Nobody could really have predicted the gaming community’s embracing of massively multiplayer online games but, as the recent record-breaking release of World of Warcraft has proven, MMOGs are here to stay. By far the most common form of MMOG at the moment is the traditional fantasy-based RPG – any deviations from that formula have been few and far between, and those that have tried haven’t really succeeded in capturing the imagination of gamers. The only notable exception to the rule is Planetside – Sony’s MMOFPS – that competently shows that online action can work, and that there’s an audience for it. Auto Assault is shaping up to be an MMO that straddles somewhere between the two – plenty of action, but with a discernible layer of RPG underneath it all.