" Who? "A chubby little fella' who had a show on MTV about 3 years ago, also is 34 but looks like a 13 year old.
BraindeadRacr's forum posts
Little special edition cause all hell broke lose on every comment section, board and dedicated forum regarding this change. So much comedic gold to be salvaged.
So the deal so far:
Microsoft's planning on upping the service cost for Gold by a couple o' dollar, around the 10$ extra. Now I see why the entire world lies in shambles about this, cause lets face it - PSN is free and it offers more, why should we pay even more than the already-balls-high 50$? I suppose it's not gonna bother me too much on the long run but... I can see why people seem to be enraged.
GameTrailers.com - "Xbox Live Price Increase Announced"
"Microsoft already makes more money than the Vatican, what the hell do they need the extra money for?" - SgtCuddles
"I find this so funny, all those people that called Sony greedy corporate pricks on their launch are gonna look like fools now :P" - wolf-x
"People who'll take this are like women in an abusive relationship, 'He hits me cause he loves me! :D'... Dumbfucks." - Joker VR6T
"And now people will ration them 12 month cards now like fuckin' foodstamps during World War II" - lilbro
"(In response to Zetra3 who said: Microsoft, if you gave a fuck...) Your credibility ended there." - Archos2
"(In response to Zetra3 who said: Microsoft, if you gave a fuck...) Spoiler: They don't." - Augos-Tech
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MajorNelson.com - "Price Change for Xbox LIVE Gold Subscriptions"
"You don't even give us enough content to justify $50 let alone $60... Glad I'm paid up for the next year and a half..." - rogXue"This isn't going to end well..." - oO Daz Oo
"(In response to MajorNelson who said: And yes, I’ll be sharing some of the comments (good and bad) with the team.) There's good comments?" - rudolf999
"Breaking News: Sony's PR room is currently pissing itself laughing." - Chaozfurties
"Raising prices in a recession... What a great concept. lol." - Mikewarrior
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Kotaku.com - "Xbox Live Price Increase Coming November 1st"
"Lol, you pay or you won't play online. Microsoft holds you by the nuts." - ChunkAhoy"lol" - Anemone
"For an extra $10, what does that entitle me to?" - xan's_commenting_yea!
- "Same ol' stuff you paid for already." - 0_Lives_Left
"Heh, they got you trapped. Now they squeeze." - indrawnperson
"How about ADDING SOME FUCKING VALUE before extracting more from us?" - 7ucky
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Yup, that's 10 dollar extra for you. And here's our local weatherman with our daily forecast:
Like good ol' pot-aholic Tom Petty once said; Every high has to come on down. And he's right on the money. Probably high too, but mostly right as well. Regardless, the game APB suffers from more and more problems the longer you play... So y'know what, time to moan and bitch like an abused trophy wife.
Matchmaking
Although, another side of this coin is that the game also had a beta for a good 2 months. Problem was there and it carried over.
The exact problem goes like this; There's about 15 ranks of 'threat' in the game, which basically work as a TrueSkill system. Higher ranked players get matched against higher ranked players while newbies sit with the newbies. Thats the theory. Now add the critical flaw-or-fix to it: Notoriety/Prestige.
Five ranks of it, lowest indicates you're a no-one. You won't be attacked or matched against anyone higher than you. At two it gets rougher, you'll be able to be dispatched
Still, if you're rolling solo for the duration of it it's no point to complain... However, it takes a even more broken turn when you're in a group. If the entire group has a three star notoriety basically every group out there in the field can take you on regardless of rating and/or threat. My friends and I are all basically at threat 4 and have a rating of about 75-100. At 100 you can get the best batch of weaponry, and at 20 with each faction you can upgrade your character with a health/damage boost.
Basically, we're outranked, outplayed and outgeared in several ways. So if a group of 5 threat 10+ takes on a group of 5 threat 3-5 it'll be a lucky lucky day for the lower players if they somehow achieve victory. It doesn't retract from the fun, as 5 on 5 tactical open-world chaos is awesome. It makes it insanely difficult to progress however. Making the long way to the top a painful grind of constant losing.
Customization
Long story short, the unlocking literally requires you to spend time customizing stuff. The games' unlock chart works by seconds, Fashionista Rank 1 is 100 seconds, Rank 2 is 300 seconds, and it goes on to Rank 15. Same with Tuner, which is the same but then for vehicles. It's silly to reward people for AFKing out in the booths, cause for the most part the Rank 8-plus requirements are fuckin' insane.
Another big complaint is that if you run a 32bit system, the game will turn your character into a pixelated blob compared to what you see in the customization screen. It'll be
Your character can also have a themesong that'll play when you kill someone. There's alot of over-used ones like the Mario death-theme and the Axel-F Beverly Hills Cop theme but it's a wicked feature regardless. Got AC/DC's Thunderstruck jamming over myself, but hey. Anyway...
When it comes to vehicles it's nearly as open-ended. You can completely customize the decals to an extend that makes Forza Motorsport 3 rather simplistic. You can upgrade the engine, you can add parts, you can color every panel and prop on your ride.
There's about 20 vehicles you can buy and upgrade, and 4 seperate takes on each vehicle. One's a preset, precustomized vehicle with one upgrade. The other 3 are freely customizable but each carry either one, two or three open upgrade slots.
Basically the game does best when it comes to customizing, sadly enough... Thats not even half the game.
Driving & Running
Get the drift? No pun intended...
The movement when it comes to running and walking on the other hand is fluid as can be, which is odd. Usually in games without cover-systems, especially third-person games... Movement tends to be like being a sack of bricks thats pushed down a set of stairs. It's responsive, it's quick, it's
Now ofcourse there's radio in this game. And the game's full of preset music, but one wonderful option is available ontop of it. It's something alot of other games need to take a gander at and steal;
You import your own music and it'll play in your car, or if you enable it on foot as well. In the vehicle it sounds properly muffled and echoes in tunnels. On foot it sounds like you're wearing an iPod or something, crystal clear. Now, the best part is - If your friends share your music taste and have the same music uploaded; It'll play for them too! If they don't, the game picks something alike to it from the default list. Which is pretty neat.
Closing Bullshit
Lotta whining, lotta praising. Long story short, the game has some flaws. Some big ones even. But as is with most MMOs... they'll all be fixed in some magical LSD-induced way over time... Like hell. You will have to put up with the game's critical flaws and make the most out of it... Best I can advise is to not let enemy players get to you, just lose and try to get the most fun and chaos out of it.Thats what we do, atleast.
But all o' this is in good favor to what the game represents - A wonky take on a cops n' robbers idea that they probably scribbled up on a napkin at a diner, half the development team must've shat themselves when they realised dude was serious and APB was a go.
Basically the idea is this; The game makes you pick at the start - Cop, or crook? Then it gives you a tutorial to several redundant ass missions which vary depending on side, regardless they'll be simple A-to-B missions for the tutorial. Which are designed to keep you occupied while the bigger
Also, to point out - Cops are outnumbered on just about every server, but they're also in favor of missions as criminals never stop being criminals. Crooks on the other hand have less activity going on but can make easy bucks my robbing & stealing left and right.
Something about the game's flawed though... The combat is wonky as all hell, with lousy weapons that don't do you any good until hours and hours of playtime - Given the game's reward system is based on how much time you've spend and how many successful missions you've had. "Rank" works via time and completion while "Threat" works with success and skill - Both are designed to lock you outta the good stuff for
With this comes a huge fuckin' flaw - The game puts you up with players and against players that grossly outgear you. As you'll have to invest a hour or ten atleast to gain rank and access to the first upgraded weapons, you stand zero chance against those with rifles that carry 3 upgrades and their avatars having health and damage benefits.
At the same time, when you're playing less... PvP and more with friends, you'll soon also notice how much fun the game can be being absolutely reckless. Sometimes servers are 10-0 criminal wise so having no police on the look out opens up the doors to
All in all, it's insanely hard to recommend the game. Especially given the fact that there's no trial or way to try it before you buy it. I suppose if you're a core online player and love GTA - It's a green light, but even then you'll have a hard time getting hooked to the game. It's hard to fall in love with this game, it doesn't try hard enough to grip you. Infact it rather lets you walk...
Long story short, if you're thinking about it. Give it a shot, it's quite alot of fun. It's just that... like I said, the game's harsh against newbies. Brutally brick-up-the-ass harsh against newbies - That's what I think will put off more players than it'll keep. But if you
It's far from bad, nowhere near as bad as most claim it is. But is it worth mentioning in your "Greatest games"? Doubt it.
As I said before, if you've been considering it before and GTA-meets-WoW appeals to you - Give it a shot, you won't fully regret the 50 bucks.
Also, another thing... The game's way of paying is rather strange. You buy hours from Realtimeworlds.com, rather than say a month pre-paid. You get a certain amount of hours and they'll tick down as you play online. It's strange, but in a way I suppose
7/10 - I do like it. Love it? No. But it's fun regardless.
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