"Old School Criminal Chase."

A.P.B is an obscure game that resides in the dark corners of arcades, or gathering dust in the back of some dust filled warehouse. While the game suggests hunting people down, the basis of the game is to actually clean up the city by taking out criminals by blowing up their cars or pulling them over and issuing them tickets. Most of the game takes place on the city high-ways and alley's in a completely overhead view. Through this, you'll gain points for issuing tickets and catching the criminals who have broken enough of the law to warrent being arrested.

The story that you find here really isn’t much of a story at all in which you take control of a police officer in a city that is under going a crime wave. As you continue through the game you’ll bust people for either littering, drug possession and sometimes murder. However, you have to watch out for the chief of police, who is simply looking for a reason to bust your ass off the force. As you progress through the game, you’ll be taking on both the citizens and the criminals in a wild ride though a huge city that seemingly has no end in sight!

-Game Play-

While an innovative type of game play for it's time era, A.P.B features a single city with endless roads that you race on trying to catch criminals from murderer's to speeders who are littering. The challenge comes in with the actual chases that you have to perform in order to get the collar on some scumbag who is speeding away faster than your car moves! You have use of a firing button that does damage to cars and causes them to pull over but your real tool of destruction is your car, which you can use to ram offenders over so that you may issue them the almighty ticket and boost your score.

As you continue through the game though, you’ll have to watch the patterns of your enemies as they try to speed away or as they attempt to knock you from the road. The higher the stage and the worse the crime, the higher chance that you cannot catch them. I can honestly say that the frustration level that you find here is something that can really cause you to either run at the arcade game and kick it over when you know you’ve taken a criminal and get a demerit anyway. The more demerits you get, the higher the chance that you get fired, so watch just what it is that you’re doing.

Pretty tight and intensive, the responsiveness of the steering doesn't leave much to be desired. Even though the game features a simple steering wheel and a fire button, it does take some getting used to in terms of actually pulling over the bad guys with well placed hits to their car! When you’re going to blast an enemy, the targeting system takes a little time to get used to, but you’ll still find that learning how to use it doesn’t take that much time or effort. Beginners should be able to work with it after just a few minutes and veterans to the drive and shoot games should be able to pick it up with no trouble.

-The Audio-

The music for the game is rather humble and doesn't really give you any sense of urgency although it does speed up somewhat when your time is running low. Aside from that, it's a single track that is looped over and over again with some tinny sound effects thrown in for the hell of it! IF you can get past the different stage music and really get into the audio effects that the game has to offer, then you’ll find that there is something here for everyone. Though I really didn’t hear much of a difference between the different stages, the little audio snips were neat and brought a grin to my face.

-The Visuals-

The visuals themselves are pretty good looking, but with an overhead view, you can only do so much. The stage is well designed, and the offenders throw trash, which can be seen bumping along the road when it falls out of their car. The different explosions you get and even the busted screen has some humor to it and adds a little variety to the game. These smaller bits of detail really do draw you into the fact of how old this game is. Though I really don’t see much here that will impress those of you who play the more modern games exclusively, it does bring some of the old style gaming to life and in good fashion.

-The Verdict-

This game will eat your quarters in an instant. Some of the stages require you to do an obstacle course, and if you screw up too many times, it's game over. Also, with the boss chases, you have to be quick or you'll be left behind choking on their exhaust! While it was an innovative game for it's time, A.P.B probably suffered more from the fact that it was an obscure game that never really made it to the front of the arcade circuit. Even though it can be fondly remembered by some of the older gamers as the game in which you got to pull people over and blow up their car, A.P.B is an above average game that got below average coverage and respect!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/27/01, Updated 09/27/02