APB Reloaded: What a load

So I took the time to download and try "APB Reloaded," free to play and allegedly in "open beta." Found out there's a reason for it. If they took money for this game, it'd probably be illegal.

This game's performance is ass on a platter. Oh, don't get me wrong, it looks nice, the ideas are good, and it'd have some real potential if taking more than 3 steps in any direction didn't reduce your framerate to 2 FPS or lower. It's plain to see why the first game company that tried to actually launch this game went belly up - this is unplayable. And my system is no slouch - I've got an 8800 GTX, quad core processor and 3 gigs of ram (windows XP, not 7).

Everyone involved with this endeavor should be ashamed of themselves. I cannot remember a gaming experience as frustrating as this. Ever. I've previously reviewed games that were terminally broken or downright awful, but they've got nothing on this. Forget APB. Play Saint's Row multiplayer. Yes, even with the framerate issues and the awful controls, it's millions of light years better than APB. I'm not even sure I want to go back and check on this one in 6 months because I'm downright insulted they'd even entertain the notion that this horrendous pile of fecal matter is in any way ready for public consumption.

To add insult to injury, the game installs its stupid third party "live" software on your computer in order to play, and pathetically, it requires you to install punkbuster as well. What does it say about your dev house when you have to rely on a decade-plus old third party memory scanner to police your client? Get. That. Shit. Off. My. PC. And burn in hell.

F. F. F. F Minus. Minus minus. Suspension. Expulsion. Permanent record. Juvenile hall. Summary execution. F.

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It doesn't look good for APB

Too bad, I had hoped it would be better, but aside from the comments section ranting of some rabid fanboys, the reviews coming in are calling APB mediocre to bad. For example, play.tm says:

I first saw APB in action almost exactly 12 months ago. It looked spectacular. The room, filled with developers and members of the press, was buzzing. When the demonstration finished, the conference was alive with applause.

The game I've been playing this week is a feeble shadow of that impressive first look. While it's conceptually the game we were told it would be, every component is so underdeveloped, the game world so patently artificial. Only the customisation tools stand tall, but even they're of so little consequence that they're almost instantly forgotten. Initially fun, initially somewhat impressive, APB ultimately remains a game that a lot of people are going to aggressively hate. They'll be quite justified in their position, and one suspects Realtime Worlds will have quite some explaining to do.

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