Crackdown - Review
Added May 1st, 2007 by Dakota Grabowski
If I were to poll 100 gamers why they bought Crackdown in February, I am positive over 80% of them would acknowledge the Halo 3 beta factored into their purchase. Who would ever pass up on a chance to play Halo 3 early?
While I am sure a majority bought Crackdown because of the Halo 3 beta attached to the title, many of those had to at least attempt to play the game. Who would allow a $50 game to sit in its sealed package?
For those who haven’t followed Crackdown, it was created by the brilliant mind behind Grand Theft Auto – David Jones. I had an opportunity to meet David at E3 and talk to him about Crackdown. David ultimately said that he wanted Crackdown to be a living world where people could toy around with their weapons and special abilities. I didn’t question the storyline or characters at the time of the interview. It’s apparent that I should have questioned the storyline that Real Time Worlds was creating.
I stress that I should have asked him about the storyline because it’s bare bones. The premise of Crackdown is you are a “super-cop” ridding the city of street gangs. That’s basically it – nothing more, nothing less. Each gang is lead by a kingpin that employs six generals to help control their island. There are three islands which equates to three gangs. The three gangs, in order of difficulty, are: Los Muertos, The Volk, and Shai-Gen. Sadly, the kingpins aren’t anything special besides having 3-5 health-bars to deplete and stronger weapons than their lackeys.
Throughout the game, your character will level up and change in appearance. By the end of the game, your character should look massive and be able to jump over 50 feet high. There are five skills to level up in: Agility, Driving, Explosives, Strength, and Firearms. The weapons included in Crackdown are a diverse set, but the heat-seeking rocket ended up being my weapon of choice. The rest – including the grenades – became nothing more than inventory I had to cycle through.
For the most part, while playing through Crackdown I was overjoyed and entertained. This usually was because I was playing cooperative online with a college buddy of mine. The co-op play is well done and I am hoping more open-ended sandbox titles look at Crackdown for a blue-print. I honestly think that the next Batman title could be modeled after Crackdown and become a success despite previous lackluster games in the franchise.
Moving on though, I raced through the game and before I knew it, it was over in less than six hours. I had completed the storyline and my excitement for Crackdown lowered dramatically. At one time, Crackdown was earning high praise from me as one of the top notch titles on Xbox Live, but with completing it so quick it turned out to be another solid game but no ‘AAA’ title. The only replay value left, besides playing co-op to help friends, is collecting all the orbs to max my character out.
The online itself runs smoothly, but there will be difficulties from time to time. With a large and expansive world to traverse through – being open with no invisible barriers – your partner can locate themselves on a different island cleaning up the streets of gang members. This creates a problem when you attempt to enter the vicinity of a gang general that needs to load up, but never does. Often times I had to restart the game and re-open the co-op in order for the game to load up the generals that I needed to defeat for the story to advance.
If gamers don’t have online to play co-op, there are a few other avenues of replay value. Collecting orbs to max your character may seem like a waste, but leveling up your avatar will provide interesting abilities. The agency cars will become beefed up, your avatar will gain gigantic WWE-esque muscles, and of course being able to leap tall buildings is included in the package. Car fanatics can take the vehicles and perform stunts to occupy their time. But, alas, if you are looking for side-quests, mini-games, puzzles to solve, or even unlockables, Crackdown has virtually none after the storyline is completed.
But, I will give credit where credit is due. Crackdown doesn’t have too many annoying camera issues and the controls are easy to grasp a hold. I had no trouble playing through Crackdown, so there were no hurdles I had to jump to enjoy the game while I played it. With the lack of a stellar storyline, I am left with one concluding remark. The ending sucks – I couldn’t stop laughing at the trite material Real Time Worlds has provided.
Summary:
Crackdown is definitely not as addicting as crack. I’ll admit I was hooked for the first five hours, but as the game waned on, so did the entertainment of the game. After completing it in less than six hours, I am not as impressed as I was when I began the campaign. Be wary with Crackdown, it’s a short roller-coaster ride that ends abruptly with all signs pointing to a sequel.
While I am sure a majority bought Crackdown because of the Halo 3 beta attached to the title, many of those had to at least attempt to play the game. Who would allow a $50 game to sit in its sealed package?
For those who haven’t followed Crackdown, it was created by the brilliant mind behind Grand Theft Auto – David Jones. I had an opportunity to meet David at E3 and talk to him about Crackdown. David ultimately said that he wanted Crackdown to be a living world where people could toy around with their weapons and special abilities. I didn’t question the storyline or characters at the time of the interview. It’s apparent that I should have questioned the storyline that Real Time Worlds was creating.
I stress that I should have asked him about the storyline because it’s bare bones. The premise of Crackdown is you are a “super-cop” ridding the city of street gangs. That’s basically it – nothing more, nothing less. Each gang is lead by a kingpin that employs six generals to help control their island. There are three islands which equates to three gangs. The three gangs, in order of difficulty, are: Los Muertos, The Volk, and Shai-Gen. Sadly, the kingpins aren’t anything special besides having 3-5 health-bars to deplete and stronger weapons than their lackeys.
Throughout the game, your character will level up and change in appearance. By the end of the game, your character should look massive and be able to jump over 50 feet high. There are five skills to level up in: Agility, Driving, Explosives, Strength, and Firearms. The weapons included in Crackdown are a diverse set, but the heat-seeking rocket ended up being my weapon of choice. The rest – including the grenades – became nothing more than inventory I had to cycle through.
For the most part, while playing through Crackdown I was overjoyed and entertained. This usually was because I was playing cooperative online with a college buddy of mine. The co-op play is well done and I am hoping more open-ended sandbox titles look at Crackdown for a blue-print. I honestly think that the next Batman title could be modeled after Crackdown and become a success despite previous lackluster games in the franchise.
Moving on though, I raced through the game and before I knew it, it was over in less than six hours. I had completed the storyline and my excitement for Crackdown lowered dramatically. At one time, Crackdown was earning high praise from me as one of the top notch titles on Xbox Live, but with completing it so quick it turned out to be another solid game but no ‘AAA’ title. The only replay value left, besides playing co-op to help friends, is collecting all the orbs to max my character out.
The online itself runs smoothly, but there will be difficulties from time to time. With a large and expansive world to traverse through – being open with no invisible barriers – your partner can locate themselves on a different island cleaning up the streets of gang members. This creates a problem when you attempt to enter the vicinity of a gang general that needs to load up, but never does. Often times I had to restart the game and re-open the co-op in order for the game to load up the generals that I needed to defeat for the story to advance.
If gamers don’t have online to play co-op, there are a few other avenues of replay value. Collecting orbs to max your character may seem like a waste, but leveling up your avatar will provide interesting abilities. The agency cars will become beefed up, your avatar will gain gigantic WWE-esque muscles, and of course being able to leap tall buildings is included in the package. Car fanatics can take the vehicles and perform stunts to occupy their time. But, alas, if you are looking for side-quests, mini-games, puzzles to solve, or even unlockables, Crackdown has virtually none after the storyline is completed.
But, I will give credit where credit is due. Crackdown doesn’t have too many annoying camera issues and the controls are easy to grasp a hold. I had no trouble playing through Crackdown, so there were no hurdles I had to jump to enjoy the game while I played it. With the lack of a stellar storyline, I am left with one concluding remark. The ending sucks – I couldn’t stop laughing at the trite material Real Time Worlds has provided.
Summary:
Crackdown is definitely not as addicting as crack. I’ll admit I was hooked for the first five hours, but as the game waned on, so did the entertainment of the game. After completing it in less than six hours, I am not as impressed as I was when I began the campaign. Be wary with Crackdown, it’s a short roller-coaster ride that ends abruptly with all signs pointing to a sequel.
