A.P.B.

Join Officer Bob on a very politcally-incorrect, never-ending quest to meet his daily quota by arresting hitchhikers, litterbugs, honkers, dopers, speeders, assaulters, murderers, and the A.P.B.'s themselves. Bring in A.P.B.'s for questioning but do not get caught or else they will be released because of police brutality.

Officer Bob starts each day at one of several police stations in the area. His daily quota is presented and you must use a targeting crosshair to arrest offenders by tapping the appropriate amount of times (or shoot them if you have the gun) to arrest them. Time and fuel are limited so you need to find donut huts and stands or donuts lying off the beaten path to extend your time and gas pads or tow trucks to get more gas. Once you have met your quota, scores are doubled for each subsequent arrest. Return to the station before time/gas runs out for a bonus.

You get demerits for collisions without your siren on, crashing, exploding and running over pedestrians. You can lose one demerit every 10,000 points or if you drive a perfect day (meeting your quota without ANY collisions, explosions, or other wrong doing).

Every other day (starting with the 3rd day), the chief will present an A.P.B. that you can catch and provide information as to where he/she was last seen. You must then find and wear down their "resist-o-meter" and ram them off the road to capture them. Return them to the station before time/gas runs out and you will not need to fill your quota that day. After capturing, you must then make them confess by rapidly tapping the siren and gun buttons to bring the "confess-o-meter" up to full before the chief walks in and sees you choking them. If you get caught, the A.P.B. is let go and you get one additional demerit for each item you failed to take care of on your quota, thus it's usually a good idea to fill as much of your quota as possible before capturing an A.P.B.

There are 10 A.P.B.'s total, but the game does not end if you capture them all. The game ends when you hit your demerit maximum.

If you are having problems catching up to an A.P.B., simply stop and he/she will drive off the screen and re-appear right behind you in a couple of seconds (this works real well on narrow, crowded roads).

When making the A.P.B. confess, be sure to tap one gun and one siren button. If you tap both gun or both siren buttons, they will cancel each other out.

You can arrest common criminals faster if you have the gun by tapping both the siren and gun at the same time (just be sure you are aiming right at them).

BUG:

According to a booklet that came with C+VG Magazine of Feb' 1988, there is a bug in APB that can get you a lot of points.. It's described as follows: 'When you find the train, get infront of it, and let it push you across the screen. It will shove you through a lot of rubbish , and after a while, you will get millions of points.' Also noteably, is a mention of a similar bug in Paperboy, but it's not described any further.. (Paperboy is a system-II game as well, so it would seem possible.) The bug seems unreproducable on mame, doing so will get the car 'stuck' on the tracks. Perhaps some other train ??

The cabinet looks like a police patrol car and the top marquee is a red/blue light bar that flashes when you push the siren button. A simple platform seat can be attached to the cabinet to make a sit-down type game.