All Points Bulletin: Reloaded marks the return of a MMO that died far too early. All Points Bulletin was originally developed by Realtime Worlds and released on June 6, 2010. Despite everything the original release brought to the table, Realtime Worlds announced on September 16, 2010 that they would be shutting down the servers. The game was then picked up by K2 Network, also known as Gamers First, and launched as All Points Bulletin: Reloaded on December 06, 2011. Will the changes made be enough to keep this title afloat this time around?
APB used a subscription based model that was unique in that players could opt to either purchase hours of play or pay for 30 days of unlimited play time. It was a novel idea that, in theory, would keep players from “overpaying” and thus allow them to only pay for time they knew would be used. This time around, APB:R uses a free-to-play model with the option to purchase additional content
such as Premiums (30 day subscription), weapons, vehicles, gear, and additional character slots. One advantage to becoming a Premium player is that your characters will gain additional cash and standing with contacts. All of these extra goodies are located in the Armas Marketplace that can be launched in-game. Purchasing these extras requires players to first purchase G1 Credits. Credits can be purchased at the Gamers First site and sell for the standard rate of $5 per 400 credits.
All Points Bulletin: Reloaded in essence is a game of cops and robbers. Players choose one of two factions, Enforcers or Criminals and battle in the city of San Paro. Crime in San Paro has become such a problem that the city instituted a force of legal vigilantes, the Enforcers. There’s a healthy back story to this world, but don’t expect it to be told through cutscenes or dialogue. If you want to learn more about San Paro and its inhabitants, be prepared to read through some lengthy character bios and emails. While this is great for those willing to invest the time and it does flesh things out a bit between all of the rival groups, it is not critical to know anything of the story. At no point will it help you knowing that Violet Prentiss was once a Blood Rose. As sad as I am to say it, the story doesn’t matter a whole lot. Fortunately, the frantic fast paced action is more than enough to keep you interested as you move through missions.
Free players are only allowed to create two characters. Having one of each faction is allowed on the same server. With the sheer amount of content available, I don’t see much point in creating more than two characters, but altaholics would most likely disagree with me, and for good reason. The character creator in APB:R is the most robust and versatile that I’ve seen in any game. Starting out, you’ll have the option to pick either basic features or go into an advanced editor that will allow you to change any aspect of your character. My experience with the basic editor was disappointing to say the least as any changes I made did not take. Only when clicking the random or change sex buttons were there any visible change. However, if you only want to use a basic character, you’re missing one of the best parts of the game. Customization is a huge part of the game and ignoring it would be ludicrous. The proof is in the pudding and though it was unintentional, my Enforcer came out looking like Michael Westen.
Nailed it.
In fact, the customization of virtually everything in the game is reason alone to download it. From your character and their tattoos and clothes to the car they drive and the music your foes hear after you’ve slaughtered them is customizable. If you want to make a character truly unique and remarkable, you’ll find no better game than All Points Bulletin: Reloaded. Even if you don’t want to invest the time, check out the in-game auction house and odds are that you’ll be able to find ridiculously awesome goodies. Just expect to pay some serious money to get it. Talent doesn’t come cheap.
Earning cash is a driving force in APB:R. If you want anything, you need cash and a lot of it. Cash is earned by doing missions for the various contacts you’ll meet. To get missions, you’ll need to pledge to a contact. Pledging will lock you to a contact until the pledge is broken. As you perform missions for a contact, you gain reputation. There are 10 reputation levels to each contact and furthering your rep with a contact will grant you access to new items which they can sell to you. After gaining the maximum standing with a contact, you will be introduced to a new one and the cycle repeats itself. Missions themselves can be played either solo or with a team. Objectives range from transporting items to investigating locations and more. After progressing through a few levels
with your contact, you have played the majority of mission styles. Missions usually consist of several steps which must be completed in order to proceed. Again, these will vary from mission to mission. The only issue I have with the missions is that by default you’re set to automatically join groups for missions. Each time you load into a district, you must remember to turn off the auto join feature or be forced into a mission that you can’t exit unless you back out to the login screen.
During missions, you will meet opposition from the other faction depending on your Prestige level if you’re an Enforcer and Notoriety level if you’re a criminal. This level will increase or decrease depending on player actions. If a Criminal mugs or shoots down innocent civilians, the gauge will go up. If an Enforcer accidently runs over a civilian, the gauge will go down. There are five levels to the gauge. At level zero, you’re free as a bird and anything you do will not have the opposing force dispatched against you. At level one, there are greater rewards for missions and enemy players will be dispatched if the deeds are witnessed by the opposing faction. Level two promises more rewards from missions, and enemy players may be dispatched to compete in missions. At level three, rewards go up further and enemy players will stand as opposition no matter your action. Level four is much like three, but with increased rewards. Once a player hits level five, a bounty is placed on their head and an alert is sent out server wide. With a bounty in place, a player is free to interact with anyone on the server. Anyone can claim the bounty on another player with the exception of Enforcers squaring off against fellow Enforcers. If you’re feeling dangerous and want to take on missions with a bounty in place, the rewards are greatly increased.
The game itself is broken into different districts. There are two mission districts, Financial and Waterfront. There are two strictly PVP districts, The Beacon and Baylan Shipping, where no missions take place and it’s a race to eliminate the other faction’s 100 player life pool. The final district is the social district where players can customize their characters, weapons, and cars in addition to browsing the auction house.
The play style of APB:R is what hooked me right away. The game is totally dependent on a player’s skill. Many players will think of it as a MMO Grand Theft Auto. While it is an accurate description, it’s not fair because APB:R is a lot more fun to play. There are a wide variety of weapons to fit anyone’s play style, and the massive, sprawling urban environment provides plenty of spots to hide and set up ambushes. The controls are nice and tight for the most part. When running around as my character, I had no complaints. Driving the cars was another story. Each car is unique and handles differently. However, the controls are very similar to those of your character. It took me some getting used to steering with the WASD and matching the camera with the mouse in sync. It’s a learning curve, but one that can be mastered within a few hours time.
APB:R runs on the Unreal Engine 3 and is graphically stunning for an MMO. Everything in the game oozes personality. I fell in love with the art portrayed in the game and how wonderfully customized everything is. It’s MMO eye candy at its best.
However, the game does suffer when there are multiple characters on screen and refuses to render most of them and opts for a default model. The odd character here and there will be rendered and it generally isn’t an issue except when one ventures to the social district. The game also takes a long time to load the districts, but the loading screens feature the game’s artwork which, I for one, will never tire of seeing.
In the end, All Points Bulletin: Reloaded is a fantastic breath of fresh air in a market where the option is usually playing as an elf or super hero. It is highly addictive and caused problems with this review because I could not stop playing it. It was always “Just one more mission and I’ll finish that paragraph.” It’s a game where one could lose themselves for hours doing a multitude of things from decaling their car to running endless missions with friends. The best part of all is that the game is entirely free to play. If you missed out the first time around, don’t make the same mistake twice. Go download this game now.
by~ Christian D.
GamingClimax.com Writer and Author of ZeroAnd09 Blog
