APB was a great game. I don't regret one minute of gametime. There was something special about this one and I'm really sad to see it go.
APB has really changed the way I look at gaming and gamers now.
I will have many fond memories.
I wrote this post for another website:
I'm a Threat 15 (highest threat-Win:Loss Ratio) Enforcer on LaRocha
I'm sad about its demise. I believe it was one of the best games to come out in a long time. I really believe a lot of people who would have liked the game didn't give it a time of day because of bad reviews.
I used to put a lot of faith in reviews. After putting in a lot of time actually playing the game, I'm convinced a lot of reviewers barely gave it enough time to understand the game, let alone play it. I have completely reevaluated my stance on taking a lot of reviewers word for it. I saw their lazy writing in this one.
The game did have problems. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't perfect. But the things that bother me the most is that so much misinformation gets floated about the game that is just plain dead wrong.
A lot of people I don't think understand the process of putting a game like this together. I saw the genius in it.
Strengths:
* 2 maps. How can two maps be a strength? When you realize it is more like 1000 maps put into a single contained world. So by my definition, APB had 2000 maps over two worlds. This led to a randomness in the game. You'd have to drive in between "maps" with a thousand things going on in between you and your objective. This led to a wonderful randomness that sometimes worked for you and other times worked against you.
* Improvisational gameplay. Items could end up in areas specifically not designed for a battle. You had to on the fly make decisions on where to be to be most advantageous.
* Shooting was less important in this game. I'd say 70 percent of the game was shooting, 30 percent was driving. Driving ability was really important. So if you aren't the best Counterstrike aimer in the world, you'd have value if you could keep your sports car on the road. Good driving was a skill in this game.
* Knowledge was power. People complained about upgrades being too powerful. As someone who also started a new character frequently, I didn't have a problem with upgraded people. Why? Because I knew the ins and outs of the game better. So when a newbie gets decimated he blames the powerful gun his opponent used. But I know that if they changed equipment, the player with more knowledge would win despite the upgrades.
Weaknesses:
* Matchmaking. The number one thing that killed this game was matchmaking. It put to much power in the hands of the players. Players could decide on what missions to take. Experienced players would take the missions they knew would be easy. New players would take anything and eventually get matched up with experienced players. So what ended up happening is you had a public group going against a clan. So you had the equivalent of IDRA going up against bronze players. You had Fatality going up against new Quakelive players. You put the best tactical Counterstrike clan into a public de_dust2 server. New player dies. New player dies. New player dies. New Player dies. This game is shit and quits. 90 percent of the people who played this game ran into this. Upgraded guns just fueled the fire in the new players head. This game could not be played solo. If you went solo, the game would be a lot slower. A lot more boring. And sounds a lot like a lot of the reviews I read about the game. Basically if you jumped into a TF2 server, played one on one for 5 hours then decided, oh I'll join a public server with a group and end up going against the number one TF2 team, would your opinion about the game change?
* Cheating got completely out of hand. Those hardcore players who c
I agree. I watched the commentary and I expected a lot more then just describing what I could see with my eyes.
Rather then describing the action, "Oh that Scimitar is taking damage." "The Scimitar is down."
How about why it is taking damage, what is being used to make it take damage, and how is it part of the teams strategy to go after that ship first? How about a description of the abilities? How about anything besides what a 6 year old could tell me by looking at the health bars?
It left a bad taste in my mouth.
Want to see casting done right? Watch HDstarcraft or Huskystarcraft Starcraft 2 videos to show how proper commentary should be done.
I call BS. I don't think he wanted to go in the first place. Nobody with a dream of space flight would pass this up. I'm a freaking grocery/dept store clerk and I could put 31k on a credit card. Sure that is really dumb thing to do, but man, this is for space. While working my butt off for the next billion years to pay it off, I could have one heck of a story to tell.
My local superstore carries a very generic DVD player for $29.99 regular price and they have gone on sale for $19.99. That is absolutely nuts you can get a player at less then the cost of some DVDs.
My wife hates Lotus Notes. She dreaded when they switched from Outlook. My wife is geeky enough to use portable firefox from her network drive. She would rather use a Microsoft product then Lotus Notes.
She also believes Lotus Notes to be the worst product ever.
I spent 10 hours at a Photon Center in Wildwood NJ, on my 11th birthday.
I spent many days there:)/was pretty good at it too, 2160 points in an 8 minute game (started at 1000 because managers didn't like to start it at 0 cuz bad people would end up with negative scores)
Slashdot Mirror
I have over 11,000 RTW points. Which was over two years of game time :(
APB was a great game. I don't regret one minute of gametime. There was something special about this one and I'm really sad to see it go.
APB has really changed the way I look at gaming and gamers now.
I will have many fond memories.
I wrote this post for another website:
I'm a Threat 15 (highest threat-Win:Loss Ratio) Enforcer on LaRocha
I'm sad about its demise. I believe it was one of the best games to come out in a long time. I really believe a lot of people who would have liked the game didn't give it a time of day because of bad reviews.
I used to put a lot of faith in reviews. After putting in a lot of time actually playing the game, I'm convinced a lot of reviewers barely gave it enough time to understand the game, let alone play it. I have completely reevaluated my stance on taking a lot of reviewers word for it. I saw their lazy writing in this one.
The game did have problems. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't perfect. But the things that bother me the most is that so much misinformation gets floated about the game that is just plain dead wrong.
A lot of people I don't think understand the process of putting a game like this together. I saw the genius in it.
Strengths:
* 2 maps. How can two maps be a strength? When you realize it is more like 1000 maps put into a single contained world. So by my definition, APB had 2000 maps over two worlds. This led to a randomness in the game. You'd have to drive in between "maps" with a thousand things going on in between you and your objective. This led to a wonderful randomness that sometimes worked for you and other times worked against you.
* Improvisational gameplay. Items could end up in areas specifically not designed for a battle. You had to on the fly make decisions on where to be to be most advantageous.
* Shooting was less important in this game. I'd say 70 percent of the game was shooting, 30 percent was driving. Driving ability was really important. So if you aren't the best Counterstrike aimer in the world, you'd have value if you could keep your sports car on the road. Good driving was a skill in this game.
* Knowledge was power. People complained about upgrades being too powerful. As someone who also started a new character frequently, I didn't have a problem with upgraded people. Why? Because I knew the ins and outs of the game better. So when a newbie gets decimated he blames the powerful gun his opponent used. But I know that if they changed equipment, the player with more knowledge would win despite the upgrades.
Weaknesses:
* Matchmaking. The number one thing that killed this game was matchmaking. It put to much power in the hands of the players. Players could decide on what missions to take. Experienced players would take the missions they knew would be easy. New players would take anything and eventually get matched up with experienced players. So what ended up happening is you had a public group going against a clan. So you had the equivalent of IDRA going up against bronze players. You had Fatality going up against new Quakelive players. You put the best tactical Counterstrike clan into a public de_dust2 server. New player dies. New player dies. New player dies. New Player dies. This game is shit and quits. 90 percent of the people who played this game ran into this. Upgraded guns just fueled the fire in the new players head. This game could not be played solo. If you went solo, the game would be a lot slower. A lot more boring. And sounds a lot like a lot of the reviews I read about the game. Basically if you jumped into a TF2 server, played one on one for 5 hours then decided, oh I'll join a public server with a group and end up going against the number one TF2 team, would your opinion about the game change?
* Cheating got completely out of hand. Those hardcore players who c
I agree. I watched the commentary and I expected a lot more then just describing what I could see with my eyes.
Rather then describing the action, "Oh that Scimitar is taking damage." "The Scimitar is down."
How about why it is taking damage, what is being used to make it take damage, and how is it part of the teams strategy to go after that ship first? How about a description of the abilities? How about anything besides what a 6 year old could tell me by looking at the health bars?
It left a bad taste in my mouth.
Want to see casting done right? Watch HDstarcraft or Huskystarcraft Starcraft 2 videos to show how proper commentary should be done.
I find the most eye opening fact is that the sun is 93,000,000 miles behind the shuttle. It is an awesome display of the scale of the sun.
Hey all browsers have a "speed dial" function. It's called favorites or bookmarks!
You know what? I might be a grocery store clerk, but I'm not an asshole who hides behind Anonymous Coward when I got something to say.
That much debit is not much to overcome if you are hardworking. Many millions of people have blown much more money on less worthy things.
I call BS. I don't think he wanted to go in the first place. Nobody with a dream of space flight would pass this up. I'm a freaking grocery/dept store clerk and I could put 31k on a credit card. Sure that is really dumb thing to do, but man, this is for space. While working my butt off for the next billion years to pay it off, I could have one heck of a story to tell.
My local superstore carries a very generic DVD player for $29.99 regular price and they have gone on sale for $19.99. That is absolutely nuts you can get a player at less then the cost of some DVDs.
Sounds like communism... heh heh heh.
okay, I'm going to bed now. I can't even type a correct critique of my retardness.
+1 bedtime
Mod(-2 grammer) (-2 dumbmass)
does the rats have other rats yelling at them to get off thier lazy asses and work? or do they just get the cheese without lifting a finger?
are the more dominate rats asking the lab to give them more cheese since their work is more valuable?
do the dominate rats complain that any old mouse can do the lazy rats job?
My wife hates Lotus Notes. She dreaded when they switched from Outlook. My wife is geeky enough to use portable firefox from her network drive. She would rather use a Microsoft product then Lotus Notes.
She also believes Lotus Notes to be the worst product ever.
*tear*
:) /was pretty good at it too, 2160 points in an 8 minute game (started at 1000 because managers didn't like to start it at 0 cuz bad people would end up with negative scores)
I miss my childhood.
I spent 10 hours at a Photon Center in Wildwood NJ, on my 11th birthday.
I spent many days there
Your idea of playable and my idea of playable are probably two different things.
Anyone want mine? I wouldn't even think of using such a thing. I won it at a lan party cs torney.
God awful thing.
25 a month for unlimied data though at&t, I hear you can get cingular unlimited data for 20.
Its still a little on the expensive side, but I like having internet everywhere I go.
I stream radio from the internet to my Audiovox SMT 5600 cell phone. Unlimited data plan so there is no charge for me other then the monthly.
I heard of some people streaming live tv through a home computer and a program called orb to their cell phone.
It looks like wireless media is here.
Switch to Windows, its better, really.
http://pcmedia.ign.com/media/news/image/eqbel002.j pg
/never played everquest /really
Denise Harris as Firiona Vie
So that's what Mitnick has been up to.
Prison! Ha!
We've been socially engineered
This also means I have been online 10 years. Wow. Where does the time go?
Oh yeah, multiplayer internet games!
No you can't.
There is no doubt in my mind, the powerglove was the single biggest rip-off product Nintendo ever produced.
I am still pissed at Nintendo because I got this piece of crap from Santa. I'd rather have 2 games then this 80 dollar piece of shit.
It is not to late Nintendo! If you want me to like you give me my fucking 80 dollars back!
Google watch out! You're next!
just wait until it is every text, video, image, and data that has ever existed up till that date and time.
there will be a concieveable time in which people will have everything, now.