Why are> people still playing APB Reloaded? I left that question unspoken when I wrote about Little Orbit picking up the cops and robbers MMO a couple of weeks ago, but you can bet I was thinking it. I bet that most everyone who read that post was too, and I bet you’re thinking it right now.

Then I remembered I was a games journalist, and that I should just go in and ask.

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I was going to open this post by saying ‘Remember APB?’, but Graham already did that in 2013. Um. Do you remember remembering APB? It’s the cops and robbers MMO that launched in a shonky state back in 2010, causing Realtime Worlds to sink just weeks after launch. Then the game got picked up by GamersFirst, who turned it free-to-play, slapped ‘Reloaded’ onto the name, and made it…a little less shonky?

This week, the story continues. Little Orbit have bought GamersFirst, and their CEO is promising to look after the somehow-still-existent APB community with big content updates and a shift to a newer engine. Will it be enough to make those cops worth robbing and the robbers worth copping?

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Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

The story of APB is a twisted games industry tale that makes us all squirm with discomfort. Presented as Grand Theft Auto meets MMO it had neither the confidence of the former nor the lifespan of the latter. It was ambitious but also doomed. Poor driving controls, humdrum shooting matches and a lack of variety couldn’t save it from the ire of heartless critics, myself included, not even when Realtime Worlds collapsed and the game was bought and relaunched as APB Reloaded. … [visit site to read more]

Remember APB? It was GTA Online before GTA Online existed. It was a massively multiplayer game of cops and robbers. It launched like a soggy biscuit and its developers, Real-Time Worlds, collapsed just weeks after launch. It was eventually bought by another company, GamersFirst, and turned into a free-to-play game called APB: Reloaded that we still didn’t like.

Yet the game carries on, buoyed by a small but dedicated audience and a team of developers who are clearly passionate about making it better. They’ve done a lot of work over the past couple of years, and a new post on the team’s development blog outlines the game’s future, while also offering some candid thoughts on Grand Theft Auto V. (more…)

In today’s game news from another universe: Modern Warfare’s sensitive depiction of the banality of combat has prompted the Pulitzer committee to add a video games category. Half-Life 3′s midnight launch also brought with it Steam 2. And APB, the most populated and well-received action-MMO of its generation, spawning a cultural revolution and raising gaming to the highest artform, has a sister game in production: the action multiplayer shooter known as APB Vendetta. (more…)

As RPS’ only painfully single person at the moment, I’m happy to inform you that Valentine’s Day is cancelled>. A pox on all happy couples, literally and figuratively. Return to your empty, silent houses with the biggest bag of sweets you can, turn off the lights, and spend the evening sobbing until the sweet, sweet chocolate oozes out of your eyes and anus.

…or alternatively, jump into one of the many Valentine’s Day events taking place this week in assorted games. Almost anything with a cash shop will be running a sale, but many are running special events. (Though not all. DC Universe Online for instance scrapped the Valentine’s content it tried last year in favour of waiting until the team has the time to do something good instead.) Jump in with a loved one, or just celebrate Aching Solitude Awareness Day by ganking any of those pesky doting sweethearts who get too close. Like I care. Sob.

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Mr Caldwell has been playing APB Reloaded. We asked him to tell us what he thinks about it. It’s quite the story.>

Right, this is the thing… (more…)