Review: APB

Customization is everything in todays gaming – after all, we all want to be unique, have our own unique character, skills, looks, features. Most modern games nowadays contain some sort of customization option; whether it’s changing armour, colour or facial features of your character. It creates more of a relationship with who we’re playing in the game. Customization though is the tool of developing our player, it should not be the main topic of our game. This is why APB has failed, and why Realtime Worlds have a mountain to climb if they ever hope to improve their first MMO.

We might as well start with the best, the character editor. Streamlined and extremely detailed, the editor should be a defacto standard for all games. The ability to edit every aspect of your character, as well as create your own designs and decals for clothing and tattoos, results in something very unique and well accomplished by Realtime Worlds. There are not many games out there that come close to the amount of options available to you when it comes to developing who you are in the game world.

It’s a shame therefore that the customization in APB seems to be the only aspect of the game that is well polished. APB itself is at best a GTA clone without the charm and style of GTA. The city is empty, soulless and devoid of interest. It acts less as a functioning cityscape and more of an arena for the players. Where the likes of Liberty City, San Andreas and others could live without their iconic main characters going through it, APB’s city would become a barren lifeless landscape without its players. To make matters worse the city is split into three sections that have no real connection to each other other than through a menu screen. The two main districts for the game contain the missions and action of the game, while the social district acts as a neutral hub for customizing your character.

The game itself is heavily dependent on PVP; so much so in fact that APB could not seriously be recommended to someone who wants to play solo. You choose between two factions within the game; Enforcers or Criminals. You can guess really what each faction entails, and the flimsy story that accompanies APB doesn’t really explain much other than “You’re the bad/good guy, go kill the good/bad guy”. The missions themselves are supplied by different NPC’s in the game, who have you perform different actions that results in you levelling up and improving your relation with the NPC. The higher the relationship and level, the better the guns. There’s no story though, no real reason as to why you do the numerous fetch quests or attack quests that you perform in the game. In the end these missions exist only as the background objectives for what occurs in the PVP game.

The PVP can be fun at times. There was one situation in which I was running down the street with a fellow enforcer, chasing after a crim. Starksy and Hutch, Miami Vice, all the best cop shows rolled into that scene as we tried to hunt the bad guy. These moments though are fleeting, and you soon find yourself on the other side against what can seem like overwhelming odds. Missions you perform can result in an APB being sent out against you, in the form of another player or even a group. You can call backup if a group is against you, but there’s no guarantee you’ll get help, and given how small the player count is there’s a high likelyhood you will be on your own.

This results in missions becoming a race to the objective, because if the opposing player is already there, it’s extremely likely you’ll fail the mission. The player simply has to wait and find a good camping spot near the objective, resulting in death after death as you try to capture the objective, but find yourself shot from out of nowhere because the bad guy is camping in the vicinity. It isn’t fun. It’s tedious, annoying, and poor gameplay. Groups results in the same situation, but instead of one person killing you, you have three or maybe four. Call some backup to resolve this is APB’s tip, except everyone is eating donuts, or doesn’t care.

Vehicle combat and movement has improved from the beta, but it’s difficult to tidy up something that is pretty much garbage. The cars are sluggish heavy lumps of metal in which it’s advisable to pray to the car driving God before you attempt any sort of steering. Gaining a faster car is a death trap as it’s almost uncontrollable. The better your connection the less likely you’ll suffer from extreme lag spikes in your car steering, but you’re still in the end driving cars that feel like they have no physical attachment to the road, and can easily spin out of control.

Combat itself is supposed to be a balanced affair, but you’ll increasingly find yourself taking on opponents who seem to have the upper hand in weaponry, despite so-called balancing in attributes. Shotguns are overly powerful, sniper rifles don’t really work, rifles work depending on what type and grenades are a nightmare. It feels all very rough, and to make matters worse there is a feeling that the engine is performing some sort of calculation or dice roll before the bullet hits the target. It’s as if you never really feel you’re doing any damage to your opponent.

In the end APB is a disaster that will take a while to iron out. When we first saw the information and news about APB at the conferences there was some worry, a little voice in the back of our head going “Customization is all fine and well, but where’s the game?” Sadly it seems our fears have come true; APB wants to be GTA Multiplayer, but fails miserably at it. The dubious subscription method of buying time in order to play the game raises questions as to whether Realtime Worlds perhaps knew that realistically they had a dud on their hands. Why buy this when there’s a perfectly good GTAIV multiplayer that’s free accross the road?

Either way, APB as it is today isn’t very good. Like all MMO’s we’ll check back on it in a year to see if anything has improved over time, but in its current state APB cannot be recommended, even with an excellent customization tool. Soulless and without life, you should really just stick to GTAIV for now.

4/10

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