APB - Atari ST (Gameplay Footage & Opinion)

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Village Monk's Gaming Memories

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Published on April 2, 2017 2:24:12 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfP2GSa-ed8

Game:

APB (1987)

Duration: 17:37

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I originally first saw this game as a rolling demo on a ST cover disk, and for the life of me I can’t find that cover disk anymore. As a result it took years for me to find it again, I originally thought that it was called Cops n Robbers, but that’s a completely different game for the ST. APB, ‘All Points Bulletin’, which confusingly there’s a mmo game of the same name in 2010, was a 1987 arcade game by Atari Games.

Like most arcade games from the period it was later ported to a bunch of platforms such as the Amiga, ST, C64, and Spectrum in 1989 with an Atari Lynx conversion coming in 1991. But in this video we are looking at the Atari ST build which was made by Domark and programmed by David Selwood, back in the days when one person did the majority of the work.

The game itself is a single player overhead arcade racer which sees you playing as a police man who has to deal with a various bunch of law breakers such as litterers, honkers and drug dealers. Your commissioner gives you an arrest quota which you have to do within the time limit. To arrest the majority of people you simply have to drive your car behind the offender and press the fire button to turn on your siren, with harder enemies you have to do that more than once. If you accidently try to arrest the wrong person then you’ll get a demerit, get too many demerits and you comically get fired and thrown into the trash bin. There are also shops around the area giving you extra time and gas to help increase your score.

Now I won’t lie to you, the rolling demo which I remember seeing as a kid was much better in my mind that what I experienced of when I eventually managed to get copy of this for my ST. Being disappointed I decided to try out the arcade original via one of the re-release compilation packs which are: Midway Arcade Treasures 2, Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe Edition, and Midway Arcade Origins. Turns out the arcade original is a great 80’s arcade racer and having played both extensively, here are my major complaints with this port.

• The ST version blatantly lies. The first level tells you to tap the siren, i.e. the fire button, 1 time to arrest the cone. So you go and do that and nothing happens. Turns out you have to hold it down for a second to activate the siren. Not that much of a problem, but it really confused me the first time I played, I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong.
• The second problem is the frame rate it constantly chugs along, it feels so jerky. I’m not that bothered that the title isn’t drawn as pretty or the majority of the sound effects are missing, but I do expect some degree of smoothness, there’s a bunch of overhead racers on the ST where it’s done right such as Jupiter’s Masterdrive.
• The awful car AI. Now in the arcade original they do serve all over the road but they all keep to a set speed, this makes it much easier to get behind one of them and do an arrest. They also take into account the position of your police car, slowing down or moving lane if they discover that you are in their immediate path. In this build however they seem to speed up and slow down. They also seem to be able to ghost between each other and you. So on the many occasions that I have slowed down to arrest a perp I have been taken out by the car behind me and of course when this happens your car blows up and his car is fine.
• This brings me into the next point - the unfair demerits. You get demeritted for virtually everything. If another car crashes into the back of your cop car it’s your demerit, not his fault. If you crash into any other car then you get punished for it. Alternately look at the arcade original, you can happily smack into the other cars at low speed with no punishment, it’s only when you’re going fast do you get punished for it, this ultimately makes the ST version much harder and a lot more frustrating. This even happens on level 3 where you are instructed to crash into the back of the drug dealer’s van to bring him to justice. Again the game decides to punish for doing what it told me to do. You are actually supposed to hold down the siren whilst bumping into the dealer and of course the game doesn’t tell you that.

Whilst I do enjoy APB I really don’t enjoy this Atari ST conversion. There are just too many crippling bugs which ruin the enjoyment and frankly I would sooner that you either found the arcade original or get one of those compilation packs that I already mentioned.

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Atari ST: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr

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