June 29, 2010 Comments (0) Views: 5189 Forum, Videogames

Forum Buzz Highlight: APB – All Points Bulletin

Talk about an upcoming GTA style MMO

I got to try it for 15 hours during a pre-release event with 5 of my friends, and we’ve pre-ordered our copies since then.
What the f— is this?
APB’s a pretty damn cool third-person shooter for the PC. Think Grand Theft Auto but multiplayer; you get to choose between being an enforcer or a criminal, then after a ludicrously elaborate character creation screen you and your friends arrive in a district instance of max 100 people.

From then on, as a criminal, you can play sandbox and cause mayhem to earn monies, or start quests to plant bombs, rob banks, steal specific cars, etc. As an enforcer, you can witness criminals doing their bad deeds and have them marked as hostile to your team. You can also use your cellphone to either be matched against an in-progress criminal quest or start your own quest with your team (and be matched against criminals while it’s on progress, because they do love crashing vigilante parties).
Does it work? Is it fun?
I think so! From riding in various cars with your friends hanging out the windows with submachine guns, to very intense combat that seldom feels unfair or frustrating, this game seems to always keep you busy with something! I give special props to the matchmaking system, it’s very effective in finding something appropriate for your team to do around 20 seconds after you just came out of a firefight or a car pusuit.
The amount of customization you can do in this game is insane, from creating your own elaborate symbols to put on your clothes or as tattoos, to fine-tuning your personnal vehicle, to making your own “I just killed you” theme song, it’s very impressive indeed! Your creations can also be sold to other players for in-game $ or credits that can be redeemed for game time.
Finally, it’s worth saying that the controls are excellent and very intuitive, you’ll be jumping around buildings and aiming like a pro in no time. The cars behave in a realistic fashion and you really feel their weight in your hands.
When does it come out? How much will it cost?
Those who pre-ordered the game can start playing 3 days in advance, from saturday june 26th; Otherwise the official release date is tuesday june 29th. The game is 30$ on Steam and comes with 50 hours of play in the action districts (the “social” district is a gunless place where you can customize/upgrade/trade/hang out infinitely). You then have to either pay 10$ monthly fees or, if I guess you’re an overly casual player or want to be ripped off, buy a 20 hours time card for 7$ instead.
But it probably sucks!
It has its flaws, mainly there not being a lot of different districts (zones) at launch, but since the game has just started I’m giving it some time. It’s helluva fun with real life friends, guaranteed. Two possible flaws you should know about this game prior to purchase, however:
The game does not discriminate between head/body/limb shots. That is, wherever you shoot on the hitbox, it always deals the same damage (according to your gun and your/his upgrades). Also, the hitboxes recording bullet hits are the same no matter your character’s size, so making a midget pimp isn’t gonna help (but you’re still welcome to).
The game currenly has a max party size of FOUR. That semi-killed my boner when all my 5 buddies where there, we had to split in 2 groups of 3 that played separately in the same district, and couldn’t really help each other much since the other team’s opponents weren’t hostile to us. I do hope they increase it to 5 or 6… Only major flaw so far IMO.
That game sounds amazing. I’ve always wanted an MMO GTA. :O
I swear they said this game was going to be free to play at some point.Then again the same was said about DC Universe Online, and whoop – PC one has a fee.
That’s sort of frustrating. I’d rather know about fees beforehand instead of getting them slapped on afterwards
I could see this being fun with friends. Not the kind of game I normally play by myself though.
C’mon though, it a game where you basically troll everyone and get rewarded for it. I definitely want to try it out
You know, I bet you that people will end up just stealing from NPC’s and not each other. A form of “conduct” and “griefing” will take place even though the concept of anarchy is built in.
You can’t “steal” from other players, you just pop a cap in their ass and it gives you dollars. Stealing from NPC is something criminals can do that marks them as “witnessable” by enforcers; those can then be dispatched against criminals if there’s not already a team going against them, otherwise enforcers still get a bit of cash and reputation for witnessing.That said, there are ways to be an annoying troll, especially as a criminal. Certain hideouts are so hard to assault that you could just camp in there as a criminal team and wait for enforcers to be randomly dispatched against you (it can happen anytime if you’re infamous enough). Then you slay them like dogs and wait for the next group of derps to run in. I happened to be one of those, now I recognize the names and refuse to be dispatched lol.Another far more common way of trolling, for both sides, would be blocking and ramming the other side’s vehicles when you can. Most of the time people are trying to escape or steal something, you can be a huge help to players on your side by being a prick, even if you can’t directly kill people you’re not dispatched against. Stealing their getaway car is 5 troll points too… it’s their fault for not leaving a designated driver I guess. =P
Finally, there is apparently a “Chaos District” in the works, an area where every criminal is hostile to every enforcer and vice-versa. There’s already overwhelming action, I’m wondering how will this even be playable lol.
This game makes me wish I didn’t have a shitty PC. I’d be all up on that criminal shit.
the game is fucking expensive… they’ll fail.