All Points Bulletin Review
01.18.2023
Ever wanted to play GTA online? No, we're not talking about those unofficial mods that let you gather up with a few of your friends and chase each other on motorcycles. You've probably wished for it at some point – a full-blown online GTA, with hundreds of other players in the town, and perhaps a MMO system to make the world persistent? Say no more! All Points Bulletin, the next big thing from Realtime Worlds, has been developed with that kind of gameplay in mind exactly!
Gameplay
We already said that APB is pretty much a MMORPG version of GTA, and it really is just that – though with lots of improvements over GTA's gameplay in order to cope with the massively multiplayer world. You can choose to join various sides which are constantly in wars, customize your character in a completely unique way, even forming gangs of similarly-styled soldiers (one of the trailers for example shows a gang of punks versus a trio of guys that looked like they just came back from shooting up some cops in “Reservoir Dogs”). Of course, there's a great emphasis on vehicle action, and just like in GTA you can hijack random vehicles from the streets, engage in drive-bys and adrenaline-pumping chase scenes.
The combat system is very flexible, and you'll have to think out of the box to be successful in APB – forget about ducking behind a crate and popping up only to empty your magazine – in APB, this is only effective until someone decides to ram their truck in said box – which, we assure you, will happen before you've even considered it as an option. The streets are chaotic, and with over 100 players in a single town you can have some massive shootouts, even playing on the side of the police if you wanted. The total world consists of over 100,000 players split into towns, so you can imagine the overall feeling the game produces.
Graphics and System Requirements
Yet another title on the Unreal Engine 3, Realtime Worlds have made numerous modifications to the engine to help it handle the large worlds better. It performs very well in drawing the huge cities and the various detailed vehicles and players with all their customization options. The city skyline looks beautiful as you're cruising around with your gang in another stolen vehicle, and of course the combat parts of the game see the most attention to detail, with large explosions and lots of special effects.
Other
The game sadly requires a monthly fee to play – your initial purchase of the game itself only gives you about 50 free hours, after which you'll have to pay up and subscribe. But seriously, there's no room for even wondering here – no other game can offer you a similar experience right now, so the price is more than justified.
Conclusion
APB should definitely see lots of success. It's already proving to be highly popular among players, and some of the innovations it brought to the genre will surely become a staple of it.