APB Reloaded Game Review

Alternate Title: All Points Bulletin
Publisher: GamersFirst
Developer: Reloaded Productions
Type: MMOTPS
Model: Free-to-play
Platform: PC
Engine: Unreal Engine 3
PvP: Missions
PvE: Missions

If I had to sum APB Reloaded up in a few words, it’d be something akin to.. “What the actual fuck?”
That was my reaction when I saw it online, that was my reaction after spending hours playing it, and that is essentially my final verdict on the game as well.

The game is beautiful – like ridiculously so. It’s based firmly in reality – you’re either an enforcer of the law, or a criminal breaking it.
You run around doing missions, fighting other players, and.. yeah. Welcome to a game that is predominantly PvP.
I would like to take a brief moment though just to appreciate how amazing the characters look in-game. The body textures, the clothing textures.. wow. I was definitely taken aback upon first witnessing how appealing some of the characters are.

When I first saw the character creation, I will admit.. I was far from impressed. The characters at first glance looked like something out of Secret World Legends.
After delving deeper into it however, I learned that you’re capable of grabbing your characters face and body and dragging it to craft their appearance.
Similar to Fallout 4 or The Sims 4.
You’re also given sliders for various pieces of the characters face, adding to the overall customization.
Now, I am more than happy to admit when I am wrong.. and I was emphatically, undoubtedly, unequivocally.. overly judgmental. Especially when you can get a character that looks like I did.
Female character creation offers more than male character creation though.
They offer waist, hip and breast customization. Yup. Sweet, sweet body customization.

The game is broken down into “Districts”. You can tackle the Financial and Waterfront Districts for Missions.. which are more aimed towards PvErs.
Then you can tackle the same Districts as Open Conflict modes, which function as large PvP modes.
Admittedly I never made it to The Asylum or Baylan Shipping, but the Social District was definitely something to behold.
There were players.. everywhere. As far as the eye could see, you could find players running around, AFKing, or.. being weird and perverted.
APB Reloaded offers players quite a bit of player customization – allowing you to customize what you wear, what color the outfit is, what textures and meshes are used on your outfits..
I didn’t have anything to change into, but I can only begin to imagine what you’re capable of doing.

Now, from what I can tell from browsing the internet, asking around in-game, and.. witnessing first hand, APB Reloaded has a very steep learning curve.
I spent a solid 20 minutes running around having virtually no idea what I was doing, or what I was supposed to be doing.
Eventually I figured out how to accept missions, pledge my undying loyalty to some of the hottest babes in the workforce, and get out there, ready and able to fuck some criminals up.

While driving around the town, commandeering civilian vehicles for.. uhh, police.. reasons.. I noticed that it’s actually quite a lot like a GTA game, or, I guess, more like a Saint’s Row game.
Which is great, as I’m a huge fan of both. APB Reloaded however feels a lot less.. polished. Driving is clunky, and a lot of the game seems to revolve around it.
Unfortunately, shooting civilians, crashing cars, hijacking vehicles.. none of them had any repercussions. Which made it feel a little empty.
I mean, hell, I enjoy running people over as much as the next guy, but why can’t I get in trouble for it? I’m an officer of the law, damnit!

So, while I’m well aware that the game revolves around missions, PvP, and driving.. I did find far too much enjoyment out of tormenting other players.

So, once again, I drove around, waiting for a mission to spawn that I could do.. and not have someone ultimately do for me, when another player offered to give me a ride to the mission objective.
When I objected.. my fellow Enforcer ran me over.. so.. teammates, your own allies.. they can literally kill you. Which is fucking stupid.

Being bored of the PvE maps and trying to do the missions before the other.. 3? I think there were 3 people total playing there, I took to the PvP maps.
Where I proceeded to drive around not knowing what the fuck was happening.
There were people.. shooting each other? Blowing up cars? Or something? I couldn’t tell who was an ally or who was an enemy. It didn’t matter whom I attacked, they were all completely immune.

When I finally gave up and went on a mission, being able to finally participate in PvP.. the game just locked up, lagged, and I died.

That was my experience playing APB Reloaded for a few hours.

I drove around, I shot a few civilians, I commondeered a few cars, and I got killed by both the Enforcers and Criminals.

So.. what the actual fuck?