For me, EA's upcoming massively multiplayer online shooter can be summed up in two words: Awesome Button. In APB, players can record their gameplay to show others their moments of triumph. However, too often these moments come while players aren't actually thinking to record, since no one wants to just tape themselves all the time. Because of this, Realtime Worlds added the "Awesome Button," which, when pressed, will record the previous thirty seconds. While I didn't see much actual combat in my demonstration of the game, I don't think they would bother including the Awesome Button if there wasn't something awesome to show.

When I sat down with Chris Collins, Social Media and Community Manager for Realtime Worlds, he asked what I wanted to see. The convention was packed and the APB booth, in particular, was swamped, so he wanted to know if there was anything specific I wanted to check out instead of sitting through a four-hour long demonstration. "The three C's," I responded, remembering the line I was told earlier from another member of the team. "Creativity, conflict and... what was the third one?"

"Celebrity," he responded with a smile, "the three C's encompass a lot, but we'll see what we can get through."



He started up the game and loaded into the Social District, one of the the three areas that will ship with APB. Creativity, or, more appropriately, giving players outlets for creativity, is a major part of the game. Players are allowed to customize their characters, clothing, and vehicles in incredible ways. Tools are available in-game, and they appear to be as in-depth (if not more) as the one found in Forza. Creating high-resolution images to make simple shapes might only take a few minutes, but much more complex imagery is possible. In fact, Collins said he had received a panicked phone call a few days before the Penny-Arcade Expo, since some of the beta players thought it would be a good idea to painstakingly recreate a certain lewd image from the internet and spread it around the world of APB for the PAX audience. When he told me what it was, I couldn't believe it was possible to create such an image with the tools. If the person in question could have created the image in question, the possibilities are literally endless. Created decals can be placed on anything, adapting to look appropriate depending on the surface. If players decides to make a fish with wings, they can turn it into a tattoo, throw it onto a t-shirt, or even tag a wall with it. They can do whatever they want, and that's where "Creativity" comes in. 

They can also put it on the game's marketplace and sell it, for other players to use in creating their own personal avatar. Beyond that, players can even customize music with an extremely complex in-game tool. These tunes can either be blasted out of car stereos, or shortened to play after the player kills an enemy. It's called a Death Tune, and in my time with the game I heard all sorts of quick jingles, from the "Tetris Theme" to the "Imperial March" to "I'm On a Boat."



After messing around with the different customization settings, I was eager to see the second C, "Conflict." Luckily, Collins was eager to show it. Entering into another area, he explained the two factions in the game: the Criminals and the Enforcers. Upon loading into an area, which can contain hundreds of players at once, each faction is faced with different goals. The task of the Criminal is to commit crimes. There are a number of ways to do this, including mugging random civilians and completing different illegal missions. When such an act is committed, an All Points Bulletin is sent out to nearby Enforcers. If it was a small-scale crime, the game may only ask for one Enforcer, creating a 1v1 deathatch for the two players. The larger the act, however, and the longer the crime-spree lasts, the larger the APB is. It's like the star system found in Grand Theft Auto, except the higher it gets, the more players it sends after the Criminals. While I didn't get a chance to see way too much of the conflict, what I did see looked fairly fun, and, again, I have a feeling it has to be if the addition of the "Awesome Button" was deemed necessary.

Lastly, we arrived at the final C: Celebrity. At the time, I really couldn't understand what it could mean, since it's not a term usually associated with gaming. To demonstrate exactly what it was, he warped back to the Social District, and walked into the streets and pointed out statues. These statues were actually players that had either earned or purchased the right to he immortalized in stone for all to see. They can be replaced or dethroned, but, for at least some time, they were a Celebrity. This extended to other elements I had already seen, things like decals and Death Tunes will make players known. Being extremely good at a game like Modern Warfare or Battlefield is essentially meaningless to everyone else in the game, since there's no persistent world to deal with and no way of remembering who was who besides their name. In APB, you'll recognize the unique clothing, remember hearing their unique jingle. You'll learn to either fear or respect it, and that's where the Celebrity comes in.

There have been games in the past attempting to accomplish the same things APB does. For the most part, they've all failed, with the most recent example being CrimeCraft. Luckily, EA and Realtime Worlds appear to have a lot more going for them, and hopefully they can learn from CC's mistakes to create a wholly unique shooter to really move the genre forward. If nothing else, we have reason to believe it's going to be awesome. What else would the Awesome Button be for?

ABP is due out at the end of Q3 in 2010 for Windows PCs.