Massively^™

One of the interesting features of EVE Online is that it has a drug trade in which players are actively engaged. Rather than merely being an illegal commodity, drugs -- called boosters -- enhance the performance of EVE's pilots, albeit with some potential side effects.

To understand boosters though, we'll need to look into the game's setting a bit first. The thing to remember is that as a player, you're a capsuleer. You're not standing on the bridge of your ship barking orders at subordinates. Rather, you're floating inside a metallic capsule deep within your ship. Your mind is interfaced with the ship you pilot via neural implants, thus your vessel is an extension of your body and its senses; you regulate the ship's activities merely by thinking about them. Not all people in EVE's setting of New Eden have the raw potential to become a capsuleer, making your character one of the elite. However, when faced with others of your caliber in combat, every possible edge you can gain over rival capsuleers helps. That's where boosters come in... they're your edge. Boosters augment aspects of your mental processes and thus provide certain bonuses when piloting your ship.

All Points Bulletin is one of those games that fans of Grand Theft Auto have been wanting for years. Merely saying 'want' cannot convey the unbridled desire that a number of people have expressed for an urban crime game where you're not completely isolated from other players. There is a certain person on the Massively team -- blown away by GTA: San Andreas years ago -- who would go to sleep with whispered prayers in the dark, that his deviant rampages could be shared online with his equally deviant friends around the world, day or night.

The allure of this type of game is strong, but equally strong is the likelihood of an overdose on pure chaos. One imagines a map full of amped up Criminals in desperate need of Ritalin, taking to the streets with RPG's and flattening traffic jams in backward-firing tanks, countered by a legion of overzealous Enforcers dispensing 'justice' with reckless abandon. Therein lies the problem: Part of what makes GTA so successful is that as Tommy Vercetti, or C.J. (or any of the other questionable protagonists a player becomes in the legacy title), there's no one else out there who's as badass as you. But what happens when mobs of Criminals or Enforcers of your caliber are turned loose in the city? What if they're even worse than you are? Welcome to the blender.

Every so often a game comes along that seems imbued with the essence of my childhood imagination -- its as if the game has it coursing through its veins. For instance, my personal interest in Spore stems from the fact that it's tapping into my fantasy of playing a game that lets me shape worlds -- one that I've had since even before my teenage years. Still, there hasn't been an MMO yet that's truly tapped into any of my more youthful wishes. Sure, City of Heroes delivered the first realization of creating my own personal super heroes, but when looking at what a game like Champions Online could provide in comparison -- at least in the superhero genre -- its quite apparent that CoH was barely scratching the surface.

Enter All Points Bulletin, a game that had developer and journalist jaws alike scraping across the floors after its demonstration was delivered in a manner not unlike -- say -- the opening to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

It seems I spoke too soon regarding the lack of a Crackdown MMO! APB is Realtime Worlds' action MMO, and judging from the awesome character concept artwork, it's going to have a lot in common with Crackdown. And I'm interested because in at least one way it's going to feature something I wrote about: criminals vs. law enforcement.

More to get interested in: 'The game itself centers on player vs player combat and will be the first massively multiplayer online title where player skill determines character progression as opposed to the traditional model of time investment." That's a tall order, and one I'm keenly interested in seeing how it's going to be implemented. That aside, the art direction on this game is gorgeous -- I'm happy to see that the 'good guys' (law enforcement) are just as visually interesting as the 'bad guys' (criminals). Check it: the photo there? That's a cop. Uh huh. The Artwork section of the site has a bunch of great pics; go check 'em out now. It's not gameplay, but it's enough, by gar.

APB is coming out in 2008, according the site, and let's hope this is the hit the Crackdown could've been.

[Thanks, Chris!]