There’s plenty of MMO’s out there today but there aren’t many that don’t try to copy (and fail) the formula adopted by the immensely popular World of Warcraft. If a developer wants to beat World of Warcraft then they’ll have to offer something different yet attractive and casual enough for players to migrate, or just attract new players that wouldn’t have played an MMO otherwise. APB (All Points Bulletin) is one of the upcoming MMO’s that is attempting to offer something different than the usual point and click hack and slash fantasy/sci-fi MMO – which really is a breath of fresh air.

APB is currently being developed by Realtime Worlds – the same guys who brought us the incredibly fun Xbox 360 game Crackdown – and will be familiar to anyone who’s played a GTA game in the past. Until recently GTA has never really had multiplayer options and, even now, GTA IV’s multiplayer has plenty of problems. When the novelty wears off you move on to something else, which makes me wonder how an MMO with a similar approach to GTA will fair, but I’m not about to dismiss it just yet. In APB you can either be a gang member or a member of the law enforcement, which puts you in the middle of the two sides endless battle for the control of the city. This means that you’ll constantly be either on the offence or defence, and being an MMO this is obviously happening even when you’re not online.

Due to the game being an MMO (or an MOG as described by lead game designer David Jones, due to players only likely interacting with up to 25 other players at the same time) they’ll also be your usual missions, with you earning money instead of experience; which is then used to upgrade weapons, vehicles and character appearances (IGN discovered that the customisation options are pretty deep). In these missions, for example, a gang of players may be asked to rob a store while law enforcement players will be sent an APB to try and apprehend them. All in all it sounds a lot more exciting than your usual package delivery/kill ten pigs missions that you often get in MMO’s. The best part of it all is that there’s no dull repetitive grinding that is so common in other MMO’s.

APB isn’t set to come out until next year, but there are strong hints that a beta may be on the way soon. You can go to the official site to register your interest or you can join the Facebook group for regular updates – or both if you’re crazy like that! While it’s only coming out for the PC at the moment there may also be an Xbox 360 and PS3 version, depending on how well the PC version does. Here’s hoping that it becomes the next big thing.