Realtime Worlds, developers of Crackdown, have been working for over two years on All Points Bulletin, a massively multiplayer online game of cops and robbers. Right from the game’s launch, you’ll find out that this game has style. Not just a good art style, but a hipster, cyberpunk and slightly futuristic aesthetic. As you sign in and load up the game, you come to one of the most deep and good looking character creation screens that I have seen in an MMO. From head to toe, you can change up your male or female character. For me, I just wanted to see the game, so I just hit the randomize button until I found a buff, mohawk sporting dude.
After naming your character, you move right into the biggest choice: enforcer or criminal. One does the policing and the other does the crimes. I went with Enforcer because I always play the good guy in basically every game, especially MMOs. After joining the only server available at the moment, I entered the training instance. This is where the game puts you through 5 small quests that teach you all the major gameplay mechanics. From shooting, to painting over graffiti, raids, stealing cars (which is totally awesome) and even my favorite, entering buildings. I found that kicking down a door is fun, period. After running all over the small chunk of the city, “utilizing” some civilian vehicles, raiding a drug dealer’s pad and defusing bombs, I found myself enjoying what I played so far.
All Points Bulletin is in closed beta right now, which means it could totally change when it is finally released. I love the look of the game, but my PC only allowed me to play at about 50% to 75% of the graphical power. Even at these settings, the game ran quite smoothly, which surprised me. My biggest hope for the team at Realtime Worlds is that they take a look at the driving controls because they seemed too tight for my liking, but I haven’t played a racing game on the PC in a very long time.
After leaving the training zone, you can either choose to go to the social zone where someone has a “truce” in effect or the combat zones. Unfortunately, that first hour only allowed me to make it through the character creation and training zone. If you were one of the lucky ones to get a beta invite, let us know what you think with your comment(s) below.
If you’re interested in applying for the All Points Bulletin Beta sign-up here at the official apb.com website.
