I don't agree with the review either. The cons are just not that much of a problem.. Controls and driving takes a couple of minutes to get a hold of and then it works just fine.
Too many people defend the driving by saying that its not that difficult, once you get the hang of it. The problem, as I see it, is that difficulty isn't the real issue. It's that some of us found the driving to be no fun. I did get pretty decent at it, pretty quickly, since I've played a lot of keyboard-steering car games, but that didn't change how much I hated the way vehicles seemed to be both too sluggish and yet too floaty at the same time.
Not only that, but there's a lack of car variety, no damage modeling, no locational car damage, such as tire blowouts, or shooting through windshields. All of that might be ok, if it were a RPG that distracted the player with stats and the like, but as an action game, it seemed inexcusable to me. It goes beyond fun factor, to the wtf-crap-is-this factor, when I shoot my opponent in the face through a windshield, and nothing happens. Or when I crash, and rather than deform in any sort of realistic way, the entire body just crumples uniformly. Or when I jump out of a speeding vehicle, without even stumbling, and the car comes to an almost immediate stop.
All of that plays into how much fun driving can be, but the real core of fun driving is the acceleration, steering, and traction, and the physics of interacting with the road, as well as anything you might crash into, from the bump of a curb, to an oncoming truck. All of that seems poorly done in APB.
I don't know who's idea it was to put so much work into customization at the expense of all that, in a game like APB, but I am curious, what the hell were they thinking?
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
This review is really strange and it actually feels more like the sum of a bunch of interviews and forum posts yet very little hands on experiance enough to give this an adequate review. Maybe make another review a year after the game has been out, with more content and changes and some solid experiance playing through it?
Certainly a re-review may be warranted in a year. But people frequently use reviews as one of their basis' for purchasing a game. Therefore, reviews need to be released in a timely manner in relation to the release of the game. The reviewers complaints are largely the lack of a cover system, which is extremely common in most shooter games in 2010, and the poor driving controls. These flaws can be noticed within 20 minutes of playing the game. Not to mention that there is not enough game at this point IMO to keep anyone, even the most avid fan, playing for a whole year.
This game reminds me of MXO it was a good game but could not keep ppl interrested in the game play. they really need to work on the driving and grouping. if no changes are made then it 's going to end up like MXo................... history
I agree with everything except that driving sucks. I suck at GTA for example. The driving was SOOO sensitive, I was hitting everything. Not so in APB. I find driving here very responsive, with just enough grip and not too much wiggle. Oh, and WHAT you are driving DOES make a difference. A sports car will handle much better than a cargo van....duh.
Driving only sucks if you are still using the car you started off with.The more expensive cars have much better handling and control.
The thing i currently cant stand about APB is the lack of balance..
Example. Im R 20 with just one character upgrade and no new bonus weapons yet.Im running around doing missions and my threat is building slowly.Next thing i know im placed against three or more people all with R 245 or higher.These higher R players have 3 character upgrades and weapons with 3 bonus slots already so even if i call for back up im pretty useless against those with more equipment and better upgrades.People will like to believe that levels and upgrades dont matter in this game but if they didnt matter why dont we all start out with everything open fresh out of the gates? Rank matters and so do weapons/character upgrades and to new players who just dont know better they will often be out-matched and this could make some people not wanna play the game.
This is probably my main issue with the game right now.The lack of balance.Well that and how over-powered the stuns are for Enforcers but the stun issue can easily be fixed by grouping with decent players who help you on missions.Actually probably both of my issues can be resolved with good groups but speaking from a new player perspective who may not know anyone playing the game it can be rough.
this game is just not worth the subscription fee. i feel that it hardly even gived you your money's worth from the box sale alone. the gameplay has been flimsy since beta. you are esscentially paying full retail price to play dressup. the rest of the game is still "i have the biggest gun", and it does not give much room for expanding to even make me care to pay. hell they had a lot of players playing free, but you know what? it was nearly empty because of the crap stink it gave off.
6.5 is about right for APB judged as an MMORPG. But it's not an MMORPG.
It's a game only runs on centralized company servers (Modern Warfare 2), with achievements and unlockable equipment (Bad Company 2, America's Army), and a side feature of extensive avatar customization (Brink, Battlefield Heroes).
APB is a shooter. The next generation of them, IMO. It's squarely in the place shooters have been moving towards over the last five years, and RTW has stolen a march on the competition.
As a shooter, I leave its merits to be judged by those who play those games. I don't. I just hope the tragic mis-marketing of APB to MMORPG players doesn't kill it in the crib. I may not care for it personally, but it's going in the right direction. It deserves to find its audience.
While the cars do feel like whales, higher up in progression I got to buy some vehicles that handled great.
On the customization front, as an artist I have fun with it, but am also frustrated with being stuck with having to work with polygons and symbols. Not to mention the biggest problem with customization is that you just don't get enough inventory space to make a bunch of stuff then sell it on the auction house. I end up being limited to around 3 clothes I can keep to copy and sell on the market. This is because your own character clothing inventory is limited which, when you have 4 different outfits, limits the amount of clothing you can make for sales. I'm not really willing to sell symbols I make when I could sell it on clothing and keep my symbol from being copied then sold on clothing by someone else.
While the cars do feel like whales, higher up in progression I got to buy some vehicles that handled great.
On the customization front, as an artist I have fun with it, but am also frustrated with being stuck with having to work with polygons and symbols. Not to mention the biggest problem with customization is that you just don't get enough inventory space to make a bunch of stuff then sell it on the auction house. I end up being limited to around 3 clothes I can keep to copy and sell on the market. This is because your own character clothing inventory is limited which, when you have 4 different outfits, limits the amount of clothing you can make for sales. I'm not really willing to sell symbols I make when I could sell it on clothing and keep my symbol from being copied then sold on clothing by someone else.
I smell cash shop upgrades... Oi.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
The game does have a few problems match making and hackers im sure those will be dealt with soon enough but to be honest i cant remeber the last time ive had this much fun playing any mmo this game is a blast if RTW takes care of the few problems this game has its going to be huge
probably the last mmo you played within the first 2 weeks of launch, I expect this to change to I hate APB within 2 month echoing the reviewers cons
While the cars do feel like whales, higher up in progression I got to buy some vehicles that handled great.
On the customization front, as an artist I have fun with it, but am also frustrated with being stuck with having to work with polygons and symbols. Not to mention the biggest problem with customization is that you just don't get enough inventory space to make a bunch of stuff then sell it on the auction house. I end up being limited to around 3 clothes I can keep to copy and sell on the market. This is because your own character clothing inventory is limited which, when you have 4 different outfits, limits the amount of clothing you can make for sales. I'm not really willing to sell symbols I make when I could sell it on clothing and keep my symbol from being copied then sold on clothing by someone else.
I smell cash shop upgrades... Oi.
I would be inclined to think so as well as you get 100 slots for weapons and only 40 for clothing. I seriously will never need 40 weapon slots much less 100, but I sure as hell could use 100 clothing inventory slots.
You know why this game is better than 6.5? Because I don't have to to push the #1 key to kill the same thing over and over and over while watching a shitty animation repeatedly. There may be some repetitiveness to APBs gameplay, but every encounter is ORIGINAL."
So every single game on the planet that doesnt have auto attack deserves higher than a 6.5? great logic there.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling" Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
I feel like the writer never got past the first car. I found that even taking pedestrians cars; they were all so much better at maneuvering than the starter car. Also, it takes a few hours to get used to it. Not really THAT bad.
It's odd, though. Although I agree on most points (cept for the driving) I would have given it a much higher score. Maybe it's because different things were emphasized to me? I dunno.
Matchmaking is broken or they need to reassess how it works. I was level 50 going up against guys level 200. Now that I am level 98, I seem to be dying less and killing more. Hopefully this is a trend that continues.
I have mixed feelings about the game myself. At first I didn't like it. But after a three day marathon I had to stop and ask myself...was anyone forcing me to play? No. I was laughing and having a good time. Ok...so sometimes I was getting killed I was cursing or grumbling. But you get into a rhythm. I actually felt like I was having withdrawal pains at work today.
Match-making is done purely on your win / loss ratio, which is inherently flawed in a game that makes you more powerful as you unlock new weapons and upgrades.
Driving is alright in it, no different from GTA or Saints Row, so people shouldn't be complaining about that.
One thing to note though, the screen with the two groups fighting from behind to rows of cars, that will never happen in the game. All you have to do is look at a car the wrong way and it will explode, so no one in their right mind ever uses them as cover.
There is a reason why some find driving enjoyable and others find it terrible. It comes down to your PC;
On my desktop I have about 60-70 fps at high setting and I can cut corners, countersteer, evade pedistrians and so on without problems and generally its great fun. My Micro is pure joy to drive on the desktop.
Then if I log on, on my laptop I run 25-30 fps on minimal settings and now on the same car I cannot drive down a street without hitting half the cars and pedistrians and have to completely forget about doing any car chases.
The lower your framerate, the harder vehicles becomes to control. For some reason the key controls become more and more "hysterical" the worse your framerate becomes.
Try a /fps and see your FPS. Less than 30 that driving becomes bad.
"You are the hero our legends have foretold will save our tribe, therefore please go kill 10 pigs."
>Driving is something you need to get used to. Once you do, it's great.
>The controls are fine. All I'm missing is a toggle crouch.
>Missions (quests) are repetitive in any and all MMO's or online games for that matter. the key difference here is that you get pitted against other players, rather than NPC's. That itself will keep you coming back for more. Not to mention the pursuit missions, where you actually have to stop the criminals from "escaping".
After reading the review, I can only say that I disagree wholeheartedly with it. it's almost as if it was written by someone not used to playing Shooters. In fact, I'm quite certain of it.
Comments
Too many people defend the driving by saying that its not that difficult, once you get the hang of it. The problem, as I see it, is that difficulty isn't the real issue. It's that some of us found the driving to be no fun. I did get pretty decent at it, pretty quickly, since I've played a lot of keyboard-steering car games, but that didn't change how much I hated the way vehicles seemed to be both too sluggish and yet too floaty at the same time.
Not only that, but there's a lack of car variety, no damage modeling, no locational car damage, such as tire blowouts, or shooting through windshields. All of that might be ok, if it were a RPG that distracted the player with stats and the like, but as an action game, it seemed inexcusable to me. It goes beyond fun factor, to the wtf-crap-is-this factor, when I shoot my opponent in the face through a windshield, and nothing happens. Or when I crash, and rather than deform in any sort of realistic way, the entire body just crumples uniformly. Or when I jump out of a speeding vehicle, without even stumbling, and the car comes to an almost immediate stop.
All of that plays into how much fun driving can be, but the real core of fun driving is the acceleration, steering, and traction, and the physics of interacting with the road, as well as anything you might crash into, from the bump of a curb, to an oncoming truck. All of that seems poorly done in APB.
I don't know who's idea it was to put so much work into customization at the expense of all that, in a game like APB, but I am curious, what the hell were they thinking?
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Certainly a re-review may be warranted in a year. But people frequently use reviews as one of their basis' for purchasing a game. Therefore, reviews need to be released in a timely manner in relation to the release of the game. The reviewers complaints are largely the lack of a cover system, which is extremely common in most shooter games in 2010, and the poor driving controls. These flaws can be noticed within 20 minutes of playing the game. Not to mention that there is not enough game at this point IMO to keep anyone, even the most avid fan, playing for a whole year.
Steam: Neph
This game reminds me of MXO it was a good game but could not keep ppl interrested in the game play. they really need to work on the driving and grouping. if no changes are made then it 's going to end up like MXo................... history
I agree with everything except that driving sucks. I suck at GTA for example. The driving was SOOO sensitive, I was hitting everything. Not so in APB. I find driving here very responsive, with just enough grip and not too much wiggle. Oh, and WHAT you are driving DOES make a difference. A sports car will handle much better than a cargo van....duh.
Otherwise all valid points.
Driving only sucks if you are still using the car you started off with.The more expensive cars have much better handling and control.
The thing i currently cant stand about APB is the lack of balance..
Example. Im R 20 with just one character upgrade and no new bonus weapons yet.Im running around doing missions and my threat is building slowly.Next thing i know im placed against three or more people all with R 245 or higher.These higher R players have 3 character upgrades and weapons with 3 bonus slots already so even if i call for back up im pretty useless against those with more equipment and better upgrades.People will like to believe that levels and upgrades dont matter in this game but if they didnt matter why dont we all start out with everything open fresh out of the gates? Rank matters and so do weapons/character upgrades and to new players who just dont know better they will often be out-matched and this could make some people not wanna play the game.
This is probably my main issue with the game right now.The lack of balance.Well that and how over-powered the stuns are for Enforcers but the stun issue can easily be fixed by grouping with decent players who help you on missions.Actually probably both of my issues can be resolved with good groups but speaking from a new player perspective who may not know anyone playing the game it can be rough.
I pretty much agree with the review. And 6,5 seems fine for a game that gets repetitive very fast.
Edit: Also agree that driving feels terrible.
I don't care if MMORPG gives this a mediocre review. The game is extremely fun and I will gladly pay $10 a month for it. Enough said.
"I don't give a sh*t what other people say. I play what I like and I'll pay to do it too!" - SerialMMOist
this game is just not worth the subscription fee. i feel that it hardly even gived you your money's worth from the box sale alone. the gameplay has been flimsy since beta. you are esscentially paying full retail price to play dressup. the rest of the game is still "i have the biggest gun", and it does not give much room for expanding to even make me care to pay. hell they had a lot of players playing free, but you know what? it was nearly empty because of the crap stink it gave off.
6.5 is about right for APB judged as an MMORPG. But it's not an MMORPG.
It's a game only runs on centralized company servers (Modern Warfare 2), with achievements and unlockable equipment (Bad Company 2, America's Army), and a side feature of extensive avatar customization (Brink, Battlefield Heroes).
APB is a shooter. The next generation of them, IMO. It's squarely in the place shooters have been moving towards over the last five years, and RTW has stolen a march on the competition.
As a shooter, I leave its merits to be judged by those who play those games. I don't. I just hope the tragic mis-marketing of APB to MMORPG players doesn't kill it in the crib. I may not care for it personally, but it's going in the right direction. It deserves to find its audience.
While the cars do feel like whales, higher up in progression I got to buy some vehicles that handled great.
On the customization front, as an artist I have fun with it, but am also frustrated with being stuck with having to work with polygons and symbols. Not to mention the biggest problem with customization is that you just don't get enough inventory space to make a bunch of stuff then sell it on the auction house. I end up being limited to around 3 clothes I can keep to copy and sell on the market. This is because your own character clothing inventory is limited which, when you have 4 different outfits, limits the amount of clothing you can make for sales. I'm not really willing to sell symbols I make when I could sell it on clothing and keep my symbol from being copied then sold on clothing by someone else.
I smell cash shop upgrades... Oi.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
probably the last mmo you played within the first 2 weeks of launch, I expect this to change to I hate APB within 2 month echoing the reviewers cons
I would be inclined to think so as well as you get 100 slots for weapons and only 40 for clothing. I seriously will never need 40 weapon slots much less 100, but I sure as hell could use 100 clothing inventory slots.
"
6.5? Hah. Screw this Review.
You know why this game is better than 6.5? Because I don't have to to push the #1 key to kill the same thing over and over and over while watching a shitty animation repeatedly. There may be some repetitiveness to APBs gameplay, but every encounter is ORIGINAL."
So every single game on the planet that doesnt have auto attack deserves higher than a 6.5? great logic there.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
I feel like the writer never got past the first car. I found that even taking pedestrians cars; they were all so much better at maneuvering than the starter car. Also, it takes a few hours to get used to it. Not really THAT bad.
It's odd, though. Although I agree on most points (cept for the driving) I would have given it a much higher score. Maybe it's because different things were emphasized to me? I dunno.
After all, you only do missions so you can dress up better.
C:\Users\FF\Desktop\spin move.gif
That's why I did missions bwahaha
Hah! This just proves even more to never trust MMORPG.com reviews. 6.5? MAN, some one must have pressed the wrong numbers...
Matchmaking is broken or they need to reassess how it works. I was level 50 going up against guys level 200. Now that I am level 98, I seem to be dying less and killing more. Hopefully this is a trend that continues.
I have mixed feelings about the game myself. At first I didn't like it. But after a three day marathon I had to stop and ask myself...was anyone forcing me to play? No. I was laughing and having a good time. Ok...so sometimes I was getting killed I was cursing or grumbling. But you get into a rhythm. I actually felt like I was having withdrawal pains at work today.
Driving is fine now and so are the controls, is this review from beta?
Match-making is done purely on your win / loss ratio, which is inherently flawed in a game that makes you more powerful as you unlock new weapons and upgrades.
Driving is alright in it, no different from GTA or Saints Row, so people shouldn't be complaining about that.
One thing to note though, the screen with the two groups fighting from behind to rows of cars, that will never happen in the game. All you have to do is look at a car the wrong way and it will explode, so no one in their right mind ever uses them as cover.
No.
There is a reason why some find driving enjoyable and others find it terrible. It comes down to your PC;
On my desktop I have about 60-70 fps at high setting and I can cut corners, countersteer, evade pedistrians and so on without problems and generally its great fun. My Micro is pure joy to drive on the desktop.
Then if I log on, on my laptop I run 25-30 fps on minimal settings and now on the same car I cannot drive down a street without hitting half the cars and pedistrians and have to completely forget about doing any car chases.
The lower your framerate, the harder vehicles becomes to control. For some reason the key controls become more and more "hysterical" the worse your framerate becomes.
Try a /fps and see your FPS. Less than 30 that driving becomes bad.
"You are the hero our legends have foretold will save our tribe, therefore please go kill 10 pigs."
This reads like a review from beta. Might want to mention that.
I need to add some more;
>Driving is something you need to get used to. Once you do, it's great.
>The controls are fine. All I'm missing is a toggle crouch.
>Missions (quests) are repetitive in any and all MMO's or online games for that matter. the key difference here is that you get pitted against other players, rather than NPC's. That itself will keep you coming back for more. Not to mention the pursuit missions, where you actually have to stop the criminals from "escaping".
After reading the review, I can only say that I disagree wholeheartedly with it. it's almost as if it was written by someone not used to playing Shooters. In fact, I'm quite certain of it.
Oh well.