NCsoft continues to break the mold of traditional MMORPGs with their newest release Auto Assault. Trading elves and potions for mutants and steering wheels, AA tries to combine two popular game genres into one by mixing vehicular man-slaughterer with a 20 sided die. But is it really that different from the orc and elf dungeon crawlers?

In the not too distant future, Earth is bombarded by an alien meteor shower which changes part of the population into mutants. To deal with the mutant problem, the remaining humans develop killer cyborgs (called Biomeks) to exterminate them.

When the humans finally poke their heads out of the ground they discover that the mutants and Biomeks are both still alive and have evolved into more powerful species at war with each other. Left with no other logical option, the humans, Biomeks and mutants gas up their apocalyptic hot rods and try to exterminate each other in order to become the last race on Earth.

Players begin the game by choosing one of the three factions, then choosing a class within that faction. So you could, for example be a human bounty hunter, a mutant shaman or a Biomek master mind. As nontraditional as AA is compared to the standard MMORPG, it does fall into some of the familiar trappings.

Avengers, bounty hunters and agents are the scout or ranger class of the post apocalyptic world using stealth and speed to accomplish their goals. Terminators, commandos and champions are essentially the warrior, paladin or "tank" class using their heavy armor and weapons to deal out as much punishment as they take. Engineers, shamans and constructors are medics (or mechanics, if you will). Lieutenants, archons and master minds are the leaders of the convoy using their skills to make the team stronger. While the names have changed, you'll notice familiar themes if you've played any other RPG in the past.

After you've joined a faction and customized your character, you won't see much of him (or her or it) for a while. Next, you'll customize your own set of wheels. Make it pretty because you'll be staring at its bumper for most of the game.

Pimping your ride isn't easy (pimpin' never is, right, Godfather?). You'll start with just the basics but after just a few hours of playing you'll be upgrading your weapons, armor, tires as well as the look and shape of your ride. Fuzzy dice and mud flaps are, I assume, a separate quest.

Once you've got a bad ass set of training wheels, you're off to a tutorial to get a crash course in driver's education. You'll learn how to drive, get new missions, interact with the outside world without ever leaving your plush bucket seats and most importantly, how to vanquish foes.

Piloting your killing machine is a breeze. You can use the standard WASD keyboard layout or get fancy and use a rumble pad or driving wheel. The terrain, while visually bland because it's all painted using a post-apocalyptic color pallet, offers plenty of opportunity for big jumps and crazy daredevil moves.

Driving your vehicle is easy enough, but things get trickier when you start needing to kill things. Vehicles are equipped with a front and rear mounted gun, melee weapon for ramming as well as a 360 degree rotating turret weapon. The right mouse button fires all of the weapons at the same time, but they each have different reset timers. Driving while trying to target an object with guns pointed in potentially three different directions at various rates of fire, while also trying to not get killed yourself or drive off a cliff is a little like juggling cats. You can do it after a while but it takes practice and you should be prepared to drop one every now and then.

Once you've left the bunny slopes, you'll begin the grind of accumulating experience as well as loot. Gaining levels gets you attribute points which you can use to increase your accuracy, driving ability, hit points, defense, etc...

Early on, missions consist of touring the countryside slaughtering NPCs for bounty, traveling from point A to point B or following a course of way points on patrol. The good news is that there is no penalty for dying, so you're free to roam with reckless abandon safe in the knowledge that if you do blow a tire or worse, a rescue chopper will take you back to a nearby safe zone.

The bad news is that you'll be roaming for quite awhile and largely by yourself. Players can grind away on the experience ladder for 80 levels and a major portion of that you can do by yourself. The public chat rooms are so quiet that for the first few days of playing, I didn't know that there were public chat rooms. You'll rarely hear anyone offering to form groups because until much later in the game, they just aren't needed.

This is actually a running theme in the approach NCsoft has taken towards its MMORPG games. Guild Wars and City of Heroes both catered more to the casual gamer with potentially limited time to play rather than the hardcore zorlacs who begin each session with a bucket of chicken, case of Dr. Pepper and colostomy bag nearby.

While that aspect is great for guys like me with a family and an outside life always beckoning, one of Auto Assault's shortcomings is that there is no social aspect to the game, which is really what draws some players in for the long haul. Ask anyone playing World of Warcraft.

Should you get tired of being alone on the road, player versus player combat awaits you. You can travel to one of the local arenas and compete in solo and team based tournaments for unique prizes as well as fame and honor. Arena combat isn't limited to the server you're on, so you'll be able to battle players all over the world with stats being compiled at Autoassault.com.