Posts Tagged ‘realtime worlds’

RPS Feature All points deducted

Have You Played… APB Reloaded?

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. Read the rest of this entry »

RPS Feature Fashion Shooter

Citizens On Patrol: Arnold Tsang’s APB


This is the latest in the series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills.

Not only can I straightfacedly say that I enjoyed playing APB, I even have this document to prove it. Being what felt like a voice in the wilderness back then wasn’t what was frustrating, though, it was knowing that the trolls so vocal in the game’s own chat channels weren’t wrong. Such were this MMO shooter’s problems – the anarchy not just of game, you felt, but production – that no amount of charity was going to save it from the bloodlust of gloating critics.

As someone who loves a good character editor and was floored by APB’s ambition, I had a hard time dealing with the bait-and-switch of the game’s customisation modes. (What you built in the editor looked next to nothing like who you played in the game.) Clearly the game couldn’t deal with it, either, which is why much of its landscape is wallpapered in the work of a concept art dream team assembled by Webzen and Realtime Worlds. Read the rest of this entry »

APB Reloaded Is Reloaded (Onto Steam)

Black veils all round.

It’s a strange sight, seeing APB back on Steam, a year after it went away. Of course this is the new version, brought back to life by K2 Networks, reinvented as a free-to-play game. Which as of today can now be played-for-free via Steam. So, you gonna?

And here’s a sweet thing – the image above is captured from the new version of the game’s opening video. Is it sweet? Or is it slightly creepy? I can’t decide. Cheers Craig.

EG: The Fall Of Realtime Worlds


Our chums over at Eurogamer are running an article about the catastrophic failure of APB:

After receiving the news, most of the former employees left for the pub straight away. But a core of the now jobless staff remained at the studio well into the night. Though the studio was finished and APB was effectively dead they didn’t want to say goodbye, to each other or the game.

“We stayed on, even though we knew we were fired,” say Bateman. “We were running the servers, trying to get contingency plans in place, so we could try to do stuff from home. It was like the Titanic was sinking but people were trying to patch it up just in case.”

It’s large, comprehensive, filled with insider quotes, and worth a read.

You’ll Never Take Us Alive: Epic To Buy APB?

The BBC mention the possibility that the remains of APB may be purchased by Epic. This actually squares with the reports from Gamesindustry.biz where Les Able of Begbies Traynor said that despite 300 parties having interest, none of the shortlist of six were “comfortable with buying it as a live operation.” So, APB is dead and there’s certainly six places on that list for Epic. Some more information, speculation and thoughts on the APB close follows…
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APB’s Last Bulletin

Perma-troubled MMO APB is preparing to see its last cop shoot its last robber. While bankrupted developer Realtime Worlds’ second project, the social game Project: My World looks to have been rescued by a mystery US firm that may or may not be headed up by former RTW bossmen, All Points Bulletin has not been granted a similar second wind. Its impending closure has just been officially announced.
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Americans Own MyWorld

A little bit of politics, etc.

While there’s no news on APB, the BBC broke news yesterday that the administrators of Realtime Worlds have found a buyer for MyWorld. Staff had been kept on MyWorld in hope of them doing exactly that, so you have to chalk this up in the pro column for them. Who’s the buyer? It’s a secret. “One hundred per cent confidentiality has been imposed by the company.” said the administrators about this mysterious American company, “MyWorld has been sold and unfortunately we cannot disclose any further details of the sale.” Who is it? Well, the obvious guess would be someone working in the social-networking sphere though sources speaking exclusively inside our heads tell us it’s the Bavarian Illuminanti. We must ignore the voices, else we kill again.

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