the Chase. It asks you to pass a patrol at more than 125 km/h, while the pass-by radar on screen is set to 120. So the game wants you caught on purpose, in the first few minutes. Next to the mission panel there is a heat meter with five diamonds, and a small map marks the refuges and the police.
A route timer runs along the top. It shows a mastery time to beat, the time you have left, and a "clean route" tag that stays on while you avoid impacts. The game also talks about patrols that call for backup and about roadblocks. I did not get far enough to see either.
A Night Hunt that ended in a crash
My Night Hunt run was called First Siren, and it was short. 44 seconds on the clock, a top speed of 223 km/h, then a crash. The screen said "The asphalt wins this round." Score: 8,453, marked as my first record.
The results screen listed one escape and eight overtakes through traffic, but the hunt itself stayed unfinished. Its three star goals were an escape, five close overtakes and a clean route under a target time that is adjusted to your bike. I cleared the overtakes goal with eight.
A crash does not wipe the run. The payout is split by what you did. Distance paid $98, close overtakes $40, riding at high speed $69 and a short stretch in the oncoming lane $5. That makes $212. The XP took me to 86% of level 2, and the Retry button sits right next to Lobby and Hunts, so the next attempt is one click away.
What else is in the game
My progress sits at level 1, so everything above comes from the early game. Going by the game's description, there is a lot more than my runs touched:
- 112 missions, 64 main and 48 side, across eight chapters. Deliveries, duels with a rival rider, escorts and escapes.
- Eight night operations in Night Hunt, with rain, interceptors and places to lie low.
- A garage of 15 bikes, from the Hikari 650 Neo to the 306 hp Tormenta S2-R. Each bike has six upgrade areas. There are also 27 helmets.
- Endless, Time Trial and Free Ride modes, plus a route planner that covers 103 towns.
Who it is for
If you like motorcycle games, this one puts you right behind the bars. If you like traffic racers, the close overtakes are what pays, so weaving through cars is the whole point. If you like police chase games, you play the target for once.
Two things to know. The graphics are basic next to a downloaded racing game. And the settings text mentions that music stops during ads, so ads exist in some form. It costs nothing and loads in the browser, so a quick run settles the question.
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