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[TheBronzePickle]

As some of you may know, there was a game called APB not too terribly long ago. It was a third-person shooter MMO, and it went bust pretty quickly.

APB Reloaded is basically the same thing, only they've made it freemium. Almost all of the game's content is available to free players, and the few things that aren't won't really be missed, since the game's a lot more about your personal skill than gear and level.

The story is basically that the city you'll be playing in, San Paro, has been having crime problems the last few years. Gotham City-level crime problems. The most recent mayor decided the best way to solve this would be to pass the City Security Act, basically making vigilantism legal and paid for through city funds. In game, you'll either play as the Crims who are trying to steal and kill for riches, fun, and other various motices, or as the Enforcers whose job is to stop the Crims. Both sides have access to all the same gear except that the Enfocers can opt to use less-than-lethal weaponry for a slightly bigger reward.

Gameplay is like an MMO version of Grand Theft Auto. You drive around in cars that you can customize and decorate, you can change your clothing (which is all just for looks), you have a good number of guns which you can customize with a number of different upgrades (most of which have disadvantages to keep them from being overpowered), and there's a large amount of in-game editors that let you do all kinds of stuff, from making your own decals and tattoos to plaster all over your car or yourself to making your own theme music that people will hear when you kill them or complete a mission as the winning team's leader. There's even an in-game music player that you can upload your own tunes to and listen to while driving, although unless the tunes are made in-game and the people around you have the same music noone else will be able to hear it.

The game's still in beta, so expect bugs to pop up. They're not the best at getting out fixes quick, but they're constantly working on improving the game.

www.gamersfirst.com/apb/ Is the site. You'll have to download the gamersfirst client in order to get the game, but it's worth it.

http://www.apbrwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page is the wiki if you like wikis. It's not perfect, but it'll give you a general idea of how to get what you want.

And if you happen to see a very stereotypical Chinese Enforcer named Nanode out on the streets, that's me.

[Neonivek]

since the game's a lot more about your personal skill than gear and level

Goodness I remember when I played a long time ago. The best gun in the game was "The Best" gun by a huge margin (In that it did everything all the other guns could do better. In otherwords it was a Sniper Machinegun).

So hearing that they balanced some of it is nice to hear.

The other problem with APB is that inspite of boasting a great custom character designer... you, apperantly, didn't get access to a lot of content from the getgo just to make your character.

[TheBronzePickle]

Actually, I did. I was just lazy.

Gear does have it's place, since you obviously can't snipe across the map with a shotgun but close-up you can own with it. However, each and every gun has its use, and most characters will quickly gather a nice selection to choose from. They're not perfectly balanced, but they're enough so that unless you bring a shotgun to a wide-open area with sniper spots galore you should be able to at least hold your own.

[Bdthemag]

Tried playing the game, although my computer could run it fine it lagged a lot even though I had a pretty good internet connection.

[TheBronzePickle]

Recently? I think they've fixed a few of the lag problems. It can still be a little laggy, but I'm on a wireless connection on a laptop with only decent internet and I can still hold my own.

[lastverb]

The other problem with APB is that inspite of boasting a great custom character designer... you, apperantly, didn't get access to a lot of content from the getgo just to make your character.

This. My comment, when this come out first time was: They talk so much about character designer, they forgot to make any other part of the game.

[Neyvn]

Yeah I kinda stopped playing after I got killed 100 times by the same guy cause he was the only one that was around my lvl. *Which he wasn't he was like 10 more higher...
And he was dressed in Full Nazi German Military clothing with the whole Swastika marks and everything. Which apparently is completely allowed as long as your not parading it around town like a fool on your car/tag...

[hemmingjay]

I helped Beta it originally and most of my feedback was about the awful driving controls and lag. 2 weeks before it went live the game was overun by aimbots and superbullet hacks, which are both still in wide use. The game could have been amazing, but it is still just not worth it to me. Glad some people are still happy there though! Wish I could join you.

[TheBronzePickle]

The driving's pretty damn good now, actually. They've also cracked down pretty heavily on the hackers just recently.

I can understand, though, it still has a lot of kinks to be worked out, which is why it's still in beta. I can't say I didn't try to attract a little attention, at least.

[hemmingjay]

you peaked my interest in trying again, but the Gamersfirst downloader freezes when I try to download the game and there doesn't seem to be a direct download link anywhere.

[TheBronzePickle]

Figures. Sorry it isn't working for you. I actually have to play it on my laptop because my desktop can't play it (although that's more my fault than the game's, something fucked up the OS files and it doesn't let me play several games anymore).

If anyone cares about internet celebrities, SMP Films is endorsing the game.

[hemmingjay]

got it to download. going to give it another whirl. Thanks for bringing it back to everyone's attention.
Want some irony, I am in this weekend's beta for SWTOR, but I am playing APB and Skyrim instead.

[Virtz]

Last I played I did not get the impression that gear didn't matter that much. At least not when we had to face a bunch of guys with high level (cash store bought?) sniper rifles and grenade launchers. Plus there was some serious imbalance with the AKs being vastly superior to most other automatics.

Though the customization options are indeed awesome, probably the best in any MMO I've seen, even with the free account limitations. Shame it's the main driving point of the game (like you basically do missions to unlock new clothes and stuff).

[TheBronzePickle]

There is a sniper that does 90 percent damage. It's a pain in the ass when someone's shooting you from max range and cover, since unless you have a countersniper they'll usually be just sitting there invincible. Thankfully it's bolt action so they can't just pour out bullets, and at close range it's not the gun for the job.

They've really been working to balance the weapons. The 'nade launchers and the snipers are probably the worst for balance, but the launcher tends to kill as many allies as enemies and the snipers are near useless at close range since just about any other gun can outshoot it.

[Neyvn]

The one thing that peved me off was how hard it could be to raise cash as an Enforcer compared to if you played the Criminals. A Criminal could ram a store, load up a van and drive off with something close to 1000$ sitting there. For an Enforcer to be able to stop it they needed to Target someone with the most unresponsive "reticule" and then press a button that would only activate when the Reticule was over the target at the time it was pressed, considering that the crim is moving around, its not all that easy to do. And when/if you finally do activate it, the first person to go down loses, fullstop. The respawn time was stupid and catching up to the target was difficult...

So what a couple of PUGs and I did was go around looking for these Crims, wait till they had put a few into the car and was going for the last one and then jump into the car ourselves. The Crims couldn't shoot the car and deal damage, they couldn't take things out of the car when we were in the driver's seat and OH BOY was it fun to see these "Victims" of their own acts come charging you down with a Dumptruck that dealt you no damage at all due to the Safety System the game does...