Crackdown Review for Xbox 360

     When Crackdown was coming out a long, long time ago, it's sales were boosted by the fact that if you bought the game you would get access to the Halo 3 multiplayer beta. That led practically every gamer to assume that this game would suck and the beta was just a way to get us to buy it. Well it did get everyone to buy it but the surprising thing was that Crackdown was actually good. It was fun and addictive. I've definitely spent my fair share playing the game back in the day so I thought I would give it another go to review it for the site.

Gameplay

+ Be something more than human - Think of playing Grand Theft Auto when you're just messing about with the world. Personally, that's what I felt was the only draw from the GTA series and Crackdown evolves that fun.
     Being that you're a genetically enhanced super cop, you can do everything better than a normal person. At first you can jump around the height of a one-story building, toss trash cans, drive special cars, toss grenades that make small enough explosions to almost take out one person. As you use these skills to annihilate gangs, you'll get orbs that pop out from the defeated that swarm into you, leveling up your abilities. By the time you've maxed out your skills, you can jump 4-5 stories high, use explosives that will now take out an entire city block if not more, pick up and toss tanker trucks.
     As you level up, your character's appearance also changes. He'll gain anything from new armor, tattoo, and hairstyles, to piercings and facial hair. My favorite of all is when you level up your driving and the car you're using changes with you. Not only will the car gain it's own abilities and just become all around better, it will physically change it's appearance every time you step in and out. Imagine a modern BMW transforming into the batmobile (not the tumbler) before your eyes. Every time I get in and out of the car, I actually stop what I'm doing just to see it go from normal to super and back to normal. Great stuff!


+ Do what you want, when you want to - There are specific tasks for you to do in Crackdown but you're never forced to ever do them or do them in any order whatsoever. I'm actually sure that it's more likely you'll get hooked to leveling up your agent than actually progressing through the game.


+ So many orbs, so little time... - Everyone feels this in Crackdown; You jump onto a building and collect a batch of agility orbs and it explodes into little orbs everywhere! Then you see another batch on the roof of a building across the street. After grabbing that one, you'll see another, and another, and another until you collect all 500! People will normally state this as the number one reason why they began to get addicted. And what a wonderful affliction it is. 

= Now what? - Even given all of the things you can in Crackdown, it seems that a lot of the fun comes from yourself. What do you want to do in this no-limits playground? If you run out of ways to make your own fun, it can get boring really fast. When it comes to doing the normal missions and side missions, they don't really feel different enough to stop the feeling of monotony. It's not a terrible problem but extra motivation to keep progressing through the game would have been nice.

Story and Presentation.

+ Wanna star in a comic book? - I can't recall this exactly but I remember reading a developer diary when the game was still in development, and they were talking about what they were trying to go for with the visuals. They said the director had this view of a city overrun by gangs and the like but he wanted it to look like it came out of a comic book. They nailed it perfectly. I've seen cel-shading in games before (Jet Set/Grind Radio series, Zelda Windwaker, Sonic Shuffle, Borderlands, etc) but this one seems to do something different to give it that awesome comic feel. The textures and effects have this hybrid aesthetic of looking hand-drawn and being real at the same time.

= Only if you want to... - While not having the most enthralling story ever, it does enough that when you do make progress, you feel like you've accomplished something worthwhile. The end of the game was a pretty decent surprise, decent enough to make me want to know exactly what happens next.

Graphics

= Style over substance - They easily nail the look they're going for but the game doesn't look much better on either a HDTV or a SDTV. These graphics will never blow you away. They just do enough to get the unique visuals to work.

Sound

= Humdrum - You really shouldn't care. It does have a soundtrack when you drive around sporting many multi-lingual sounds. I say, just use your own music and wreak havoc to your preferred music style. You won't miss the sound effects either.

Should you buy it?

     Rent it. And I think that everyone should, too. There will be those of you who love it and will buy it the first time you level up a skill. For everyone else, I'd suspect you'd have fun, just not enough to justify a purchase.
     This review was kinda tricky because there just isn't a whole lot to talk about when it comes to Crackdown. It boils down to how much you get out of the gameplay and how many "You gotta hear this" kind of stories you create. Just go out there and give the game a go. Just beware, collecting orbs is extremely addicting.

Crackdown was developed by Realtime Worlds and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. Played on Tough difficulty for 20+ hours only collecting 467 out of 500 agility orbs.