APB (All Points Bulletin)

Deep customization drives the core shooter gameplay, which is only held back by a fear of repetition and a few bugs.

Success or failure, expect to see APB replicated, ripped off, and copied completely in the coming years. It's revolutionary in many ways, even if it isn't actually all that great.

All Points Bulletin has some good things and some flaws. It is a truly good idea, and the way it has been made is satisfying, but there is still plenty of work ahead to improve it.

APB is a collection of seemingly solid ideas that disappointingly, just doesn't gel.

APB attempts to combine the feel of an MMO with the PvP of a first person shooter. By themselves, each concept works well. But here, each feels like it only received partial effort.

APB is clever but inconsistent, though Realtime Worlds has proven to be a developer to watch. This game shows that they understood the lay of the land back in 2005, when APB was initially conceived.

APB delivers periodic awesomeness, but fundamental imbalances and repetitive objectives make this persistent-world shooter a tough sell.

When APB works, it's simply bliss. Sadly, more often than not, it doesn't.

The expectations for APB were high, maybe too high, and the finished product doesn't live up to the hype. The result is a simplistic shooter with an awesome character editor that can be fun for a while, but lacks content and variety to justify a monthly subscription. Maybe Realtime Worlds can still do something about that but, for now, what's there is just not enough.

APB should have been the same game, just better. The main gameplay mechanics are here as well as the third person action and the persistent world, but despite some fun moments, the lack of polishing compromises the whole experience.

While being an okay game, All Points Bulletin doesn't deliver what it was supposed to: A GTA-like experience.

APB's good points can't be ignored. It's got the best spread of customization features this side of City of Heroes, and the idea of a player-driven combat environment is certainly appealing. But the multitude of design and technical issues hamper the fundamental gameplay and make it hard to enjoy without some serious compromise.

Style over substance. [Oct 2010, p.74]

Confused and weightless, APB doesn't satisfy on any front: the shooting, driving, story and objectives are all average at best. [Sept 2010, p.65]

When all its cylinders are firing, APB can be quite fun, but that enjoyment is blunted by the fact that its action mechanics and driving are both so clunky. [Issue#99, p.108]

It's polished and accomplished, and certain aspects of it, such as the meta-game structure and the player customisation, are fantastic. Even so, there's no escaping the fact that the game is hugely disappointing. The flashes of brilliance only serve to throw the mediocrity of the game into even sharper relief.

The descendant of Grand Theft Auto series is behind it, uses the Unreal Engine 3 technology, it has the best character creator ever made in a videogame, and it's gameplay style is based on the MMO and the third person shooter genres. Is it possible that a cocktail like that could disappoint us? As amazing as it may sound, yes it can.

APB is an interesting idea executed poorly. An open world action MMO in the same vein as the Crackdown franchise sounds great, but Realtime Worlds fail to make some of the fundamental mechanics entertaining. Though your options for customizing your experience are impressive to say the least it's not enough to make the experience worth your time and money.

Did they hope people wouldn't notice its shortcomings? Where they conducting some kind of experiment? Did they always plan to do this overhaul?

It's a sleeping pill disguised as an online action game with mediocre graphics, bad controls, frustrations and most of all: boredom.

Fun, but when you spend more time pimping than playing you know something's amiss. [Oct 2010, p.74]

Confused and weightless, APB doesn't satisfy on any front: the shooting, driving, story and objectives are all sub-par.

Half a game. [Sept 2010, p.96]

Great idea with creating MMO Grand Theft Auto somehow missed its target. Excellent character/car editor is accompanied by a dull and boring shooter. [Aug 2010]

Part massively multiplayer online game. Part Grand Theft Auto clone. All failure.

All Points Bulletin is a big disappointment: great ideas wiped out by poor gameplay mechanics and shallow content. Everything in this game cries out loud for a better implementation which will eventually arrive, according to the programmers, but which is at the moment unforgivable. On top of all this, the fun will be over after few hours since APB plays on only 2 maps and few repeatable quests.

Sure there is some gem of PvP in there somewhere, but you have to work far too hard to get there.

This is a case of an MMO that will inevitably evolve within nine months time, but not before it spoils its first impression like an unwieldy teenager trying to impress a Compton street gang.