All Points Bulletin

Whenever people hear about APB (All-Points Bulletin), they invariably think of it as the "Grand Theft Auto MMO." That would be doing the game a great disservice - it's so much more. Grand Theft Auto IV launched to universal acclaim and has since been ostracized for everything from the bro-date mechanics to Niko's personality. APB won't have either of those. True, you can still run around and shoot people, and then steal a car and run over more people, but that's where the similarities end. APB is about cops, robbers, teamwork, and... designing.

First, there are two basic modes in the game to pick from right off the bat: there's the action district and the social district. The action district is where the meat of the game lies. First, you choose whether you want your character to be a Criminal or an Enforcer (cop). Criminals will perform a crime, be it robbing a bank, or blowing up a car, or burning down a building, and then the police will put out an all-points bulletin for your arrest. The Enforcers then have to capture or kill the Criminals, and the Criminals will be fighting to complete the dastardly job of looting/killing/burning/etc. before the time runs out or they get stopped by the cops.

It controls very much like a typical third-person shooter, with WASD keys used for movement and the mouse used for aim. I've never tried driving using anything besides a controller on a home console before, either, but the driving worked better than I was expecting considering the non-analog-ness of a mouse/keyboard setup.

You can upgrade weapons by using up to three different upgradeable slots in each, and you can steal cars or buy them from the repair shop. Each car can carry passengers that lean out the windows to shoot the other team, and you have the GTA-standard, "When your car lights on fire, you need to get out quick!" There's a huge aspect of strategy here too. You need to find the right weapon for the range you'll be fighting at (i.e. shotgun vs. sniper rifle), and the guy on the higher ground will almost always have the advantage. One fun fact: each district will have up to 80 players at once, although not all on the same mission (most are 7vs7, I believe? Don't quote me on that), so you can be barreling down a sideroad on a high-speed pursuit and run right into a firefight between two other brawling factions. Very cool.

Criminals and Enforcers have their own levels of prestige, as well. Do a lot of crime, and your notoriety will go up, allowing you to get cooler stuff and also have more Enforcers chasing you at once. As a cop, you can use lethal force on the Criminals, which causes a very short respawn, or you can use non-lethal weapons like beanbag guns. The non-lethals cause the Criminals to keel over, and then you can run up and arrest them. This gives cops a HUGE boost, and causes the Criminal to have a ten-second respawn (that's a very long time when you're just sitting there on your knees crying). Oh, and the cop can shoot the perp in cold blood while he's there being arrested, but that's no good for their good cop-ness, even if it does make you feel totally hardcore.

Besides the action, there is a huuuuuge aspect of customization in APB. The social district of the game is like PlayStation Home, only imagine if you could actually do stuff there and it wasn't just a huge advertisement for digital clothes that you'll never wear. Here, there's a place to design clothes, and characters, and car decals, and tattoos, and hairstyles, and music. The editors are incredibly robust - think of it as a WRPG create-a-character mode, but with even more customizability and a punk-rock aesthetic. Basically, anything you want to design can be in the game.

The music editor sticks out in particular, to me. You can create 5-second jingles that play when you kill an opponent as a sort of "death tune," or you can create an entire soundtrack for your game that'll blare from your car speakers when you perform drive-bys. The death tunes stick in my mind because I got capped once, and a clip of "Never Gonna Give You Up" played as I fell lifeless to the pavement. Gotta love Rickrolls.

But wait... there's more! If you don't want to create your own music, you can use your music collection on your PC as the soundtrack for your game. The thing is, it'll only play out of your car speakers when you're driving. APB uses Last.fm's technology to give other players a flavor of where your musical tastes lie. Say you're playing "Where It's At" by Beck on your stereo. If someone jumps into your car (or is merely close enough to hear your speakers), they'll hear "Where It's At" if it's also in their musical collection. If they don't have it, they'll hear another song by Beck, or, failing that, they'll be treated to a similar artist based on Last.fm's "You might also like..." technology. Eventually, you'll be able to tell who's coming for you based on the prog rock soundtrack blaring from their speakers. Very cool. (If you created your music with the Fruity Loops-style in-game music editor, everyone will be able to hear that tune all the time; there's no "Artists similar to DJ Killface" option... yet.)

Since APB is an MMO, it'll cost money. Realtime Worlds has a unique and awesome way of going about this, however. Let me break it down for you:
APB costs $49.99 and includes 50 hours of playtime out of the box. These hours never expire. They know that not everyone will be a die-hard play-every-day addict, so they only charge you playtime when you're actually playing. Novel, eh?
If you want a monthly unlimited plan, it's $9.99 a month, or you can get 20 more hours of never-expires playtime for $6.99.
Besides that, everything else uses it's own point system, similar to Microsoft Points. I call them "APBucks." Har de har. You can purchase points in denomination of 200 for $4.99, or 400 for $9.99, or 600 for $14.99, and so on and so on. There's no savings when you purchase larger bundles yet; I think it's just for convenience so far, although I can see something like discounts on larger amounts happening someday.
Points can be redeemed for added playtime, or you can use them to purchase decals/tunes/clothes that other players designed on the marketplace.
Playtime only decreases while you're in the action district; your time in the social district is unlimited. You can design to your heart's content.
Cool part incoming: you can sell your tattoo/clothes/music to other players for in-game cash (which is used for buying cars, upgrading guns, etc.), OR for points, which can be redeemed for more playtime. So, you can burn up your 50 hours, then hit the design studio, make something amazing, and sell it to other players on the marketplace for more playtime. This is awesome, and I don't know why more companies don't do this.
APB is in open beta right now, and the full game launches on June 29 on PC. If you preorder, you get a bunch of free stuff (including ten bonus hours of playtime). Get on that! I'll see you there.