The problem was that management looked at the revenue they wanted to generate and priced accordingly, failing to realise (or care) that there are literally a dozen top quality, subscription free team based shooters. A large scale team based shooter, in big urban environments, with unprecedented customisation and some really cool, original features. The game has issues, but I think if you separate the business model from the game itself, it holds up at least a little better. All the issues that had driven me nuts about it were still there – the driving was poor (server-authoritative with no apparent client prediction, ergo horrendously lag intolerant), combat impact-less, and I found the performance of the game sub-par on what was a high-spec dev machine.īut the real killer, IMO, is the business model. I was genuinely shocked when I played the release candidate – I couldn’t believe Dave J would be willing to release this. I wasn’t on the APB team, so I played it infrequently, during internal test days etc. All that said, it was pretty clear to me that the game was going to get a kicking at review – the gap between expectation and the reality was huge. No team sets out to ship something anything less than perfection, but projects can evolve in ways that no one seems to be in total control of. It can seem difficult to comprehend, it certainly was for me before entering the industry – ‘How did those idiots get X wrong in game Y?’. It’s not that the team was unaware of these huge issues, but a million little things conspire to prevent you from being able to do anything about them. APB itself only really came together technically relatively late in its development cycle (and it still obviously has problems), leaving too little time for content production and polish, and lacking any real quality in some of its core mechanics (shooting / driving). You end up in this situation where you’re heads down working your ass off, not well able to critically assess your own product. Knowing this, it can blind you to a game’s imperfections – or lead you to think it’s going to come right by release. A game can play poorly right up until only a few months before release, for a variety of reasons – Crackdown was awful right up until a month or two before it came out (some would say awful afterwards, too, but I’m trying to make a point :). There's a post on RockPaperShotgun from an ex RTW employee that spells out the mess pretty nicely.Īn outcome like this wasn’t desired by anyone at RTW, but game development is a weird business. Apparently the whole budget went on matchsticks!! I'm now super interested in finding out what happened to all that money. I mean, look at avatar - a classic example of just throwing money at the entertainment industry. One would have thought that, having invested 100 mil into the project, the end quality would actually be worth it. Many of which, now, have progression and persistence of some sort – for free. Artificial intelligence that controls allies and enemies, uses different ways to win, uses cover, and retreats when wounded.But the real killer, IMO, is the business model.The team consists of a Bomb Squad, Machine Gunner, Commander and Sniper.Takes full control of only one, but you can switch control between characters at any time. The gamer controls the four fighters by giving them commands.The story campaign features 15 sequential missions, and they can be taken in alternative ways.The user takes control of a special group to fight Iraqi warriors in the north of the small state. After that, the main team is joined by the last fighter, Bomb Squad Jones. The attacking country gradually loses troops, and the attack on Kuwait is considered foiled. But a squad of 3 agents gets to him and takes him to Saudi Arabia. The Iraqi army cut off the city from the rest of the country in an attempt to eliminate Emir. In twenty-four hours, the small nation is under complete siege. He manages to do it, and afterwards they undermine the bridge. Bradley sets out to rescue his partner from imprisonment. Foley is captured and a fellow soldier is killed in a firefight. But the guards prevented a diversion, having spotted them in time. 2 SWAT teams attempted to blow up a single bridge to prevent tanks from entering the country. Actions Conflict: Desert Storm Takes place in 1990, when Iraq has entered the territory of Kuwait.
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