Feverishly Assembling: TerraTech Enters Early Access

How did TerraTech catch my attention when I first saw it earlier this year? It took a selection of Lego style blocks, strapped huge engines and guns to them, then made me fight other vehicles and harvest them of all their juicy wheels, motors and weapons. We've had a couple of opportunities to play the game at events since it smashed its Kickstarter goal and now you all can too, as the game has now gone into early access at $30.99 (£19.75).

If you've not had a chance to experience TerraTech yet, it's a surprisingly polished experience. With the click of a button your vehicle gets caught up in a UFO-style tractor beam, hovering just far enough off the floor that you can rotate around and snap pieces into place, before dropping your vehicle back to the ground. You then find other vehicles, destroy them, collect their pieces and continue building your monolith of a creation. Blocks fly everywhere in a swirl of colour and carnage as you blast your enemies into resource management gold. Who knew Lego could be such a competitive sport?

A free demo from back in the Kickstarter days offers a taste of how it all works.

The game's 'open beta' currently costs $30.99. It contains the main singleplayer mode, a handful of challenge maps, and one competitive local multiplayer mode. To be clear, 'open beta' in this case is that thing where you buy the game early for a discount, get updates as they put its pieces together, and eventually have the full game some time down the line. You know, like that other thing, not an open beta - early access, that's it.