Crackdown is a futuristic, next generation, online take on the wide-open Grand Theft Auto genre. You play as a super-human agent assigned to take out the filth that has starting filling up all corners of your city. The city’s thousands of gangsters have grouped together into three criminal organizations: Cai-Shen Corp, an Asian gang that uses hitmen to extract revenge, The Volk, a Russian gang that specializes in guns, and La Muerta, a Spanish group that loves cars. Your overall goal as an agent is to defeat the bosses of these organizations, bringing peace to the city.
Enforce justice by any means necessary in a crime-ridden urban center built to encourage the exploration of the full width, depth, and height of the city. Coupled with online co-op gameplay, a first for the genre, and an interactive world where nearly anything can be used as a weapon, create a volatile cocktail of action as you clean up the streets. You are a one-man super army, but if the going gets too tough, a friend can jump in and play along with you in co-op mode to bring an unstoppable crime fighting force to Pacific City. All strategies and tactics are acceptable provided you reclaim the streets by unleashing the awesome potential inside each Agent.
As you develop and hone your gameplay skills, your Agent’s genetic tendencies will increase. Run at dazzling speeds, take death-defying leaps, perform impossible vehicular maneuvers, move massive objects, and deliver bone-crushing blows. Low on ammo? No problem. Thanks to an amazing amount of props and a deep physics system, use whatever you can get your hands on as weapons — trashcans, vehicles, even people — to clean the streets of crime. From its initial concept to its final design, Real Time Worlds focused on delivering dynamic, engaging, cooperative gameplay for double the carnage, action, and intensity. Wage war on the syndicates by taking part in high-octane chases on foot and on wheels while using any appropriate route along, around, across, over, under, or through the environment.
Crackdown is full of good ideas, but will it survive on its own merits, or will it just be the game that gave you an invite to play in the Halo 3 beta test? Find out in this Crackdown video review.
The main features in Crackdown are:
* True next-gen visuals: Harnessing the amazing power of Xbox 360, Crackdown players enforce justice against the backdrop of a crime-ridden metropolis that is massive in scale and meticulous in detail. The game’s unique presentation employs a highly stylized rendering technique that turns it into a living, breathing graphical novel.
* Double the mayhem: From the initial conception, Crackdown has been built to feature a dynamic and engaging co-op experience for double the action, carnage, and intensity.
* Free-form gameplay: For the first time ever, every inch of an urban playground has been designed for you to explore and exploit. Use any route necessary as you take down the crime syndicates, going under, around, or through the environment however you choose.
* Over-the-top action: Get the job done, no matter what it takes. Any strategy or tactic is acceptable, so long as you re-claim the streets. Unleash the awesome powers of your agent, developing his full genetic potential, becoming faster and stronger, learning bone-crushing moves, using outrageous weapons, and defying certain death at every turn.
* Environmental weaponry: Low on ammo? Never a problem. Thanks to an amazing amount of props and a deep physics system, you can use whatever you get your hands on as a weapon: Trash cans, vehicles, even people. Set the scene for mass destruction with a game that remembers your actions better than you do. Gather vehicles to assemble barricades, build epic piles of explosives, push it to the limit. Crackdown can take it.
To quote the video review: “The weapons, though vast and plentiful, just don’t have the umph you expect from games like this. Whether you’re firing a pistol or a fully automatic machine gun, they all convey the same sense of power, which is to say next to none.
Crackdown is one of those games that sounds like it’s full of good ideas until they’re actually put to use. The role-playing elements are addictive for a while, and it can be fun to play in this sandbox, setting up massive explosions and stunts, but the actual game is seriously lacking in a number of areas, and compared to the other GTA clones on the market, it falls firmly into the middle. Ultimately, the game will be known more for supplying tickets to the Halo 3 beta test than its own accomplishments.”
Story — 6.5
Design — 7.8
Gameplay — 7.4
Overall — 7.5