APB

Copyright : Tengen | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

APB to many people is a classic arcade game and when it was emulated in MAME people went nuts, itsn?t that true Peter D, an avid fan of the original. This game sits you in the seat of a new rookie police officer, or as I like to call them dougnut eaters (among others) who is keen to show how good he is and to gain promotion from traffic duty to full time law enforcement officer.

The boss has agreed to give you a trial run but first you must show how good you are by arresting traffic cones (I kid you not) before moving on to the high speed chases yelling "Pull Over" only in real-life to be given either a four letter word or one of the first two thingers. Luckily in the game arresting people doesn?t prove too difficult until the later stages when they become armed to the teeth and it?s bye bye pork chop.

But just because Peter (among others) liked the original game it doesn?t mean you are going to, read the review to find out for yourselves.

Graphics

APB is a birds eye (top down) view driving game in which you as the new police officer must arrest a series of traffic cones in the training stages and real life villains in the later stages. Compared to the original (which wasn?t high in detail anyway) the Amstrad version comes off pretty well in terms of graphics and the colours used to draw the maps and other vehicles. The collision detection is pretty nasty though, which in this case isn?t so much as a bad thing than it is a good one because if the detection was any better then you would be dead as soon as you pulled away from the police station.

Sound

The sound is pretty cool also, you are given some great music to bop along to at the start of the game and when your arrest time is dropping (basic way of telling you to shift your ass), you have an engine sound (rare in some older CPC driving games) and siren sounds when ever you hit the fire button. Other cars also make noises at you when driving around which is a nice touch, the only thing missing from the arcade is the lack of speach (which is something the CPC wasn?t overly good at reproducing anyway).

Gameplay

As for gameplay, well if you like the recent spade of Grand Theft Auto clones and indeed the original GTA itself then you will certainly enjoy playing this game (although you are working for the good guys in this one) and fans of the original arcade will be far from disappointed. The controls are easy to pick up on and your squad car is never overly responsive so that you shouldn?t find yourself crashing into any trees of oncoming traffic.

All in all Tengen have done a great job on all of the home computer conversions of APB and the Amstrad CPC is no exception in this case - good stuff!