Developed by Realtime Worlds (the team behind the original Crackdown) and published by EA, APB (All Point Bulletin) is an open world urban MMO where Enforcers and Criminals fight against each other for dominance. Being a game which was announced for quite some time, the game is a shooter MMO based in third person involving a hell lot of shooting and reckless driving.

This is not your average MMO since it tries to create something new other than quest and missions which other MMOs offer. In APB there is no involvement from the AI and it is almost player vs player scenario. Each instance holds up to 80 players simultaneously bringing the old time classic childhood game of cops and robbers in an MMO style.

The game's plot is quite easy to get to. The fictional west-coast metropolis of San Paro has passed a security act which gives the law enforcers, freedom to fight crime with any means possible using anything. This being done since the city got at an untamable level and something drastic had to be done. You will have the choice of joining the Enforcers' faction, fighting the crime in the city or the Criminals' faction, causing havoc and chaos all around the city and robbing everything you can. The city is divided into three districts, being the financial district, Social district and the Waterfront district.

The Social district is where players from any faction can relax in a combat free environment, trade items, hang out, chat and use the extremely detailed customization tools for clothing, body and vehicles. Or you can just take a nice walk alongside the sea. The Financial district is one of the two action districts where it is the Mecca of the business side of San Paro decorated with huge sky scrapers, city parks and industrial warehouses. The Waterfront district, being the second action district is the tourists' hot spot features a river side resort, shopping malls, exiting places to visit, harbor areas and container yards.

The strongest point of APB, which you will get to it as you start playing is the customization options. These options are practically the most flexible I have ever seen. The character customization goes from facial, makeup, scars, weight, height, muscularity, freckles, wrinkles, age and tattoos. If you are a freak of customization, well you can go into the advanced mode where you can change every detail of the face, being how wide is the chin, eye's iris size and shape, hair length and many more. For example the jaw bone customization alone, has around 10 sliders to change anything. Apart from that, the tattoos customization is also a huge hit where you can create the tattoo design from scratch and mixing different designs to make you custom tattoo. Then you can paste your custom designed tattoo anywhere on the body and multiple times as you would need. This will create your practically unique character from the thousands of players in the game.

Customization doesn't stop there as you will be able to customize your cars by trading vehicles, paint jobs and applying default car decals such as gang tags, badges or create your own custom decals, customized license plates, upgrades like spoilers, steering wheels and car seats ; clothing where any clothing can be modified and colored at your own likings and even the music you want to hear during after you kill somebody with the in-game mixer which is built-in to create, mix and edit the Kill-Song. This will allow anyone to hear the song around your kill. Apart from that you can create songs to be heard in a player's vehicle or from the Social district. The customizations along with the character details are beautifully rendered, thou sometimes during gameplay it make take some time to load all the customizations of other players.

The game also offers a Voice over IP (VOIP) system using Vivox to allot voice chats between players, and has also been equipped with a 3D positioning voice char that takes in consideration the position of the originating voice. The VOIP feature also broadcasts audio advertisement broadcasts when switching between districts, but it shouldn't annoy you at all. This all adds up to a very equipped game with one of the best customization features which are very easy to change and modify, and game options. So, it is now time to talk a bit about the gameplay.

The gameplay of APB focuses mostly on Player Vs Player (PVP). The game doesn't give you quests like other MMOs like get me 10 wolf fur or something of that sort, the quests given would be to either kill someone or disarm a bomb. Apart from those quests you will be asked to protect the citizens from other players and protect the streets of San Paro, if you are playing as an Enforcer. Differing from other MMOs, APB issues a ranking method called the Prestige for Enforcers and Notoriety for Criminals, instead of XP to level your character. The Prestige level will increase upon a successful arrest and it can decrease if you drive over pedestrians. Now, for the Criminals the Notoriety will increase when evading any capture or by killing innocent people and decrease when arrested. There are not calluses or skill points in the game, but the players will be able to customize the role of the character by using in-game and real currency for upgrades.

In APB you don't have to chase after quests or go 10 miles away just to get the mission, quests will be streamed to you, if you are playing solo or to the group leader if you are playing as a team. You will then decide if you want to accept the mission or not. Professions also lack in APB, but you will be able to earn in-game currency by creating various stuff like artworks, decals, custom clothing and modified cars, and sell them via the auction house.

Thou the game was in development since 2005, there are some hiccups in the game. The first one being that the two fighting zones will not take you long to learn them all. Also content is not enough to enjoy a long lasting game while mission types are quite limited for both factions. On the other hand, who hasn't played endless online matches on the same map for hours and hours on Call of Duty? Shooting is not challenging as whatever part of the body you shoot, it will do the same damage, so don't try your lucks for headshots. Driving vehicles may take some time to get used to the mechanics of the game since it has some discomforts like a delay from when you press the movement keys to when the vehicles move.

Matchmaking does a great job of putting together a fair fight by balancing the number of threat levels of each player. The threat level is assigned to you after you complete missions, which are given to you based on kills, deaths and how many objectives are completed. When entering the Matchmaking process, you will be assigned to an instance where all the players are balanced with the right amount of threat level. The maps are accurately designed to disallow the opposing team to fort into a corner since every place can always be a way to sneak upon your enemies. The only thing about the Matchmaking process is when choosing players, you would still be beaten mercilessly by players being very good but with a low threat level. Don't worry if you lose, since you will be always rewarded with a number of in-game cash.

When you purchase the game, you will be given 50 hours of playtime in the action districts which are the Financial and Waterfront districts. The Social district is not metered, so even if you have expired your gameplay hours, you can still visit the Social district. The game offers three different payment methods.

You can either pay 8.99 EUR per month with unlimited gameplay, 20 hours of gameplay for 6.29 EUR which never expire and you can use them whenever you want or you can exchange your in-game currency for gameplay time i.e. if you make enough money through the game by selling your own creations, like clothing and vehicles you can exchange them for playtime.

Conclusion

If you are looking for an interesting pure Team based multiplayer action game with a great visual identity, well APB is the game for you. You can go through thousands or combinations in their character customization to give yourself an awesome virtual identity. The game offers a great multiplayer feel with vehicles fights, and my own favorite feature... the kill song. Despite the game's hiccups, if you like a team based shooter game, then you should try APB.