APB
Well, as the game is out now I guess I can talk about my experiences with it in the Beta phase.
If I’m honest I didn’t actually experience that much of APB thanks to constant computer issues, none of which were APB’s fault as it happens. I met all the recommended specs but my graphics card had a fit and caused some problems hindering my ability to play. Not that it mattered much as even after I fixed the problems I had no motivation to return to APB based on what I saw.
I realise my impressions are based on a beta rather than a finished product so I’m hardly going to be impressed at the level of polish at hand here, however, I’ve played enough games over the last 25 years that given a fun gameplay mechanic, the game could have bugs coming out of the seams and the graphics of a Spectrum game and I’d play it. Unfortunately, APB is hindered by it’s genre and the titles that have gone before it.
Firstly, the sandbox city game has been done to death. Secondly, the GTA mission formula within a sandbox game has also been done to death. For the last 10 years we’ve seen game after game mimic GTA3 and it’s getting a little old. What was once a refreshing twist on a genre in 2001 is now the most overused mechanic in gaming today.
Secondly, and I really dislike to ‘trash talk’ like this but while these sandbox game dev’s can create amazing worlds for players to inhabit, they often fail when it comes to putting an actual game in there. GTA has suffered from this problem for a long time, and if I were to say anything negative about RDR it would be the same thing. Amazing world, mission design needs work. You cant do ‘go there, kill this guy’, ‘take this guy here’, ‘pick up/deliver this package’ missions for 10+ hours and keep it fun no matter how much you try and vary essentially the same mission. Rockstar have been doing it for about 10 years now and not only is it old, but it is boring to anyone who has played a few of these titles. RDR went a step in the right direction but still repeated a lot of it’s missions despite this.
This is where sandbox games fall, they thrive on user created content more than developer created content. Look at Crackdown to see a shining example of this problem… look a little closer and you will see an attempt at the solution too.
Crackdown has some of the most boring, repetitive missions I’ve seen, but it manages to hold your attention by allowing players to jump a building in a single leap, rain grenades down on enemies, and watch half the screen explode in a fiery ball of joy. Picking cars up with passengers still inside, then carrying them to the top of a high building only to hurl firmly off the edge has a way of killing a little time. Throwing a skip out to float at sea, then trying to punch pedestrians hard enough that they fly 40/50 foot off the pavement and land in the skip tends to give a certain entertainment factor that other sandbox games cant equal. Super Powers.
Enter the new breed of over the top sandbox games… Infamous, Prototype, Crackdown, Mercenaries 2 and Just Cause. Running pedestrians over in a Banshee can’t compare to kicking a Garbage truck over a bridge lets face it. However these games still suffer from the same issue, they continue to thrive on user created content and procrastination over advancement. It’s easy to play for two hours and achieve nothing other than punting some poor AI guy off a 100 foot building and cackling manically as you do it. I put around 8 hours into Mercenaries 2 before I realised I was getting nothing done. Well, nothing towards advancement anyway. However I had levelled, reloaded, and re-destroyed the central island fortress about 30 times or so. You can make a sandbox more fun by giving increased powers within that sandbox, but that only serves to increase the fun of sandbox play. Mission design is still repetitive and has been for the last decade in sandbox games.
Now, along comes APB, which dials the superpower angle back down to GTA levels. Then inserts GTA-like mission structure, Saints Row customisation, and a graphics engine built from Unreal Engine… then tries to charge a subscription fee for the package. The problem here is, for a slight trade off I can load up GTA4 online and get more or less the same experience.
The few missions I ran were pretty standard, clean some graffiti from walls (GTA: San Andreas much?), go see some guy for a gun.. nothing much of note. Driving was bad. Like, really bad. I understand the issue has been rectified somewhat but cars still look like they are skating on an ice rink if you ask me. Almost as though they are floating instead of on wheels. The character creation screen kinda confused me. I’ve seen screenshots of regular size people in APB, and I thought the customisation options were supposedly matched by no other game… yet I seemed to only have access to the steroid addict section of body types. I just want a regular guy to play as. I don’t dig the muscle-layered on-muscle stereotype in games, not one bit. I’m willing to concede this could have been an oversight on my part, maybe I missed something, or perhaps the beta was limited to a certain selection compared to the retail release.. I can’t really say for certain.
The biggest issue I can see (although it’s nothing but guesswork on my part) is population balance. At an educated guess, I’m going to say the Enforcer faction is a far more restrictive faction to play than the Criminals. I could be wrong here, but go run a pedestrian over as a criminal, then do it as an enforcer and compare the difference. Assuming this game has a reputation system linked to faction specific rewards I can guarantee you Enforcers will think twice before going nuts on the street but Criminals have more freedom to shoot people at will, to commit vehicular homicide etc. Enforcers will no doubt take a big reputation hit for attacking the citizens they are there to protect. As a result, I can’t see it being long before the Enforcers find themselves outnumbered. Why play Enforcer when Criminal is closer to the classic GTA gameplay everyone knows? Why play Enforcer when your hands are tied a lot tighter in terms of in-game freedom?
Once the slightest population imbalance causes a shift in the win/loss ratio for Enforcers people will re-roll Criminal for the advantage. You only need to look to Warhammer Online to see an example of players re-rolling every other month to take advantage of the winning side. APB will no doubt see the same problems.
In conclusion, the little I saw did nothing to convince me this was worthy of a subscription. Other peoples mileages may vary of course, but while I can see the appeal of such a game, I just don’t think it’s for me. Even it were just the retail price with no subscription I’d still hold off till I saw it in the pre-owned section.
