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APB: Reloaded: A Mixed Bag of Awesome & Frustration
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
All Points Bulletin was taken over by GamersFirst in 2011 and the name was changed to APB: Reloaded. Since then, the team has been hard at work to "make the game that should have been". How successful have their efforts been? Read our latest review to find out and then let us know what you think in the comments.
All Points Bulletin: Reloaded is a general mixed bag of awesome and frustration. Only in San Paro will you see diminutive, round-cheeked Asian females gently pummeling heavily-muscled tattooed men for their wallets and kamikaze punks, decked out in rags to make The Joker Proud, terminate the opposition by driving everyone off a bridge. Only here; the occasional Van Diesel movie notwithstanding. If this sounds like something you can get behind, APB Reloaded may be the game for you. Maybe. Like it or not, the problem with APB Reloaded is that it's just one of those games: it either works or it doesn't.
Read more of Cassandra Khaw's APB: Reloaded - A Mixed Bag of Awesome & Frustration.
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Comments
Best review ever, I totally agree with it all!
Played APB a lot. Last patch killed the game for me.
I'm sorry I bought premium.
San Pedro.. lol
I almost stopped reading at San Pedro (San Paro iirc), then got as far as Van Diesel (VIN DIESEL) and actually stopped.
What, no editors here?
First bit is totally my fault. o_O For some reason, I've heard people use 'San Pedro' so frequently that it sort of stuck. I'm trying to get our editors to tweak it for me right now.
As for the Van Diesel, well, that's just a shameless brain fart. >_<; Sorry for the inconvenience.
"An MMO should provide the option for solitary play. You should be able to enjoy this alone. You should not, if you choose so, be shackled to other players."
What a difference a decade makes. Go back and try to play EQ solo. You will die. A lot.
Now, I am all for solo play, don't get me wrong. I firmly believe it is primarily responsible for the original success of WoW ( which was the first MMO you could reasonably solo in). But the assumption that MMOs have always been, and should always be, this way made me laugh.
Hmm. That was an odd impression I gave out there. I blame it on the fact English never was a first language. ^^; However, what I'm trying to implicate here is the fact that players should feel like they have the option to play alone or with people. Right now, APB Reloaded feels like it's built exclusively for group play to me.
Did anyone actually edit this article? If they did, maybe you should send future articles to me.
Besides being a grammar Nazi, I thought the review was truthful, more than I can say for other articles I've been reading as of late. Good work.
This is a poor review. It is very single minded.
Please MMORPG.com, get someone else to review this game. It looks to me that she just finished a bad game session and wanted to tarnish the game in her review. I've had my fair share of bad moments sure, we all have, but I can look past those and see that this game is impressive. She claims to have poor performance also, well, that's her problem but she factors it into the review?
How can you possible give innovation a 5/10? There are so many great new things in this game that this sore isn't even possible. The character creater, clothing options, graphic designer for your cloths, car, and person. The music creater, death themes.
Does Cassandra know that these reviews are out of 10? It sounds to me while reading that she didn't make it too much past the turorial.
"An MMO should provide the option for solitary play. You should be able to enjoy this alone. You should not, if you choose so, be shackled to other players."
The game has an automatic grouping system and an LFG tool, it is ment to be play with other players, it is a PVP game but you want to fly solo? I do agree that match making still needs work however.
"Long-term fans of more 'realistic' shooter may find APB Reloaded wanting. To begin with, APB Reloaded does not have skill shots. All hit boxes are built equally. You will not be able to perform a one-headshot skill from maximum range. At best, you will be able to pepper spray your opponents from the top of a building while they search fruitlessly for you. Worst of all, there is no real heft to the weapons, no obvious indication of your ammo levels, no real way to determine whether your car is about to explode unless being explicitly told so."
This is an mmo after all and balance does need to be taken account for. This game has a set character draw distance like most MMOs. Including head shots would just not be fun. No heft to the weapons? What about the LMGs and snipers? The UI isn't that bad and if you played for some time you easily get use to it. No way to tell if your car is about to explode? The cars get damaged and it is very visable when you have taken a lot of it, as well as you will hear that it car doesnt sound quite right, it it wont go as fast, all indications that your car is going to catch fire soon.
I'm just going to comment on one bit here. You're entitled to your opinions, otherwise.
While APB Reloaded does have the most STUNNING character generation I've seen in an MMO yet, it's not new. Need for Speed allowed you to customize your cars. The Sims allowed you to customize your characters. Those are just two games that have been implemented chargen. Polish, regardless of how masterful it is, is just that - polish. Then again, I could have interpreted the word wrongly. ^_^; As far as I can tell, innovation means something that has been newly introduced.
You are tottally right on what you said, but...
Why compare a FPS online action game to a single player SIM game? Tell me which online FPS game have that level of customisation? None, nor Battlefield or CoD.
Comparing APB features to a single player game is just wrong. My opinion though.
And saying the story is poor.. well APb is not a MMORPG, it's an online action game. People never got that...
Anyway sorry for the rant.
Cheers,
V
This game at least deserves a 6.5 or 7. If this would any other hyped game you wouldn't give that low scores for many of the categories (innovation and social 5? really?). I hope mmorpg realizes they are not fooling anyone with these reviews of theirs.
This game deserves a lower score. While the reviewer may not have met any bots/cheaters, they are definitely there. Now they're usually in groups and a newb won't face them very often.
Customization is great and all..... but playing Barbie Online isn't going to go far. And the silly "premium" P2P junk drove me from the game along with the cheaters.
Im glad to see that MMORPG.COM is utilizing more of the score ladder. Too many games get ranked undeservedly high.
However, I didnt bother reading the entire review. Maybe its because I only tried APB reloaded for 10 minutes before uninstalling (litteraly). Maybe its because Cassandra gave it a 6.5 in aesthetics, while writing about gameplay elements (referring to feeling confused about missions and tutorial area for the first minutes of gameplay).
The scores might be fair, but the content of the chapters dont seem to match the headers (aesthetics header, but gameplay content mentioned).
I agree with the review score. At times, this game provides the most fun I have ever had in a game but those moments are few and far between. Most of the time its, queue up, wait, get mission, get killed by rocket launcher, be told you suck by the guy with all the premium weapons and then log off.
My biggest complaint about APB is the stupidly high prices they want for permanent leases, I think they'd have more custom if they made the weapons cheaper and made them less generic and more situational (so that there was a need and benefit to owning more than a couple)
I love how this got a 5 for innovation while SWtor got much higher... *cough*
Anyways, APB isn't to bad. Not my cup of tea but its not the worst. A middle road type of game.
Ok, so the reveiwer really needs to learn how to play before writing a review. Actually, they should probably start with learning how to use a computer.
Can't go back to the tutorial area? Press esc and choose district > pick a tutorial district. I can't think of many games that don't give you a menu when you press esc.
Can't manage to talk to contacts? Walk up to them, and press F. Really should have stayed in the tutorial district until you at least understood that.
Oh and if you don't have occasional bits of garbage and debris it's because your videocard can't support it. Try to not game on a netbook if you're going to give a serious review.
Didn't bother to read the rest, as I'll wait for someone worth listening to.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
I usualy don't comment on these things but this review it totaly skewed in a negative way.
The pictures are from "RTW" time and do not represent how the world looks now. You said the interface is terrible yet you do not say anything specificly what is terrible about the interface. You go on to continue to call this game a first person shooter. Which it is not. APB is a third person shooter like GTA. Their is so much more you got wrong I'm stoping here so I don't turn this into a wall of text.
If I rated this game I'd give it at least a 7.
FPS = "TPS"...stop splitting hairs. There are a number of shooters that you can be in first person perspective, or third person...what do you call those? FPS is just a term to describe a genre of game, regardless of what perpsective you may be tied to. They aren't seperate genres.
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The pen is mightier than the sword, and authority is mightier than the pen, but the sword is mightier than authority.
If you can't beat 'em, hold 'em off 'till you come up with a better plan.
So the game requires teamwork to play properly... but it gets a low social score? It is apparently one of the least innovative games ever reviewed on this site, but is the only game of its kind in MMO form. Ok then.
I don't know what makes this review more pathetic, the horrible grammar, the dated photos, that the game is continually refered to as an FPS, that the reviewer apparently thinks the 8 buttons needed to play are too complicated, or the nonsensical conclusions drawn like the ones outlined above. The game isn't amazing, but its certainly not "poor" or deserving of one of the lowest scores given out by this site.
Get a new reviewer, this one clearly isn't up to the task.
I'll certainly pass that remark to our editors.
(And, dear lord. I've used the word FPS so often, it sticks. Totally my fault on that one.)
But, I felt like I had to point out reasons for my scoring again. First of all, I think it's subject to personal interpretation. For me, I see 'social' as a way of cultivating interaction between people. Thus far, the matchmaking system has left me wanting in that respect. I find myself being dropped into groups which consist entirely of silent members. Do I see people communicating on the channels? Rarely. I also don't see game plans being established. It's often a simple rush to the objective. That does not feel socia lto me.
In regards to innovation? After reading the comments, I do agree that it may be unfair to compare it to a single-player simulation game. However, I see innovation as something that makes me raise my eyebrows and go, 'Huh. Why hasn't someone thought about this before?'. A random example would be my first encounter with indie FPSes and how some people have transformed something like that into non-violent narrative sequences. That's innovative.
Perhaps it is the subjectiveness of the scores that is the issue, World of Tanks getting a 9 for innovation yet this game getting a 5 is beyond laughable. What use is a scoring system when the numbers mean different things to different reviewers? If your idea of what's innovative is so extreme compared to that of other reviewers then the scores end up being meaningless and arbitrary. Same with the social aspect, very few MMOs force any grouping, let alone communication, the points you have against this game could apply to any MMO yet very few receive such low scores.
So the ability to take 25 different symbols and peice them together to make a custom symbol, then use three custom symbols to customize 1 article of clothing (up to 75 individual symbols for 1 peice of clothing) isn't innovative, it's just polish? You make it sound like it's no different then just adding some dye to your armor. The character customization in this game is well beyond any other game out there, bar none. Need for Speed customization is a joke in comparison to the ability for a player to use their own artistic talents to create the look they want in APB:R. And to even mention the Sims is just a slap in the face.
Oh and you said there was no garbage laying around....
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.