3rd: APB Reloaded
Starting the top 3 is the much beloved and hated at the same time, APB Reloaded. APB Reloaded (APB standing for All Points Bulletin) is the revamp of APB after it went bankrupt 5 years ago under the hands of ‘Realtime Worlds’ sponsored by EA. It got picked up by K2 Network a few months later and launched one year later with the name that it wears today: APB: Reloaded.
Customization
APB: Reloaded is a Free2Play Third-Person Shooter PvP-Only MMO. It currently holds the 1st place position in customization within all the game industry.
In this game, you can fine-tune your character’s traits like the eyebrows, cheeks, mouth, chin, body fat and height, and so on; you can buy various clothes and place any premade or custom symbols on it to fit your style and tastes; also you can customize your body with tattoos and your car with the same kind of premade and custom symbols.
You can create custom symbols by using the game’s Designer; you can consider it a mini-Photoshop. Following the second part of customization, you can create whole songs or just 5 second death themes that play to the enemies that you kill. It can be anything you can think of as long as you’re able to recreate it.
Gameplay
The action takes place in the city of San Paro, where Criminals and Enforcers fight night and day. Every day bullets, grenades and rockets can be seen and heard flying often into someone, in attempt to ease up the owner’s work and win the critical missions faster.
The arsenal is varied allowing almost every type of gun ever made to be used in game: Shotguns, SMG’s, LMG’s, Assault Rifles, Semi-Auto Rifles, Snipers, Grenade Launchers, Rocket Launchers and of course pistols. One more type of gun that is available only for the Enforcer side of the game is the LTL weaponry (Less than Lethal) which allows the cop to stun and arrest the criminal granting a higher reward than just plain killing.
Each gun, character and vehicle can be customized with mods that will make the player more powerful in the field and granting a higher chance of succeeding. Nonetheless, the skill is still required in this game.
Bad sides
Though it sounds like a big dream, here come the bad sides and those are not a few: the players have to face the lag, ludicrous handling of the cars, other glitches as well and the ever-existing hackers (though they are a few). All in all has a high replay value due to the randomness of each friendly and enemy team that you encounter forcing you to always come up with new strategies to help you win the mission.
Game areas
APB: Reloaded is currently split in 3 areas, one of them being called an area of peace where criminals and enforcers are being peaceful to one another. The first 2 districts: Financial and Waterfront present 2 types of fighting.
While Financial emphasizes more on close combat weaponry, Waterfront focuses more on Assault Rifles and Snipers. The third district, Social, is where you can sell and buy cars, certain kind of weapons (legendaries), songs, death themes, clothes, custom symbols, mods, etc. all with in-game cash. Also you can customize your character in there or change her/his physical traits.
Premium system
The game contains a Premium system which grants more money and experience from each mission as well as an increased limit of layers that can be placed in the Designer for a custom symbol (From 20 to 100). The Armas Marketplace – game’s store, contains various weapons (most of all not more powerful than the ones you can simply unlock), car body kits and clothing items.
Armas Marketplace contains as well its own lottery tickets named “Joker Mystery Boxes” from which you can win either cheap items, like a 3-day Armas weapon (which is the same price as a JMB), up to a legendary weapon which can make you quite rich in-game if you decide to sell it. The only thing that can be complained about the store is that some of the items are quite expensive, for example a car body kit can reach the price of 50$ for someone who doesn’t have Premium (40$ otherwise).
Pros and Cons
Pros:
– Biggest customization ever
– Lots of weapons and cars to choose from
– Mission variations
– Both Action Districts have 1 km² maps.
Cons:
– Unbalanced
– Lag
– Hackers
– Glitches
Game information
Release Date: June 2010
Genre: Action-Adventure, Third-Person Shooter, MMO
Developer: Realtime Worlds, Reloaded Productions
Publisher: Electronic Arts, K2 Network
Price: Free2Play
Steam Store Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/113400/
Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bH_mnSOy04
Score: 4.0/5
Similar Games: Crimecraft: Gangwars, Grand Theft Auto V.
2nd: Just Cause 2
Venturing far from the street fight in San Paro, we go to Just Cause 2’s exotic island called Panau, located in Southeast Asia, with a grand size of 400 square miles.
Gameplay
You play as Rico Rodriguez, an Agency operative, whose job is to overthrow the Panau’s dictator, Pandak ‘Baby’ Panay. In your aid you have a shop-and-deliver system from where you can buy deadly vehicles and weaponry and receive them after a brief cutscene.That same system also allows you to fast-travel, where, at arrival, you jump from the plane, landing assisted by the parachute.
You can upgrade the shop items by finding crates corresponding to their kind (vehicle or weapon) making them faster or deadlier depends on what you purchase.
Similar to the Grand Theft Auto series, the game provides all kind of transportation: cars, motorcycles, planes, helicopters and boats, some more weaponized than others. As for the places to use those transportations on, you have access to desert, snowy mountains, jungle, cities and villages with tons of oceans surrounding them.
Crazy stunts
What’s great about Just Cause 2 is the amount of crazy stunts you can pull, from free jumping and landing safe without the use of a ‘chute, to tying up a car to a plane or helicopter or any other vehicle with the help of the grappling hook and fly with them away. My favorite, though it is quite hard to pull, is hijacking a plane in mid-air while you pilot another one.
Panau contains hundreds of locations waiting to be discovered and completed (destroying military forces, conquering bases, finding all the upgradable parts). The main story is unlocked by causing Chaos, which can be done by completing side missions or destroying everything that is owned by the corrupt government.
The missions are rather bland and repetitive, the only different thing being the area in which you do them. You usually have to kill someone or kill some more to protect a guy, with a few exceptions of escorting and kidnapping.
Bugs
Bugs are not an exception, being able to stick a plane in the mid-air and it not moving at all afterwards. The second disturbing thing is that some of the keys are not what they’re supposed to be.
For example, the Spacebar key while you drive doesn’t handbrake your car, instead it makes Rico jump off the car and launch his parachute, while Key X handbrakes your car.
All-in-all the game is crazily fun and the stunts are pretty much limited by your own imagination.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
– Various vegetation types on the map
– Tons of vehicles
– Possibility to cause lots of mayhem
– Incredible stunts
Cons:
– Bugs
– Some keys cause confusion as they don’t fit the original mapping.
– Lack of Multiplayer (Though that has been solved by a community mod)
Game information
Release Date: March 2010
Genre: Action-Adventure
Developer: Avalanche Studios
Publisher: Eidos Interactive, Square Enix
Price: 14,99$/€
Steam Store Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/8190/
Gameplay: Due to some issues regarding the game, where it always froze over a certain part of the introductory mission, I will use an older gameplay video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrZXUiWoTe4
Score: 4.5/5
Similar Games: Grand Theft Auto Series, Saints Row II.
1st: Far Cry 3
„Have I ever told you the definition of insanity? “
Frankly, this question will stick into my head because Vaas Montenegro, the main antagonist of the game, asked it so well. Far Cry 3 is the game that occupies my first place in this branch of gaming, mostly just because this character is so brilliant.
The story
The setting is placed on twin islands, called the Rook Islands, in which our main protagonist, Jason Brody, together with his friends and family take a vacation on.
As the night settles in, so does the reality. Kidnapped by a band of pirates lead by Vaas, you struggle to escape with the help of one of your brothers, but being caught in mid-act, there’s only one survivor from the escapade: You. With the help of the locals, you swear to get back your friends and family and get off the damned island.
Then the world unfolds: A vast jungle filled with locals, pirates and wildlife for you to help, kill and hunt to become stronger for the final moment.
At the beginning you’re limited by the lack of equipment but hunting animals for their skin will help you carry more items and weapons. Part of your fight includes helping the locals regain power on the island by unjamming broadcasting radio towers and taking down enemy bases.
Weapons and Equipment
The weapon variation is high ranging from the bow to explosives, which can furthermore be modified to suit your playstyle. You can also craft potions to restore your health quickly, sense enemies or animals around you to take them down more easily.
Certain challenges in the game usually require a bit of strategy, like making honorable kills on a certain target (meaning you can only use the knife on them) while he’s surrounded by a hand of enemies. The tons of collectibles are hidden throughout the island, either being on plain view or in a cave.
Hunting
On the islands you can find almost every animal you can think of: Bears, Tigers, Leopards, Pigs, Boars, Komodo Dragons (tough little devils) and so on, which you need to hunt in order to craft better equipment that can hold more of everything.
Some of the animal skins that are required for certain crafts are received through quests where you’re sent to hunt a certain animal like ‘Undying Bears’ (You prove it wrong though).
Vehicles
Vehicles and fast traveling options are also provided granted you don’t like jogging through the jungle. The skill-tree is split into 3 categories (The Spider – Stealth Takedowns & Survival, The Heron – Long Range Takedowns & Mobility and The Shark – Assault Takedowns & Healing), receiving points for them at every 3000XP raised.
Both main and side missions are relatively short and don’t require much of a headache, just usually going guns blazing.
Overall the game excels at voice-acting and graphics with lots of care placed into gameplay and mechanics.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
– Large area
– Possibility of hunting
– Great story
– Vaas Montenegro (He’s so good, he deserves his own place)
– Wide range of weaponry with possibility to add mods to them
– Wide range of animals to run at and away from
– Lots of challenges around
– The Multiplayer is still alive.
Cons:
– Story quite short
– Those Komodo Dragons are too powerful.
– The game feels like it helps you when you’re near 0 health, stopping the damage received for a moment, giving you a chance to heal before you’re completely killed.
– Use of UPlay DRM System (Meaning you have to run both Steam and UPlay at the same time to run the game)
Game information
Release Date: Nov. 2012
Genre: First-Person Shooter, Action-Adventure
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft Massive, Ubisoft Red Storm, Ubisoft Shanghai, Ubisoft Reflections
Publisher: Ubisoft
Price: 19,99$/€
Steam Store Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/220240/
Gameplay: http://youtu.be/hprnYx2v5FU
Score: 4.6/5
Similar Games: Far Cry 4.
Summary
So, this is my top 10. There are lots of games I left behind that were close to Top 10, like Saints Row IV and Skyrim but they weren’t enough for me. As stated at the beginning, this list follows my own opinion, games that I will highly recommend to everyone despite their more or less obvious bugs and glitches.
Hope you liked my top 10 and agreed at least with most of my entries and see you next time.
Signing off,
Nabuh