APB Game Review

Review by Joystiq 2/5

One of the hardest parts about reviewing an MMO is that the genre takes full advantage of being online and persistent. Because players need to log in to an updated client every time, developers can quickly and relatively easily push out new bugfixes and content with regularity. Realtime Worlds has already released one patch post-release for APB, and while I’ve talked about certain issues with repetitive gameplay and earning customization levels, both of those issues can be fixed with updates if the developers choose to do so.

So the final question in reviewing an MMO isn’t necessarily if you should buy this game today or not. It’s: Does the game offer enough promise to invest your time and attention? Future plans included, out of all the games you could spend your free time on, is APB capable of rewarding that investment with a quality experience?

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Review by IGN

With open world city-games like Grand Theft Auto, I inevitably find myself becoming bored of the storyline missions – and missions in general – and the prospect of driving through narrow alleys, jumping off ramps and generally causing mayhem becomes the focus of my efforts. The exploration is its own reward, and narrowly weaving between traffic or causing an enormous pileup its own challenge.

APB, developed by Realtime Worlds (Crackdown) is an open world urban MMO, where each of the two action areas are isolated segments of a city, and each is capable of housing up to 80 players at any one time. It’s a third person shooter based on the age-old game of cops and robbers, where you’re either a reckless criminal or an enforcer trying to put a stop to them. It’s one of the few MMOs released that is almost entirely player-versus-player centric, in that it relies on players on both sides of the law to be active for any real conflict to ever occur.

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Review by Eurogamer 6/10

Initially, I blamed the weather. The hottest week of the year, with the blazing sun promising lazy afternoons in London parks with cold beers to hand, is a pretty uncharitable time to start plugging hours into a massively multiplayer game. I was clock-watching, glancing at the time after every couple of missions, wondering if I’d played enough for today and could justify switching off the PC and marching out into daylight.

Within the first ten hours, however, I knew that something was wrong that had nothing to do with the weather. I didn’t really want to go out into the dazzling sunshine – I’m Irish, for God’s sake, our reaction to the sun makes vampires wince sympathetically – I just wanted a reason to stop playing APB.

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