APB Reloaded

Playing APB Reloaded seems very similar to someone trying to look on the bright side of tumbling down a flight of stairs; sure the brief free-fall might be a thrill but it's certainly not worth the pain and anguish that comes with the experience. APB is littered with bugs and simply tries to be too many things at once, but if you're willing to endure the hurdles that this experience throws at you, including taking the proper steps to prevent the game from crashing when you first install it, and you can manage to find a group of friends to take the dive with you then you may get a decent amount of enjoyment out of this one. After all, you can't argue with the price of $0.

A little history of APB, the game was in development approximately five years, released in June 2010, shut down September 2010, and then re-released in Dec of 2011 and renamed APB Reloaded. The funny thing is for all that time spent in development the game feels remarkably unpolished and untested. Townspeople clip right through walls and doors that don't open. If you steal a car from someone they'll argue at you and eventually just disappear into thin air. Also I would hardly call the APB world massive. It's much smaller than pretty much every grand theft auto game since GTA 3. So where did all of that development time go to? The gameplay?

I would say the answer is no. The gameplay felt mildly innovative in concept. There are two factions which basically are cops and robbers. The robbers, or criminals as they're called in the game, freely roam the world committing crimes consisting of mugging bystanders, robbing stores, fencing said stolen loot, spray painting, and oh yeah, grand theft auto! All the while upping their notoriety and earning cash to buy new guns, cars, or clothing. Eventually these criminals will start missions which are basically the 'quests' of the game and all consist of guarding a particular spot, person, or thing, or the opposite side of the coin where the objective is trying to kill person, blow up thing, or stand in spot. Following me so far? So the cops, or enforcers, are basically licensed vigilantes going around trying to kill or arrest the criminals while completing the exact same mission types. The mission structure actually flows quite nicely because there will be numerous objectives in a mission that causes players to race around town trying to complete them before the opponents show up. The problem is that the mission variety quickly becomes repetitive Some missions can be met with no opposition at all making the quest feel pointless. Other times too much opposition shows up and you're outnumbered and out leveled by your opponents and simply have no chance of completing the task at hand.

Speaking of missions, remember how I said the world hardly felt massive? All mission givers are people you 'pledge' to in order to level up your reputation with them. As you progress this reputation you unlock new guns, cars, clothing, or perks you can buy from vendors. Sounds good right? But that's where the good ends. The story of the game is largely absent past the intro cinematic. You get some flavor from the NPCs in your inbox, which feels strange and more spam like than anything else. Take that out and all you have left is the terrible gamer chatter you usually get from WOW Barrens general chat (i.e. nonsensical).

As far as the world you play in goes, APB contains what you could describe as two medium size GTA maps, two very small battleground stages, and one social hub world where you find the auctioned items and where customization of your character can occur. I guess you could say that 'small' description is a relative term and is forgivable because the size of the maps works really well with the games mission structure but what isn't forgivable is how bland the maps and vehicles feel. You quickly memorize the types of cars, townspeople, and favored easily exploitable locations of the map. Like how you can't shoot through car windows, glass guardrails, or the empty gaps in-between stairs.

This exploit talk opens a bigger can of worms, the error and bug talk. My first experience with this game after install was it crashing every 3 minutes over and over again. I thought I was done right there but my friend instructed me to right click on the game in Steam, go to properties, and click on the 'verify the integrity of game cache' button. Once this finished the game ran mostly fine, with the exception of a few other random crashes. The game also likes to immediately throw you into missions and makes it confusing to try and opt out of it to allow you time to shop or just drive around. Sometimes the friend list wouldn't show my friends online too, which was aggravating when you're trying to get a group together. I'd have to close the game and reenter before they'd appear.

There is some appeal to some of the unpolished aspects however. I got a good laugh the first few times I exited a car going full speed and simply walked out at normal pace while my vehicle speed off into the distance. Another example of some good bug humor is when a car blows up and the driver is a charred mess but the passenger looks completely fine and remains comfortably seated. Also it is sometimes nice when I teleport right into my car seat instead of waiting to go through the sequence of opening the door. One thing that still gets on my nerves though is when I finish a mission, close the advertisement of upgrading my game to premium, and find that my car is permanently stuck in reverse until I jump out.

I have to give this game some commendations though. I had a lot of fun playing with my friends running missions, crashing cars, and blowing up cars. One of the most satisfying things in this game is customizing your theme music. Once you get a kill your opponent will hear a short 5 second jingle which usually comes off as hilarious since there is some rampant use of homage/plagiarism. It's hard to argue with the value of this game as it can be very enjoyable and I didn't pay a cent.

I'd have to say that if you're looking for a fun and free multiplayer game with your friends that you might want to try some other game first, like maybe League of Legends. But if you think you can look past some technical follies, and you like the idea of a custom character and car and showing it off in an open world 3rd person shooter then this could be a fun jaunt for a little while.