Title Crackdown Date 02.27.2006 Genre Action Platform Xbox 360 Developer Realtime Worlds Publisher Microsoft Games Studios

Crackdown is the third “Sandbox” game to hit the 360 since its release back in November 2005. In this time we've been graced with Saints Row, a decent rip off of GTA with a large amount of things to do, but felt lacking in something. We also got The Godfather, which was just a port of last-gen game, expect it was missing features.... like cheats.... which you had to buy off the marketplace.... pathetic. So what do we get with Crackdown? A vastly different experience. It doesn't really play very much like a GTA style sandbox game at all. Instead you have a well made action game that simply takes place in a giant city. And collecting orbs just so happens to be way too much fun. It's different, and that's both it's strength and it's weakness.

Graphics
Some people here may really like it, others may genuinely hate it. I personally think considering the nature of the game the graphics are a perfect fit. The game takes the Cel Shaded approach, but puts a great deal of detail onto most things, taking away the simple comic artsy feel and instead giving the game a look that attempts to blur comics with reality, and for the most part it works really well, just don't get too close to anything other than buildings and yourself, most gang members and citizens aren't detailed very well. The effects get the job done pretty well, ranging from standard fare muzzle flash to rubber marks left on the road when you drift in a car. The real draw of the graphics though are the explosions. While they start off pretty weak, as throwing a grenade may as well just be leaving a poof of smoke. By the end things that blow up blow up good. Real good. The explosions are enormous, look pretty good (Although not the best I've seen on the 360, that would go to Chromehounds or GRAW). The graphics get the job done, not always impressive, but at least out of the normal interesting.

The game has a distinct lack of talking really. There really isn't a whole lot of speech in the game, just the Agency “Guide” who reminds me of those 50's nuclear safety videos, and he does a fantastic job with that voice, it's just that he's the only really noticeable voice acting, the rest of it is just background stuff, and is completely unmemorable. Since he's the only noticeable voice actor, you get tired of him, and he talks... a lot. Run near a supply point? TAKE IT BACK AGENT! Getting shot at? SEEK COVER AGENT! Just shut the hell up once in a while man! Otherwise the game sounds fine, cars hum and all that(although they don't sound much like cars that do 150 MPH), guns pop nicely, explosions go boom all well and good. Then there's the soundtrack. Most sandbox games have some sort of radio system going when you get into cars, so you can listen to “the radio” when you drive. This game is no exception. The game features 105 songs, varying in style(A little), but not much in terms of stuff that you'd go “HEY I REMEMBER THAT SONG” like you get in GTA games, and to some extent Saints Row(I'll admit, I recognized some music from that game). Go through the song list in this game and it looks like about six or seven artists donated about 13 songs each to the game. The sounds a little sub-par in the end if you ask me.

Controls
Strong with one major flaw. The lock-on ability doesn’t completely work right. The game has it's normal control scheme which for the most part works really well, you can jump dive, throw grenades, shoot around, kick people and throws cars at everything without much problem, it usually feels pretty good. My one problem with the controls comes with lock-ons. After killing someone if you're in lock on mode it stays locked onto the corpse, in a battle it's really nice to be able to instantly switch to another enemy. The developers have stated that “Usually players aren't done with the body after they kill it”. Yeah... sure, then that's why I have to go back to free aim to pick the body up. Otherwise the lock on stuff is nice, you can target different body parts to stun them, do more damage, stuff like that. It's nice. Car controls handle fine, although just about every car in the game sucks, it’s much more fun to jump around the city to get from point A to B. The controls work, but that targeting flaw really bothers me.

Gameplay
For a “Sandbox” type game there really doesn't seem to be a whole ton of things to do. The game starts off with a little explanation that the fictional metropolis of “Pacific City” is in Anarchy with three gangs trying to get control. After the cops lost all control the Agency stepped in, stole some ethically questionable research, and you were the result, a human that evolves over the course of their own lifetime. You're tossed into the mess and simply told to kill the three gangs. This means taking out the seven generals of each gang, which conveniently are on three separate islands, with the Agency as a middle point. You start as a rookie agent and through your actions your skills increase, a bit like an RPG, but with much more gunplay, violent death, and significantly less story.

There are five things to do in the game:

1) Kill gang leaders. This is the meat and bones of the game. Three gangs, seven leaders each, kill them all. One of the seven leaders is a kingpin, and taking out the other six makes your job against the kingpin a lot easier. After taking out all the leaders the grunts start rioting and you have to kill them. After killing them you're treated to a little movie saying what the agency plans to do with the area now that it's back under control. Move on to the next island. Rinse and repeat. It's not a terribly long or interesting main mode, so it's kind of sad that the other parts of the game are more entertaining.

2) Orb collecting. Scattered throughout the city are 800 orbs. 500 agility orbs and 300 “hidden” orbs. To get these you have to jump around. Free run as it were. Over the course of the game you become better at jumping by collecting these orbs (Hidden orbs raise your other skills too). So by the end of the game even if the city isn't that big, it climbs very high, so you'll be climbing 1000 foot skyscraper and jumping from rooftop to rooftop. This is by far the best part of the game.

3) Foot races. Once you level up your agility these “rooftop” races become available. In them you are given a series of checkpoints to free run between, and if you do it in a set amount of time you win, and get more agility orbs. While this is fun, it feels a bit constrained, and isn't as fun as just exploring.
4) Car races. Same as the foot races, just now you drive around town from checkpoint to checkpoint, increasing your driving skill if you when, not very impressive.

5) Take back supply points. These appear on your HUD when you're near them. Literally all you do is walk up to them and press Y to take them back. These act as places to bring the small selection of weapons back to as well as respawn locations when you die. That's another dumb little thing with the game, you don't have to restart a mission when you die, you literally respawn onto the same world, no stats lost, nothing. It removes a lot of the difficulty from the game.

Speaking of difficulty, the default setting is beyond easy. Tough is some of the easiest gaming I have ever had, but pump the difficulty up to Psychotic and it's like playing another game completely, enemies hit hard, have a lot of health, and shoot well. The gunplay is much more entertaining on that difficulty. However, free-running remains just as fun. As an added little bonus you get online co-op play. It's very well streamlined, allowing for players to join in a game at any time, and it works out well, too bad once you get into the co-op game it feels completely broken, even after the “lag fix” patch released at launch, the game still frequently lags, the frame-rate hiccups whenever one player brings up a menu, and there's show stopping bugs on occasion where you come across a boss or a finishing riot marked on the map that just plain isn't there. The only way to get them to show up is to kill yourself and spawn as far away as possible, then run back. This needs fixing. The game is still fun in co-op; free-running around the city with a friend is great fun.... when it's not broken.

Closing Statements
The game is worth checking out. While it does have a large amount of problems that need to be fixed, the core gameplay is a great deal of fun. Running around a city as a super cop with a friend is a ton of fun. While the game doesn't offer a ton of things to do, your nature as a super cop makes a bit of a “create your own fun” tone to the game. Adding to the fun is a very interesting list of achievements, ranging from doing a barrel roll in your car, to keeping some airborne for 13 seconds, to even jumping into a little tiny pond from the highest building in the game. The free downloads so far look like the game could have a promising future. At least check this one out for a rental.

Game Score

B

Reviewed By: Jesse Littlefield