APB

All this means that the initial mission experience is somewhat odd. After tooling around enjoying the vehicle handling for a while - cartoony, but weighty, responsive and surprisingly entertaining given the keyboard controls - we start missions which might be characterised as "raids" or "pickups" but simply involve going to a checkpoint, clicking on something and going to the next checkpoint until you're done.

It seems undramatic, but this is just the first automated step of the action in APB, and the "players as content" matchmaking is layered on top. It's basically a way of getting yourself noticed. On our second such mission, a Criminal team is alerted to what we're up to and told to stop us. Defensive firefights ensue; we improvise cover from nearby vehicles as we try to complete the mission within a time limit, battling against our opponents and some rather distant spawn points (although, with even Enforcers being able to steal and jack cars, travel is always fast).

Then we're called in to interrupt some criminals on a mission of their own, the APB itself arriving with an siren sound and a notice splashed across the screen. Even though it might be followed by a tense wait for opposition to arrive or a vehicular scramble across town, this dynamic, in situ matchmaking is APB's calling card, its signature, and a pulse-raising thrill unlike anything else in gaming.

Half a dozen or more such missions blend into each other, with only an unbelievably tense standoff as we defend a small plaza, with some awkward approach routes, really sticking in the memory (perhaps that's because I won MVP in that round). It's the location and the opposition that define encounters, rather than anything of interest in the mission design, which is usually very functional. It's hard to imagine one APB session being very different from the next, but easy to imagine each one throwing up an uproarious anecdote or two. It's also easy to imagine logging in for ten minutes and staying three hours, so addictive and insistent is the rolling cycle of the mission matchmaking.

APB's unique structure, social features and style are what distinguish it right now. As a multiplayer shooter, it's certainly fun but lacks some of the crispness, definition, feedback and impact, not to mention the handcrafted map design, of the best out there. As a persistent online game, it's loaded with promise but shackled to a slightly samey, if moreish action experience.

But, more so than almost any game since EVE Online, APB is going to be defined by what happens after it launches. In our GDC interview with Jones, he stressed the importance of developing new rulesets in response to the desires of the community. Moreland echoes this. There will certainly be extreme districts where any player can attack any other. There might be districts where headshots are allowed.

"One I think we will actually be focusing on at some point, probably not in the near future, will be some sort of racing district that really heavily features different types of vehicles," says Moreland. He won't even rule out the eventual rise of opponent AI - zombie districts and bank heist scenarios are apparently a popular theme among the developers and in the community - but Realtime isn't prepared to bend its pure multiplayer focus for now. "For us, it's really just the multiplayer aspect; I mean Dave has, from day one since I've been here, said players are the content. It's not us making handcrafted..." Moreland trails off and smiles. "He loves to use the term 'artificial incompetence'."

There are a dozens of questions still. Will the first wave of APB players understand that this unique, initially rudimentary experience will multiply and evolve with their input? Will Realtime and distribution partner EA be able to communicate the hyrbidised, open nature of this game in the few months they have before release? Will they be able to restrain themselves from over-hyping a game that needs to grow organically? Will they be able to sell it without recourse to the poisoned chalice of those six letters? And, biggest of all, what is the business model, apparently two years in the making, that will pay Realtime's server bills and sustain the whole enterprise?

With the beta ramping up, APB's best hope is to speak for itself and let players spread the word. You really do have to play it to get it. It may not be GTA, or an MMO, but in truth, it has a little bit of what's best about both of them.