I love when Matt talks about a bad game, he ends up mentioning another bad game and then laments about how he must talk about it in the future. This series just writes itself!
You can literally set your clock to the timing of the soul-sucking dread that washes over him whenever he realizes he'll have to talk about another game with a shoddy development cycle in a future episode.
I'm kind of surprised Crackdown 3 was considered that much of a failure. I played it on gamepass a while ago and had an enjoyable time. It is definitely nothing mind blowing and probably was super over hyped if I had to guess, but I enjoyed it for what it was.
2:20 So you're telling me that David Jones left DMA Design/Rockstar Games just before they released GTA III, GTA: Vice City, and GTA: San Andreas. That has to be one of the most poorly timed and thought out career decisions in the video game industry's entire history.
Nah, Matt skipped over a few years, probably because nothing interesting was happening. He was in charge at Rage's Dundee office from '99-'02, where they made Mobile Forces (a decent vehicle-based arena shooter that nobody played) and were working on some weird multiplayer techdemo where you could drive around Scotland (think Forza Horizon 4 but with no races) that never went anywhere because Rage went bankrupt.
The calender showed July2020 when Matt talked about 2010. Which made it seem initially as if the publishers managed to delay the review embargo for 10 years,now that would be something.
Same. What's sad is that I was ready to accept it for a few seconds - I remember hearing about APB every now and then for awhile, and I think I even played the beta(?) but I just assumed the game ended up as vaporware.
APB was a mess, but it’s a mess i weirdly got a lot of fun out of still. You knew you were playing jank, but it was really, REALLY flavorful jank, if that makes sense. You had to constantly curb your excitement or hopes of ‘man, they could really make this absolutely amazing’ because the framework had so much potential.
i've said for the longest times to buddies that man I wish more games had the customization of APB without just without the gameplay of APB. just a character model maker with all the customization in the game you can make limitless characters
That's what the next iteration of GTA:Online should strive for is that kind of customization, I believe it's possible in their scope on modern hardware, they just need to focus on that hardware however and not trying to make it compatible with last generation as well.
@@protocetid the only thing i think that has really come close to the level of customization is like saints row 2 i wish more games let you just go crazy with it,
when you started describing the percentages my brain immediately went "and cue the steiner math clip... now". turned over to the video and i was NOT disappointed
YES! I needed a What Happun? on this game. I just graduated university in Scotland to become an environment artist, and I remember in my 2nd Year, we had to take Intro to Games Design so we could understand the game designers role further and that. I think the first or second week of classes, and the lecturer specifically pulls up an entire powerpoint about this game and explaining the issues and problems it faced, teaching us to not do what David Jones did and highlighting the complications that can arise when working on a game project. Another beautiful video yet again, Matt!!
I know its not gonna happen soon but I do hope Matt covers Body Harvest. Its seriously ripe for a Wha Happun and has a very interesting backstory to it. Considering it was a proto-sandbox and would lay the groundwork for GTA3, its way more important than people give it credit for.
I was so excited for this game when it was announced, and I will admit, it was the customization that really drew me in. I never had the money to buy it back then but I stayed enamored with the concept. So when reloaded was announced I thought I finally had a shot, It was a day one download when I got my PS4. Shit sucked, everything cool in customization is locked behind a paywall, and it's not new player friendly at all. I'm level one doing missions against those 200 people who have been playing this game religiously for 4 years now. Bummed me out.
Holy shit this game... I spent so much time on APB Reloaded that it's still the 12th most played game on my Steam account. I have such good memories despite all the jank.
I remember that you could literally change the bloom value in the .ini, which would make all guns lasers. Yes. An .ini edit of a single value legit stopped all bullet spread, it was not graphical, it actually did it. The game, unsurprisingly, ended up being overrun by hackers during peak hours whenever I played towards the end of its life. Seananners was enthralled with the game too, actually a shame it didn't blow up, I loved the dynamic as it was literally mindless fun cops vs robbers.
@@musikalniyfanboichik It's still alive? Probably almost unplayable because I checked in 2 years ago and it was RIDDLED with hackers and almost no way to play without interruption from some child killing everyone instantly or crashing the server by spawning in cars. The servers were also running on what I can assume were two tin cans attached with a string because the ping was unbearable. Ping is important because every vehicle movement needs to go through the server, which means you can have up to half a second between you pressing D to turn and it actually turning.
@ I mean GTA Online is a multiplayer online game where you grind missions to get money so you can buy better equipment and mounts. The higher your level in GTA Online the more missions you can do and the more difficult they get. So wouldn't GTA Online also be a MMO RPG?
@ Your assumptions hold no credibility. APB reloaded was compared with GTA by the actual directors of the game. Both games have been compared together for obvious reason since the release of GTA. They are both open world, third person, crime shooters. Actually pay attention to what you're typing and you'll realize how silly your statements look.
I only know of this game because, when I was a little kid, I got the Guinness Book of World Records: Gamer Edition from 2011. I remember APB having a striking and blurry picture that took up most of the page. The record it got was for the quickest death of an MMO.
Oh man APB, so close to being really great and yet so far. I think Matt hit all the big issues. I got to work on the design team late in the project and I recall trying to suggest some improvements to the weapons to get them feeling different, while also fixing the OP ones and making the useless ones have some purpose. I mostly got the vibe that middle management didn't want anyone 'below' them telling them what they should do, upper management was shielded from hearing any bad feedback, and that what we had was usually deemed as good enough. A really talented team that just seemed to have a lot of barriers in the way of improving the game and sort of just had to keep moving forward. That's sort of the "checkbox" style management that Matt mentioned. Most issues were ignored as we'll fix that bug eventually and the fun will come together once there is a ton of players.
I remember a friend of mine being interviewed for a job with Realtime Worlds a few months before APB released; at the time he was disappointed he didn't get the job, but in retrospect he dodged a bullet there.
i legit thought he was actually naming criminals at first, but then he mentioned warren specter and i was like ... "wait what." and yakuza boss miyamoto k i l l e d me.
APB utterly spoiled me for character customization; nothing's ever been able to compare since. If the _rest_ of the game had seen that level of polish and development, maybe they could've made that Blizzard-level money after all.
I did heard that APB was on life support sometime but damn, 10 years? 11 maybe? How many games can survive that long? If you told me an online game has been going on for more than 10 years I'd think it would be one of the greatest games ever.
The customization really is genuinely unmatched, I think that's why it kept getting passed around to different publishers because they wanted to somehow claim the rights to that specific feature alone.
History shows that drawn out development cycles rarely yield satisfying products. In addition to the reasons mentioned in this video, this may be due to changes in technology (engines/targeted systems), level development often resulting inconsistent, and game mechanics going out of date long before release. This has been showcased time and again by Matt.
APB: Reloaded was one of the first games I got on my first gaming PC back in 2012 and I loved it. Awesome art style, music and atmosphere. Plenty of players back then too. It's been sad to see it slowly die out over the following years.
Oh damn this train wreck... use to play this a ton back in the day and it was a complete mess. I saw the post alert and was hit with so many memories, just had to watch it immediately haha. Thanks for another great vid Matt!
God, I loved APB, lol. Me and my friends were obsessed with it for most of 2011. By the time we started the game was in a relatively stable place. It was a shallow experience in terms of moment to moment gameplay, but there was something special about it, without a doubt. The gunplay was floaty, the movement was stiff, the loop was repetitive, but customizing our cars and rolling in as a team of cops giving chase to a team of criminals was an incredible hook. Honestly, the game didn't start shitting the bed for me personally until they started to slowly turn it into a lobby shooter instead of an open world shooter. Once they started making the standard TDM maps the main draw of the game, it lost what little it had going for it, and was left to focus on the mechanics. Without the glitz of the open world and the cops vs robbers vibe, it was just a bad MP shooter.
I have a derogatory term for what the insider dev described: "Box Checking". Of course, setting up action item lists and working through the items is key to a successful project. When it's just checking boxes to look busy and to drive project management metrics, it crosses a line into something absurd to work under and entirely unproductive.
I remember not only playing this game but all of the hype surrounding it and my stepbrother at the time getting into it. Blast from the past. I Love this damn channel so much.
NerdSlayer made a Death of a Game-report on APB a few years back. Now I'm curious to see if you've managed to dig up even more information about this disaster MMO.
To be honest, this game COULD be nice if they had a better vision of what exactly they would sell - as it is, they sell weapons in a gameplay-heavy product. So the novelty of customization wears off when one of your first opponents has Rocket Launchers.
The Reloaded Team are working on an engine update i haven't checked their site in a while so I wonder how its coming along, been wanting to come back to APB for a while.
It seems that developing MMOs in order to make the same money than WOW and utterly failing was 'the style at the time'. Also, was that Tails theme from Sonic Adventure at the end? Haven't listened to that in forever!
Holy crap! Matt just scratched an itch that's been in my brain for Years by saying the name Body Harvest. I use to play that game a LOT as a kid, but I could never remember the name of it for pretty much the rest of my life. Talk about catharsis.
APB along with its rerelease APB: Reloaded showed potential of something that is hard to find now day's. Cop vs Crooks gameplay with limitless customization in almost all aspect, from clothes to cars, user made avatars/sprays and music. A few gameplay aspect adhered to cops v crooks gameplay by rewarding criminals when they rampage, steal from shops (by breaking window and taking what drops from it) and such while cops ware penalized for harming civis and rewarded for recovery of stolen vehicles/loots. Not on mission but in freerom. Its sad to know game with potencial was in the end, left to root and kept on life support (with rumored engine update never coming out, yet time will tell) and the only people who are keeping it now are on radio silence. I feel this game will be still going for a few more years till either gets sold another time (and killing another studio/devs in the process) to someone who promise change while doing nothing or it will be killed off. Im just unsure what ever to exect masses coming to its grave or just one janitor whos there to clean up the mess.
Easily the most frustrating is playing Defense, losing an objective, spawning on like, the south side of where that objective was, and the next objective spawns north of it, and you just lose the next/final objective because you spawned bad.
@Order & Chaos Or having the AUDACITY to try and play solo, turning every defense mission into trying to flawless a guy for 5-8 minutes straight, where if you died once you're fucked. Or the numerous god spots where closing the distance without getting lit up was nearly impossible.
@Order & Chaos Yeah, mostly just the ladders/jumping ones. Although a few stairs only were difficult if people were corner camping and there was no back wall to ensure a grenade would flush them out.
I was at university near Dundee when all this went down. I remember seeing Realtime Worlds at a job fair and the employees seemed pretty glum. I also remember when RTW fell apart they were auctioning off their IT equipment.
This was one of those games I had a genuine hype for and I have tried on multiple occasions to get into. I think a big problem with the game is a lack of direction especially in the early game on what you should be doing or even what you can do. Alot of what I learned was by watching other players such as holdups, arrests, graffiti and not just customization and missions.
I used to play APB reloaded. It was pretty alright and i liked the cops/criminal system since being a cop let you flex on the crims with LTL weapons that were worse than normal weapons, but tripled their respawn timer if they got downed by them. Plus the trolling you could do with dump trucks. But yeah, besides that it was pretty lacking.
Damn, this guy really went from making three of the most critically acclaimed games of all time, to killing entire studios. Even John Romero got humbled after his first major failure, dude.
I loved APB, still have my retail copy here. It was fun to play some GTA-style game with friends. APB Reloaded was a dumpster fire (I guess it still is?)!
On the one hand I'm happy to see someone talk more about APB. On the other I'm incredibly sad to be running through all the problems this game has had over the years. There's honestly a lot more to the downfall of the game. It had a good second wind following Gamersfirst acquiring it. However, they sort of made some really bizarre decisions over their years managing the title.. causing it to fall hard. Focusing almost exclusively on the cash shop while the game hemorrhaged players being one of the biggest. Which I can't say I helped. I'm one of the idiots that suggested the "True Ogre" and came up with some of the garbage presets still seen in the shop today! Woo! ...I hate myself for that lol Little Orbit has arguably put the most effort into trying to fix up the game. Though some choices that turned out to be less than optimal have led them down the same path as the previous attempts despite this. Anyway if someone is bored enough: I'd be down to talk about some Gamersfirst era APB stuff. Was a volunteer for a couple of years. Which kind of volunteer? All of them. Every role. Did quite a bit and even ended up working closely with the team at that point in time.
I went through a phase when I was 12 where I was obsessed with free to play games and Apb:reloaded was one of my favorites... At the time my small brain was just amazed that a gta style game could ever be free
Bruh.... how in all mighty fucks did I not see your channel years ago?!?! Glad I found it. The best gaming channel by far. The commentary isn't cringe, it's actual comedy too.... 💯😎
You got to do the Tak trilogy! Tak and the Power of Juju, Tak 2 the Staff of Dreams and Tak the Great Juju Challenge! There amazing games that deserve attention I’m doing everything I can to get the attention of the developers to get the games remade! There amazing!
@@ci7210 I watched it when it premiered. It’s nothing like the games it’s totally different different voice actors and everything. Play the games don’t watch the show! The Tak video game trilogy needs to be brought back because the games are amazing and don’t nearly get the respect they deserve because of the garbage tv show! I’m trying to get the attention of THQNordic I’m doing everything I can to get the trilogy remade!
I had the original on ps2 but never beat it I have the gamecube version now and want to give it another try. Any tips for the plant bosses I just keep dying and just war of attritioning it.
@@GaragebandArcade just step back and wait till he taunts you. or you can be risky and just be close enough to hit him with your club or staff, that’s the speedrunning method Just keep trying there not that hard trust me! You’ll get it with practice!
I remember playing APV and really liking it, the customization capabilities were a lot of fun. The problem though, it was so insanely pay-to-win there was no point in even trying.
The way I always fought against pay to win players was by getting into my big kill van and crashing it right into other players, was usually easy to run people down unless they were able to get behind a building in time.
"At GDC in 2008, David Jones showed off what really seemed to be the main draw of the entire project, at the expense of almost everything else: the customization." Dude, from the Black Ops series to Cyberpunk '77, why is that so often the kiss of death for projects like this?
@@comedictragedy7239 You're completely right but that's my exact point. How do you even get to the point where you think that will turn out well for your game? Games like Minecraft and Skyrim were huge for their customization yeah but they didn't develop that customization at the expense of the gameplay
I pre-ordered APB on steam in 2010 after following it for so long. I had so much fun playing that game, especially playing enforcers with ltl and arresting everyone. The customization was really next level, and the gameplay wasn't bad as far as shooters went for the time. I still go back to it every once in a while but it's such a disappointment to see what it has become and to watch it fall apart from the beginning.
ABP Reloaded. Now that's a name I've not heard in... years. I bought this game with a friend as a teenager and we had a blast especially with the customizable stuff, but eventually the gameplay just became so pay2win and then the servers shut down shortly after. It had a lot of potential and they tanked it into the ground so hard.
I will always love this game for introducing me to Steam. It’s a technical shitshow with heavy P2W elements but it’s the reason I joined Gabe’s wild ride.
APB was an absolute flop and yet it's such a big part of my childhood (more like teenage years but yea LOL) and, to this day- even though NA servers are dead, nothing scratches the same itch that apb does with its combat and customization
A friend of mine regularly tries to convince everyone around him to play this game. I'm not sure if it's just a bit he keeps reusing or if he's in some way serious, but I do remember playing it briefly with some friends way back when APB Reloaded first launched. It wasn't great.
Doom was redeemed. Resident Evil was redeemed. This game was equally massive in its time and deserves its redemption, but in the meantime, can you show us What Happened to "Alone in the Dark"?
Despite the jank of APB Reloaded, I had a lot of fun over the years when I played it during my high school years on my computer that could barely run it with all of the details and settings turned way down. Went from running for Mayor through majority player vote in the city and running over criminals in my crime busting van, to going on a non-lethal quest of catching baddies to get a normal police hat until I saw you needed to catch 5000 criminal players using the worst guns in the game, the paint ball and bean bag guns, while also arresting them while they were stunned as their other team mates were waiting to just shoot you in the face while you were stuck in a 5-10 animation and standing right out in the open. It took me at least a month of using just those crap tastic weapons to just get 100 arrests. Seeing the insane grind just to look like a normal cop, and the countless aimboting hackers that usually populate these games, was when I decided to drop it in favor of other games since I didn't really have many friends that were into playing it as much as I did. Though the best thing about the game that I still remember was it introducing me to some bands that I didn't know about through the music it had as default, which is something I wish other games did.
Great video! I was there, playing the game almost from the beginning, participating in the open beta and what not, and have sunk almost 2400 hours into it since - although only a few in the last couple of years, for the nostalgia mostly. I've often asked myself "Why?" - why spend so many hours playing what is essentially a gigantic flop of a game? Simply put - there's not really anything else like it. Even for all its shortcomings, glitches, terrible design choices and micro transactions - nothing else like it. I and the people I played with, often tried figuring out, why no big developer had done something similar, why the concept of a fast-paced open-world TPS hadn't seen fruition elsewhere... Still a mystery to me. The fact that studios are still buying the rights, and keeping it alive, despite the dwindling player numbers, also says a thing or two about the product. It could have been awesome.
I was still actively reading Game Informer all during this game’s dev time, and I don’t remember it at all. I mean I thought this video was going to be about the action racing arcade game APB from the 80s.
I love when Matt talks about a bad game, he ends up mentioning another bad game and then laments about how he must talk about it in the future. This series just writes itself!
You can literally set your clock to the timing of the soul-sucking dread that washes over him whenever he realizes he'll have to talk about another game with a shoddy development cycle in a future episode.
In a way i would like to let him out of the hook with some titles, but at the same time i am curious of what happun?
I'm kind of surprised Crackdown 3 was considered that much of a failure. I played it on gamepass a while ago and had an enjoyable time. It is definitely nothing mind blowing and probably was super over hyped if I had to guess, but I enjoyed it for what it was.
@@cd2220 the level of overhype for that game was enough to make me very confused
Thats the biggest cliche in all of videogame UA-cam videos, have you been in prison since 2006
2:20 So you're telling me that David Jones left DMA Design/Rockstar Games just before they released GTA III, GTA: Vice City, and GTA: San Andreas. That has to be one of the most poorly timed and thought out career decisions in the video game industry's entire history.
Nah, Matt skipped over a few years, probably because nothing interesting was happening. He was in charge at Rage's Dundee office from '99-'02, where they made Mobile Forces (a decent vehicle-based arena shooter that nobody played) and were working on some weird multiplayer techdemo where you could drive around Scotland (think Forza Horizon 4 but with no races) that never went anywhere because Rage went bankrupt.
It's ok, I'm sure he failed upwards for many years and made lots of money off other peoples work
The games were success because he left. He turns everything he touches into shit, garbage tier fucking human.
lmao I've been playing Danganronpa 1 recently and I suddenly see a random Chihiro pfp. Good stuff dude 👌
Not video games but tech related, wait until you learn about the third Apple founder: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Wayne
Imagine being at the APB panel and getting a t shirt for a game that barely made a dime
They single handedly funded the server for a day through that shirt
Couldn't be me.
Though the shirt was kinda nice.
I only wear tshirts of products that make dimes
@@Largentina. didn't know the US mint had merch
@@Dracon7601 Merch like you wouldn't believe. Murica.
The calender showed July2020 when Matt talked about 2010. Which made it seem initially as if the publishers managed to delay the review embargo for 10 years,now that would be something.
Same. What's sad is that I was ready to accept it for a few seconds - I remember hearing about APB every now and then for awhile, and I think I even played the beta(?) but I just assumed the game ended up as vaporware.
"The embargo is still in effect.
This video is illegal."
APB was a mess, but it’s a mess i weirdly got a lot of fun out of still. You knew you were playing jank, but it was really, REALLY flavorful jank, if that makes sense. You had to constantly curb your excitement or hopes of ‘man, they could really make this absolutely amazing’ because the framework had so much potential.
i've said for the longest times to buddies that man I wish more games had the customization of APB without just without the gameplay of APB. just a character model maker with all the customization in the game you can make limitless characters
@@Malidictus I never looked into the city of heros customazation I'll have to check it out now thanks!! :)
@@Malidictus you can still play with, with private servers
That's what the next iteration of GTA:Online should strive for is that kind of customization, I believe it's possible in their scope on modern hardware, they just need to focus on that hardware however and not trying to make it compatible with last generation as well.
@@snakeeyes941 Why Rockstar would bother to do something like that with the millions they're making with GTA Online as it is
@@protocetid the only thing i think that has really come close to the level of customization is like saints row 2 i wish more games let you just go crazy with it,
when you started describing the percentages my brain immediately went "and cue the steiner math clip... now". turned over to the video and i was NOT disappointed
YES! I needed a What Happun? on this game. I just graduated university in Scotland to become an environment artist, and I remember in my 2nd Year, we had to take Intro to Games Design so we could understand the game designers role further and that. I think the first or second week of classes, and the lecturer specifically pulls up an entire powerpoint about this game and explaining the issues and problems it faced, teaching us to not do what David Jones did and highlighting the complications that can arise when working on a game project. Another beautiful video yet again, Matt!!
Oh shit, that Body Harvest game was alright. Needa grab a copy for the ole 64.
I know its not gonna happen soon but I do hope Matt covers Body Harvest. Its seriously ripe for a Wha Happun and has a very interesting backstory to it. Considering it was a proto-sandbox and would lay the groundwork for GTA3, its way more important than people give it credit for.
I could never figure out how to jump the bridge in the USA section. Still would like to beat that game today.
This looks like the game Ryan Reynolds was trapped in in free guy
I was so excited for this game when it was announced, and I will admit, it was the customization that really drew me in. I never had the money to buy it back then but I stayed enamored with the concept. So when reloaded was announced I thought I finally had a shot, It was a day one download when I got my PS4.
Shit sucked, everything cool in customization is locked behind a paywall, and it's not new player friendly at all. I'm level one doing missions against those 200 people who have been playing this game religiously for 4 years now. Bummed me out.
Holy shit this game... I spent so much time on APB Reloaded that it's still the 12th most played game on my Steam account. I have such good memories despite all the jank.
it was a REALLY fun game
Ten hours of wrapping my character in bandages was never a regret.
I remember that you could literally change the bloom value in the .ini, which would make all guns lasers. Yes. An .ini edit of a single value legit stopped all bullet spread, it was not graphical, it actually did it. The game, unsurprisingly, ended up being overrun by hackers during peak hours whenever I played towards the end of its life. Seananners was enthralled with the game too, actually a shame it didn't blow up, I loved the dynamic as it was literally mindless fun cops vs robbers.
@@musikalniyfanboichik It's still alive? Probably almost unplayable because I checked in 2 years ago and it was RIDDLED with hackers and almost no way to play without interruption from some child killing everyone instantly or crashing the server by spawning in cars. The servers were also running on what I can assume were two tin cans attached with a string because the ping was unbearable. Ping is important because every vehicle movement needs to go through the server, which means you can have up to half a second between you pressing D to turn and it actually turning.
Come play on psn!
This episode drops the weekend Free Guy hits theaters. Good timing, Matt!
Man, I remember reading about this game in Game Informer so much and then it just never happened. It has so much potential.
But it did actually happen.
It did have potential. And all of that potential was proven in GTA5 online, lol
@ I mean GTA Online is a multiplayer online game where you grind missions to get money so you can buy better equipment and mounts. The higher your level in GTA Online the more missions you can do and the more difficult they get. So wouldn't GTA Online also be a MMO RPG?
@ Your analogy is hilarious. Hilariously stupid.
@ Your assumptions hold no credibility.
APB reloaded was compared with GTA by the actual directors of the game. Both games have been compared together for obvious reason since the release of GTA.
They are both open world, third person, crime shooters. Actually pay attention to what you're typing and you'll realize how silly your statements look.
The Shigeru Miyamoto/Yakuza bit was hilarious 😂😂
It's a recurring gag
I remember playing this game when it came out. The game itself was nonsense, but the graphics and character creator were AMAZING.
The character customization was the only thing that kept me going back to this game, still one of the best I've ever seen in a game.
I only know of this game because, when I was a little kid, I got the Guinness Book of World Records: Gamer Edition from 2011. I remember APB having a striking and blurry picture that took up most of the page.
The record it got was for the quickest death of an MMO.
Oh man APB, so close to being really great and yet so far. I think Matt hit all the big issues.
I got to work on the design team late in the project and I recall trying to suggest some improvements to the weapons to get them feeling different, while also fixing the OP ones and making the useless ones have some purpose. I mostly got the vibe that middle management didn't want anyone 'below' them telling them what they should do, upper management was shielded from hearing any bad feedback, and that what we had was usually deemed as good enough.
A really talented team that just seemed to have a lot of barriers in the way of improving the game and sort of just had to keep moving forward. That's sort of the "checkbox" style management that Matt mentioned. Most issues were ignored as we'll fix that bug eventually and the fun will come together once there is a ton of players.
I remember this game and the situation with Realtime Worlds. I would've been interested if it wasn't just a multiplayer game.
I remember a friend of mine being interviewed for a job with Realtime Worlds a few months before APB released; at the time he was disappointed he didn't get the job, but in retrospect he dodged a bullet there.
4:46 omg that is too perfect! Kinda wanna see all the other japanese devs like kamiya and Kojima as Yakuza bosses now lmao 😂
Miyamoto's heat action is gonna be goomba stomping.
i legit thought he was actually naming criminals at first, but then he mentioned warren specter and i was like ... "wait what." and yakuza boss miyamoto k i l l e d me.
If Warren Spector is guilty of anything. It would be predicting too many events in the future and being right about them. That or Thievery
@@princeapoopoo5787 I mean I guess Peter Molyneux is sort of a "criminal"
APB utterly spoiled me for character customization; nothing's ever been able to compare since. If the _rest_ of the game had seen that level of polish and development, maybe they could've made that Blizzard-level money after all.
I'm surprised Saint's Row wasn't mentioned. It being basically a customisable GTA must have stolen a bit of APB's potential gamer base.
I did heard that APB was on life support sometime but damn, 10 years? 11 maybe? How many games can survive that long? If you told me an online game has been going on for more than 10 years I'd think it would be one of the greatest games ever.
The customization really is genuinely unmatched, I think that's why it kept getting passed around to different publishers because they wanted to somehow claim the rights to that specific feature alone.
I don't know if you can call an in development engine upgrade life support.
History shows that drawn out development cycles rarely yield satisfying products. In addition to the reasons mentioned in this video, this may be due to changes in technology (engines/targeted systems), level development often resulting inconsistent, and game mechanics going out of date long before release. This has been showcased time and again by Matt.
*stares in kmmo* You _really_ don't want to know how long they can hold on.
Team fortress 2 sitll has servers. But, well, people are tryinn really hard to make it not fun to play it with bots
APB: Reloaded was one of the first games I got on my first gaming PC back in 2012 and I loved it. Awesome art style, music and atmosphere. Plenty of players back then too. It's been sad to see it slowly die out over the following years.
Oh damn this train wreck... use to play this a ton back in the day and it was a complete mess.
I saw the post alert and was hit with so many memories, just had to watch it immediately haha. Thanks for another great vid Matt!
God, I loved APB, lol. Me and my friends were obsessed with it for most of 2011. By the time we started the game was in a relatively stable place. It was a shallow experience in terms of moment to moment gameplay, but there was something special about it, without a doubt. The gunplay was floaty, the movement was stiff, the loop was repetitive, but customizing our cars and rolling in as a team of cops giving chase to a team of criminals was an incredible hook. Honestly, the game didn't start shitting the bed for me personally until they started to slowly turn it into a lobby shooter instead of an open world shooter. Once they started making the standard TDM maps the main draw of the game, it lost what little it had going for it, and was left to focus on the mechanics. Without the glitz of the open world and the cops vs robbers vibe, it was just a bad MP shooter.
I have a derogatory term for what the insider dev described: "Box Checking". Of course, setting up action item lists and working through the items is key to a successful project. When it's just checking boxes to look busy and to drive project management metrics, it crosses a line into something absurd to work under and entirely unproductive.
☑
Man, this takes me back. What I enjoyed most about APB is the Suicide Girls party they did at E3 XD
I remember seeing trailers for this game and thinking it was the coolest shit.
..and you were half right
@@Leelamon yyyyyeeeeeeuup.
I remember not only playing this game but all of the hype surrounding it and my stepbrother at the time getting into it.
Blast from the past. I Love this damn channel so much.
NerdSlayer made a Death of a Game-report on APB a few years back.
Now I'm curious to see if you've managed to dig up even more information about this disaster MMO.
I remember being really hyped about this game back in the day, and then 1 day it felt like it just disappeared
To be honest, this game COULD be nice if they had a better vision of what exactly they would sell - as it is, they sell weapons in a gameplay-heavy product. So the novelty of customization wears off when one of your first opponents has Rocket Launchers.
The Reloaded Team are working on an engine update i haven't checked their site in a while so I wonder how its coming along, been wanting to come back to APB for a while.
I was today years old when I noticed the box art to GTA2 is just a zoom in on the art to GTA1
Brilliant. Been waiting for this game to pop on the feed.
Thanks!
It seems that developing MMOs in order to make the same money than WOW and utterly failing was 'the style at the time'.
Also, was that Tails theme from Sonic Adventure at the end? Haven't listened to that in forever!
What a banger
Oh boy i been waiting for this one
Adding Steiner Math makes this video an instant classic. Bravo!
Holy crap! Matt just scratched an itch that's been in my brain for Years by saying the name Body Harvest. I use to play that game a LOT as a kid, but I could never remember the name of it for pretty much the rest of my life. Talk about catharsis.
I played Reloaded a long time ago. It was quirky, but fun. I'm not surprised it still has over 200 players playing.
OMG I remember asking for this analysis a while ago, thank you for caring!
APB along with its rerelease APB: Reloaded showed potential of something that is hard to find now day's. Cop vs Crooks gameplay with limitless customization in almost all aspect, from clothes to cars, user made avatars/sprays and music. A few gameplay aspect adhered to cops v crooks gameplay by rewarding criminals when they rampage, steal from shops (by breaking window and taking what drops from it) and such while cops ware penalized for harming civis and rewarded for recovery of stolen vehicles/loots. Not on mission but in freerom.
Its sad to know game with potencial was in the end, left to root and kept on life support (with rumored engine update never coming out, yet time will tell) and the only people who are keeping it now are on radio silence. I feel this game will be still going for a few more years till either gets sold another time (and killing another studio/devs in the process) to someone who promise change while doing nothing or it will be killed off. Im just unsure what ever to exect masses coming to its grave or just one janitor whos there to clean up the mess.
I had tons of fun PvP moments in this game. Fantastic good time. Extremely broken and unbalanced though.
Easily the most frustrating is playing Defense, losing an objective, spawning on like, the south side of where that objective was, and the next objective spawns north of it, and you just lose the next/final objective because you spawned bad.
@Order & Chaos Or having the AUDACITY to try and play solo, turning every defense mission into trying to flawless a guy for 5-8 minutes straight, where if you died once you're fucked.
Or the numerous god spots where closing the distance without getting lit up was nearly impossible.
@Order & Chaos Yeah, mostly just the ladders/jumping ones. Although a few stairs only were difficult if people were corner camping and there was no back wall to ensure a grenade would flush them out.
I was at university near Dundee when all this went down. I remember seeing Realtime Worlds at a job fair and the employees seemed pretty glum. I also remember when RTW fell apart they were auctioning off their IT equipment.
Jesus, I remember reading the initial stories when this game was all the hype. I completely forget it ever released.
Matrix Online would be a good WH topic I think. Only a few peeps may even know it exists.
I loved that game... still sad that it failed
This was one of those games I had a genuine hype for and I have tried on multiple occasions to get into. I think a big problem with the game is a lack of direction especially in the early game on what you should be doing or even what you can do. Alot of what I learned was by watching other players such as holdups, arrests, graffiti and not just customization and missions.
One day... one day, Matt is gonna have an episode that doesn't foreshadow another episode.
I still to this day have fond memories of playing APB~
I probably would still be playing it now if there was any new content
I used to play APB reloaded. It was pretty alright and i liked the cops/criminal system since being a cop let you flex on the crims with LTL weapons that were worse than normal weapons, but tripled their respawn timer if they got downed by them. Plus the trolling you could do with dump trucks.
But yeah, besides that it was pretty lacking.
They had enough to start a whole new company and they still never paid severance packages? Goddamn
Thumbs up for Steiner Math.
Can't wait for the " Abandoned " episode
Damn, this guy really went from making three of the most critically acclaimed games of all time, to killing entire studios.
Even John Romero got humbled after his first major failure, dude.
Ending the video with Believe in Myself, of all songs, added an excellent extra layer of surreality to this whole debacle wow.
I loved APB, still have my retail copy here. It was fun to play some GTA-style game with friends. APB Reloaded was a dumpster fire (I guess it still is?)!
APB Reloaded, while maybe not reviewing well, was still pretty fun back in the day.
On the one hand I'm happy to see someone talk more about APB. On the other I'm incredibly sad to be running through all the problems this game has had over the years.
There's honestly a lot more to the downfall of the game. It had a good second wind following Gamersfirst acquiring it. However, they sort of made some really bizarre decisions over their years managing the title.. causing it to fall hard. Focusing almost exclusively on the cash shop while the game hemorrhaged players being one of the biggest. Which I can't say I helped. I'm one of the idiots that suggested the "True Ogre" and came up with some of the garbage presets still seen in the shop today! Woo! ...I hate myself for that lol
Little Orbit has arguably put the most effort into trying to fix up the game. Though some choices that turned out to be less than optimal have led them down the same path as the previous attempts despite this.
Anyway if someone is bored enough: I'd be down to talk about some Gamersfirst era APB stuff. Was a volunteer for a couple of years. Which kind of volunteer? All of them. Every role. Did quite a bit and even ended up working closely with the team at that point in time.
I went through a phase when I was 12 where I was obsessed with free to play games and Apb:reloaded was one of my favorites... At the time my small brain was just amazed that a gta style game could ever be free
This was basically GTAO before GTAO was a thing. Honestly this looks better then what GTAO has become in 2021.
As a crackdown 1 fan who was stoked for their next project back in the day, this is a WILD episode
I really wish this game got the love it deserved. 💔
Bruh.... how in all mighty fucks did I not see your channel years ago?!?! Glad I found it. The best gaming channel by far. The commentary isn't cringe, it's actual comedy too.... 💯😎
You got to do the Tak trilogy! Tak and the Power of Juju, Tak 2 the Staff of Dreams and Tak the Great Juju Challenge! There amazing games that deserve attention I’m doing everything I can to get the attention of the developers to get the games remade! There amazing!
Did you ever watch the show on Nick.
@@ci7210 I watched it when it premiered. It’s nothing like the games it’s totally different different voice actors and everything. Play the games don’t watch the show! The Tak video game trilogy needs to be brought back because the games are amazing and don’t nearly get the respect they deserve because of the garbage tv show! I’m trying to get the attention of THQNordic I’m doing everything I can to get the trilogy remade!
I had the original on ps2 but never beat it I have the gamecube version now and want to give it another try. Any tips for the plant bosses I just keep dying and just war of attritioning it.
@@GaragebandArcade just step back and wait till he taunts you. or you can be risky and just be close enough to hit him with your club or staff, that’s the speedrunning method Just keep trying there not that hard trust me! You’ll get it with practice!
Always love shoutouts/references/rehashes of Steiner Math. Such a masterpiece in wrestling promos.
I remember playing APV and really liking it, the customization capabilities were a lot of fun. The problem though, it was so insanely pay-to-win there was no point in even trying.
Pay-To-Win mechanics were added with the acquisition of Gamersfirst while nowadays with Little Orbit these things don't exist anymore
The way I always fought against pay to win players was by getting into my big kill van and crashing it right into other players, was usually easy to run people down unless they were able to get behind a building in time.
Lately I've been struggling with my work and life but this videos make me look forward for the weekend. These videos are so f***ing good
"At GDC in 2008, David Jones showed off what really seemed to be the main draw of the entire project, at the expense of almost everything else: the customization."
Dude, from the Black Ops series to Cyberpunk '77, why is that so often the kiss of death for projects like this?
Because that becomes priority number one over things like gameplay and performance
@@comedictragedy7239 You're completely right but that's my exact point. How do you even get to the point where you think that will turn out well for your game?
Games like Minecraft and Skyrim were huge for their customization yeah but they didn't develop that customization at the expense of the gameplay
I pre-ordered APB on steam in 2010 after following it for so long. I had so much fun playing that game, especially playing enforcers with ltl and arresting everyone. The customization was really next level, and the gameplay wasn't bad as far as shooters went for the time. I still go back to it every once in a while but it's such a disappointment to see what it has become and to watch it fall apart from the beginning.
Holy shit now that's a game that completely fled my mind, I forgot it even existed
Oh that k.o.f music gets me everytime lmao
Games has the coolest loading screen i have ever seen tho although not much can be said about the rest
I’m getting the vibe that apb was essentially the equivalent of the quote “ILL BUILD MY OWN THEME PARK , WITH BLACK JACK AND HOOKERS” , is that right?
I spent more time customizing my character than I did actually playing the game. Loved the customization, the rest of the game? Not so much.
Ooo man...apb on the BEST character and design shops i ever seen
Wish they could’ve done the crackdown sequels right
verry nice video u made there ... and im one of those 200 who stil play the game ... i can't get enough of it...
ABP Reloaded. Now that's a name I've not heard in... years. I bought this game with a friend as a teenager and we had a blast especially with the customizable stuff, but eventually the gameplay just became so pay2win and then the servers shut down shortly after. It had a lot of potential and they tanked it into the ground so hard.
Did they actually shut the servers now?
Last time I played I couldn’t join either district except for the hub area.
@@shnubdawg7730 I'm actually not sure i just remember a long time ago it was announced but i think that's around the time they got bought
That intro is really pure gold
Oooo this will be an interesting one and i would love to see an episode on Final Fantasy XIV so we can see how they managed to save the game 😊
Similar situation to what happened with Flagship Studio's Hellgate London.
I will always love this game for introducing me to Steam.
It’s a technical shitshow with heavy P2W elements but it’s the reason I joined Gabe’s wild ride.
Always a delight when I see there's a new one of these.
APB was an absolute flop and yet it's such a big part of my childhood (more like teenage years but yea LOL) and, to this day- even though NA servers are dead, nothing scratches the same itch that apb does with its combat and customization
A friend of mine regularly tries to convince everyone around him to play this game. I'm not sure if it's just a bit he keeps reusing or if he's in some way serious, but I do remember playing it briefly with some friends way back when APB Reloaded first launched. It wasn't great.
Doom was redeemed. Resident Evil was redeemed. This game was equally massive in its time and deserves its redemption, but in the meantime, can you show us What Happened to "Alone in the Dark"?
Despite the jank of APB Reloaded, I had a lot of fun over the years when I played it during my high school years on my computer that could barely run it with all of the details and settings turned way down. Went from running for Mayor through majority player vote in the city and running over criminals in my crime busting van, to going on a non-lethal quest of catching baddies to get a normal police hat until I saw you needed to catch 5000 criminal players using the worst guns in the game, the paint ball and bean bag guns, while also arresting them while they were stunned as their other team mates were waiting to just shoot you in the face while you were stuck in a 5-10 animation and standing right out in the open.
It took me at least a month of using just those crap tastic weapons to just get 100 arrests.
Seeing the insane grind just to look like a normal cop, and the countless aimboting hackers that usually populate these games, was when I decided to drop it in favor of other games since I didn't really have many friends that were into playing it as much as I did. Though the best thing about the game that I still remember was it introducing me to some bands that I didn't know about through the music it had as default, which is something I wish other games did.
I would love episode on Serious Sam 4. That game feels like it went through development hell for sure.
For years I'd get ads for APB:Reloaded on gaming websites, and it really takes me back since those were sidebar and banner ads.
Could you do a crossover with Todd In The Shadows, to talk about Power Gig: Rise Of The Six String?
Hell yes!
the lying sexual assault apologist?
Loved seeing that Scott Steiner Maths promo.
➤ 9 DAYS LEFT! - Matt McPlushy Campaign - www.makeship.com/products/matt-mcmuscles-plush
I love this and am eagerly waiting for the inevitable vid on the crackdown series now lol.
How could you forget to mention that poor sap who got all those piercings and tattoos in that whole "Human Avatar" marketing stunt???
Great video! I was there, playing the game almost from the beginning, participating in the open beta and what not, and have sunk almost 2400 hours into it since - although only a few in the last couple of years, for the nostalgia mostly. I've often asked myself "Why?" - why spend so many hours playing what is essentially a gigantic flop of a game? Simply put - there's not really anything else like it. Even for all its shortcomings, glitches, terrible design choices and micro transactions - nothing else like it. I and the people I played with, often tried figuring out, why no big developer had done something similar, why the concept of a fast-paced open-world TPS hadn't seen fruition elsewhere... Still a mystery to me. The fact that studios are still buying the rights, and keeping it alive, despite the dwindling player numbers, also says a thing or two about the product. It could have been awesome.
I was still actively reading Game Informer all during this game’s dev time, and I don’t remember it at all.
I mean I thought this video was going to be about the action racing arcade game APB from the 80s.
You madman, you Scott Steiner'd your way through that math