Starting up as an MMO is probably really hard. I mean, I don't know the industry well enough to know the amount of money it takes to create a game like that, but I know servers cost money and it takes enough subscribers to break even, and sometimes that doesn't happen until a while down the road. Interestingly, some MMOs have made the jump from a subscription model to a free-to-play form, and to odd success. Companies like Nexon make their cash from purchased items in Mabinogi and Maple Story, and even Sony pulls the trick in PSHome. This is where APB comes into the story
The original APB launched in the summer of 2010 and was down by the fall. It was an ambitious title from the makers of Crackdown, and to all concerned it was for certain a 'your-milage-may-very' scenario. To some, it was a well crafted crime game where you could either rule the streets as a criminal or hunt down lawbreakers as a vigilante. To others, it was a poorly coded and mostly vacant sandbox with few players and only a well-built toolbox of customization tools to its name. Well, here we are in 2011, and APB is coming back as the Free-to-Play APB: Reloaded, and I jumped back in to get a Closed Beta Key, having played the game last year. So, has San Paro changed for the better or worse?
I would like to point out that as the game is still in Closed Beta, this is not a review. It is a preview or an overview, and I will not give a score. What I am here to tell you is how it is right this very moment, and once it hit open Beta in a few weeks, it will probably be a very different game.
Now then, starting off you will choose what side of the law you'd like to be on. The Criminals are pretty self-explanitory; you break laws, drive fast cars, and enjoy the 'thug life'. Enforcers are vigilantes that have been given the go to use lethal or non-lethal force to bring law back to San Paro, which I'm assuming is in California. As such, the two factions have little subsects inside of them which effects your contacts and what clothing you unlock, but we'll get to that in a bit.
I made two characters to begin with, though I eventually made a third because I wanted the name 'Rasputin' to myself. I made an Enforcer named Mr. Sunderland and a Criminal named Jean. Sunderland is a white guy with a Bobobo style afro, while Jean is your average skinny goth-esc liltih. I feel bad for not using the very indepth character creation tools that you're given, and I assure you, you can make some very intricate character models with it. I've fun into Naked Snake, the entire cast of Reno 911 and Ronald McDonald in the Beta, which always fills my heart with joy.
After a few tutorials where I was taught the finer pieces of combat, I was dropped into San Paro with an assault rifle, a pistol, a car, and a dream. The set up is pretty similar no matter what side you picked, though the Criminals starting car is faster than the Police Car, though the latter can take more hits. Oh, you do get your own car, which you can design to your hearts content. The car creation tools are just as sweet as the ones for your character and clothing, so props there.
The missions and gameplay is where APB: Reloaded either falls apart or shines, depending on who you are playing with and what side you picked. To start a mission, you press the K button on the keyboard and mark yourself as 'Ready'. From there, you will be clumped into a mission with a few other random members of your faction and go off to complete missions. The random matchmaking occasionally takes too long (I've driven around for five minutes before getting a bulletin), but its not too bad. Alternativly, you and a few friends can form a group and start missions together, which is great fun if you have a few buddies around.
If you are on the Enforce side, I noticed a lot more of your missions are variations of defending and holding points or items, while a lot more Criminal missions require you to go on the offensive. However, there is a level of variety, and being able to jump into a mission from anywhere is a nice touch. All missions are PvP, but the overworld isn't unless you have a bounty on your head (that'll come up later), so you won't be harassed on your way to your mission unlike on the PvP server of DC Universe Online.
Now, getting to your mission is a bit of a pain sometimes. Once you start a mission, you jumping into someone else's mission may mean that you have to travel up to 1000m just to reach your allies, which can make you look like a bit of a loser. The car controls are frustratingly floaty, which will often make you overdo it on the drift or accidentally strike a civilian, which makes life tough as an Enforcer. Granted, as a Criminal, it adds to your Notoriety (stars level), which really doesn't have negative concequences. Still, in a high-speed chase, having to worry about the light car controls can always be a bother.
About Notoriety and its good counterpart, Prestige. Each faction has its own system of gauging one's skills, and its an interesting concept. Enforcers have a system called Prestige, which goes up when you complete missions, arrest or kill Criminals, and don't commit crimes yourself. It's a little upsetting that taking fall damage lowers your Prestige, as the original APB didn't give you damage from jumping off a roof, but I think with a little forethought, one can get around this pitfall. Having a high Prestige will let you do tougher missions and gain better rewards, but a max Prestige of 5 will put a bounty on your head from the Criminals, making you a target in the otherwise tame overworld. Notoriety works a little differently. While an Enforcer starts at half Prestige, a Criminal starts at level 0 and has to work their way up. Notoriety goes up by stealing cars, hitting pedestrian AI, and killing Enforcers. It's a bit easier to understand than the Prestige systems, but both of them have the common pitfall of the parameters of what attracts Notoriety or Prestige changes once you hit rank 4 of 5. To get to the very top of the good guys' or bad guys' list, you have to work on it much harder than you'd want.
So how does the gameplay work out? Well, it's functional, but not perfect. I don't believe there's a cover mechanic implimented, which will lead to a lot of dying. The guns all handle pretty well, and your character can sprint at a nice click. The grenade animation takes slightly too long to do, but its not a deal breaker. One of the most interesting parts of the gunplay is the inclusion of 'Less-Than-Lethal' weapons, which are all pretty awesome. These are used by Enforcers to arrest Criminals for more Prestige than your usual kill. All these weapons are hillariously crafted, from the air-powered beanbag assault rifle to the tazer-firing shotgun, and offer a fun change of pace. The other guns run your usual gambit, but there is some good variety. The downside is you will have to play for two or three hours to unlock new weapons, meaning you will have to deal with the first set of guns' accuracy issues and low stopping power until you can deal without.
Graphicly, the game looks pretty good for a Free-To-Play game. The world of San Paro is gleaming with lights and shine, and the character models are nicely detailed. The little touches in the destructable enviornment makes it one of the better looking MMOs I've played in a while, and the occasional bouts of absurdity you run into adds to the enjoyabillity of it all. I was running the game on a high end laptop (Toshiba with an i7 processor), so I got to enjoy it in all of its glory.
The sound design is nice as well. The licenced soundtrack has some variety to it that'll make your ears thank you. The voice-acting is surprisingly solid as well, including the laughably awesome 'Joker Ammo Vending Machines' that spout macho dialogue that would bring a smile to Duke Nukem's face for sure. The guns make a good variety of noices, especially the ptt-ptt-ptt of the air-powered ones.
At the moment, I haven't seen a world with over 200 player characters in there, but it'll probably expand when the full game comes out. There are AI pedestrians running around, which works in fleshing out the world, but occasionally they do some dumb things. Like there's a little lag between them hearing the horn of your car and them getting out of the way, which again makes it harder as an Enforcer. As being a cop is in real life, its tough to be an Enforcer. Though your Notoriety and Prestige restarts every play session, so it really is only so much sause.
As I sit here and write this overview, I have 30 hours logged, and it's split about 20 Enforcer and 10 as a Criminal. Both sides are fun to play as, and with a few friends you can have some real fun with this one. I'd keep an eye on it as it approaches it's actual release later this year.
The original APB launched in the summer of 2010 and was down by the fall. It was an ambitious title from the makers of Crackdown, and to all concerned it was for certain a 'your-milage-may-very' scenario. To some, it was a well crafted crime game where you could either rule the streets as a criminal or hunt down lawbreakers as a vigilante. To others, it was a poorly coded and mostly vacant sandbox with few players and only a well-built toolbox of customization tools to its name. Well, here we are in 2011, and APB is coming back as the Free-to-Play APB: Reloaded, and I jumped back in to get a Closed Beta Key, having played the game last year. So, has San Paro changed for the better or worse?
I would like to point out that as the game is still in Closed Beta, this is not a review. It is a preview or an overview, and I will not give a score. What I am here to tell you is how it is right this very moment, and once it hit open Beta in a few weeks, it will probably be a very different game.
Now then, starting off you will choose what side of the law you'd like to be on. The Criminals are pretty self-explanitory; you break laws, drive fast cars, and enjoy the 'thug life'. Enforcers are vigilantes that have been given the go to use lethal or non-lethal force to bring law back to San Paro, which I'm assuming is in California. As such, the two factions have little subsects inside of them which effects your contacts and what clothing you unlock, but we'll get to that in a bit.
I made two characters to begin with, though I eventually made a third because I wanted the name 'Rasputin' to myself. I made an Enforcer named Mr. Sunderland and a Criminal named Jean. Sunderland is a white guy with a Bobobo style afro, while Jean is your average skinny goth-esc liltih. I feel bad for not using the very indepth character creation tools that you're given, and I assure you, you can make some very intricate character models with it. I've fun into Naked Snake, the entire cast of Reno 911 and Ronald McDonald in the Beta, which always fills my heart with joy.
After a few tutorials where I was taught the finer pieces of combat, I was dropped into San Paro with an assault rifle, a pistol, a car, and a dream. The set up is pretty similar no matter what side you picked, though the Criminals starting car is faster than the Police Car, though the latter can take more hits. Oh, you do get your own car, which you can design to your hearts content. The car creation tools are just as sweet as the ones for your character and clothing, so props there.
The missions and gameplay is where APB: Reloaded either falls apart or shines, depending on who you are playing with and what side you picked. To start a mission, you press the K button on the keyboard and mark yourself as 'Ready'. From there, you will be clumped into a mission with a few other random members of your faction and go off to complete missions. The random matchmaking occasionally takes too long (I've driven around for five minutes before getting a bulletin), but its not too bad. Alternativly, you and a few friends can form a group and start missions together, which is great fun if you have a few buddies around.
If you are on the Enforce side, I noticed a lot more of your missions are variations of defending and holding points or items, while a lot more Criminal missions require you to go on the offensive. However, there is a level of variety, and being able to jump into a mission from anywhere is a nice touch. All missions are PvP, but the overworld isn't unless you have a bounty on your head (that'll come up later), so you won't be harassed on your way to your mission unlike on the PvP server of DC Universe Online.
Now, getting to your mission is a bit of a pain sometimes. Once you start a mission, you jumping into someone else's mission may mean that you have to travel up to 1000m just to reach your allies, which can make you look like a bit of a loser. The car controls are frustratingly floaty, which will often make you overdo it on the drift or accidentally strike a civilian, which makes life tough as an Enforcer. Granted, as a Criminal, it adds to your Notoriety (stars level), which really doesn't have negative concequences. Still, in a high-speed chase, having to worry about the light car controls can always be a bother.
About Notoriety and its good counterpart, Prestige. Each faction has its own system of gauging one's skills, and its an interesting concept. Enforcers have a system called Prestige, which goes up when you complete missions, arrest or kill Criminals, and don't commit crimes yourself. It's a little upsetting that taking fall damage lowers your Prestige, as the original APB didn't give you damage from jumping off a roof, but I think with a little forethought, one can get around this pitfall. Having a high Prestige will let you do tougher missions and gain better rewards, but a max Prestige of 5 will put a bounty on your head from the Criminals, making you a target in the otherwise tame overworld. Notoriety works a little differently. While an Enforcer starts at half Prestige, a Criminal starts at level 0 and has to work their way up. Notoriety goes up by stealing cars, hitting pedestrian AI, and killing Enforcers. It's a bit easier to understand than the Prestige systems, but both of them have the common pitfall of the parameters of what attracts Notoriety or Prestige changes once you hit rank 4 of 5. To get to the very top of the good guys' or bad guys' list, you have to work on it much harder than you'd want.
So how does the gameplay work out? Well, it's functional, but not perfect. I don't believe there's a cover mechanic implimented, which will lead to a lot of dying. The guns all handle pretty well, and your character can sprint at a nice click. The grenade animation takes slightly too long to do, but its not a deal breaker. One of the most interesting parts of the gunplay is the inclusion of 'Less-Than-Lethal' weapons, which are all pretty awesome. These are used by Enforcers to arrest Criminals for more Prestige than your usual kill. All these weapons are hillariously crafted, from the air-powered beanbag assault rifle to the tazer-firing shotgun, and offer a fun change of pace. The other guns run your usual gambit, but there is some good variety. The downside is you will have to play for two or three hours to unlock new weapons, meaning you will have to deal with the first set of guns' accuracy issues and low stopping power until you can deal without.
Graphicly, the game looks pretty good for a Free-To-Play game. The world of San Paro is gleaming with lights and shine, and the character models are nicely detailed. The little touches in the destructable enviornment makes it one of the better looking MMOs I've played in a while, and the occasional bouts of absurdity you run into adds to the enjoyabillity of it all. I was running the game on a high end laptop (Toshiba with an i7 processor), so I got to enjoy it in all of its glory.
The sound design is nice as well. The licenced soundtrack has some variety to it that'll make your ears thank you. The voice-acting is surprisingly solid as well, including the laughably awesome 'Joker Ammo Vending Machines' that spout macho dialogue that would bring a smile to Duke Nukem's face for sure. The guns make a good variety of noices, especially the ptt-ptt-ptt of the air-powered ones.
At the moment, I haven't seen a world with over 200 player characters in there, but it'll probably expand when the full game comes out. There are AI pedestrians running around, which works in fleshing out the world, but occasionally they do some dumb things. Like there's a little lag between them hearing the horn of your car and them getting out of the way, which again makes it harder as an Enforcer. As being a cop is in real life, its tough to be an Enforcer. Though your Notoriety and Prestige restarts every play session, so it really is only so much sause.
As I sit here and write this overview, I have 30 hours logged, and it's split about 20 Enforcer and 10 as a Criminal. Both sides are fun to play as, and with a few friends you can have some real fun with this one. I'd keep an eye on it as it approaches it's actual release later this year.