ChinnyVision: APB

[chinnyhill10]

Featuring a guest appearance from my Amstrad PC2086!

Bit of a diagonal scrolling issue on the CPC (far worse on the Speccy). Despite being a coin guzzler its a half decent attempt at a port.

[Zoe Robinson]

I never saw this one in the arcades but I did watch a video of it a few months ago on YouTube and was quite impressed with the arcade version (I may have to invest in a decent arcade stick and get MAME to give some of this old coin-op stuff a try). The CPC version also passed me by, but having seen it I can't really say I missed out.


I'm very much with you on the relationship of this game to Grand Theft Auto. It's even more stark when you show them side-by-side.





There's no way that APB wasn't an influence on the look-and-feel of the original GTA interface. Original GTA feels like you're playing an arcade game.

[chinnyhill10]

There's no way that APB wasn't an influence on the look-and-feel of the original GTA interface. Original GTA feels like you're playing an arcade game.

It's odd going back to it again, especially after I'd been playing GTA on the Dreamcast a few weeks before. The similarities are striking.


CPC Plus version of ABP with hardware scrolling and better graphics would be nice but its a big ask for a game that isn't that well loved.

[Shaun M. Neary]

I loved this!! I'm not gonna lie.

Scrolling? Meh, we grew up on awful tripe like Ghosts N Goblins and what not, so APB wasn't a major letdown by comparison.
The only bad thing I could really say about this game is that on tape, it was a headache in terms of multi load. But I used to love the scenes where you'd have to beat the crap out of someone before the chief caught you. For 1988, that was fairly ahead of it's time.

[MacDeath]

Was quite a great CPC game and great game in general...

Had some open sandbox feeling and was basically the Anti-GTA in theme, with same sort of gameplay.

[Nich]

My father bought me this game on disc when I was 9 years old. Thank goodness he didn't buy the cassette version!

I loved this game as well, and just like Edd the Duck which Chinny reviewed previously, I put up with the jerky diagonal scrolling. Having watched the other versions in action, I think the slower pace of the CPC version makes it more playable - though I also noticed that you are only allowed a maximum of 8 demerits, whereas other versions allow more demerits to be accumulated before you're fired.

I also learned to put up with the many bugs - mainly lines of cars driving the wrong way down roads or driving along invisible roads! Both the cassette and disc versions of the game also crash while you're playing day 13.

I'm also amazed at how big the map is, even on the 64K version - although it's a bit disconcerting playing the 64K version when you drive along a road and it suddenly stops at a wall of rocks and trees!

[Shaun M. Neary]

Something else I really loved was the tune in this game when you caught up with a perp. That thing used to be an earworm whenever I'd cycle from school, especially downhill! 

[chinnyhill10]

My father bought me this game on disc when I was 9 years old. Thank goodness he didn't buy the cassette version!

I loved this game as well, and just like Edd the Duck which Chinny reviewed previously, I put up with the jerky diagonal scrolling. Having watched the other versions in action, I think the slower pace of the CPC version makes it more playable -

On the CPC I can't say the speed bothered me that much (although it is slow), but the diagonal scrolling did. But again nowhere near as much as the Speccy version. I assume its a coding thing on the Z80 versions as the ST and PC which also don't have hardware scrolling have no issue.

[Gryzor]

Indeed; I don't mind the lower speed, but the jerky diagonal scrolling makes it seem you lose control of things, almost like a flip-screen sort of title...