It’s been called the free game that comes with the purchase of the Halo 3 demo. It’s been said that it’s just another Grand Theft Auto rip off. It’s too short, unfinished, and ugly. Some of these have some truth to them, others are just words spoken by people that don’t like this game. The game happens to be Crackdown, the futuristic super hero sandbox game.
Well I should probably start with this question: Is Crackdown unfinished? Maybe. On the initial difficulty, the game only lasts roughly 6-8 hours with very little story, only two types of races and a bunch of collectable orbs. I admit that I liked this game but parts of it do feel empty. The insides of some buildings are fully designed, yet there are no ways of getting in them. Some skills have numerous ways of improving them while others have just one and there are just a few other ideas that seem… trimmed down. Part of me wants to think that some developers do this for the ability to improve the sequel but that’s just a little conspiracy theory in my head.
As for being a Grand Theft Auto clone. That one is mostly false. The game plays much like Mercenaries, just swap the catalogue with super powers and you have about the same content.
The graphics give the game a comic book feel which suits the game perfectly. Another compliment I have to give out to this game is the design of the futuristic city. Crackdown simply sports the best looking and well designed futuristic city I’ve ever seen in a game. The cel shaded effect of the game does the typical trade off; quantity over quality. I’m not saying that the characters and building are ugly, it’s just that they don’t have that much detail on them. Fortunately that means a great draw distance and much more going on at the same time. Explosions abound and are terrific, scattering debris and most of the time bodies that are blessed with the Havok physics engine. I’ve only witnessed the games stutter while online, that could be due to lag so I really won’t hit the graphics department on that.
The audio department is a little shabby, not because of the sound effects but because the lack of dialogue and the quality of the original music. The music is just plain skippable as none of it is good enough to stand out. There is chatter among the pedestrians, gang members and bosses, and that is well done but that’s about all you’ll hear spoken besides the, sometimes annoying, agency announcer. The plot of the game is very thin. You’re a cop, there are three gangs with seven bosses each, go kill them. Dossiers are transmitted so you when you either lose your way or happen upon an area where a gang boss is. Each dossier contains a little background information on that boss and some tactics on how you should approach the situation. The ending seemed a little awkward, but the reason I think so would be a spoiler. Let’s just say that it does a sorry attempt at being clever.
Gameplay is where this game truly shines or falls apart depending on which side of the fence you’re standing on. There are 5 skills that you increase to become a better crime killing machine; agility, strength, driving, firearms and explosives. More than half of them have numerous ways to increase them. With firearms and explosives, you’re just stuck with killing people with weapons. With strength, you can either hurl objects, melee attack or kick objects into the baddies. Agility has orbs and roof top races and driving has races, stunts and you can always run over your foes. The game does a great job of making you feel like you’re progressing in the game as each level with offer new surprises and also a change in the look of your character.
The last complaint I’ll address is the one that says the game only lasts 6-8 hours. This is true if you ignore all the achievements, get bored of co-op and have the game set at the default setting. A quick raising of the difficulty and the game becomes much different. No longer will you feel like this unstoppable super tank as the gang members will quickly shred you with their automatic fire. It’s not until this humbling experience will you start reading the dossiers to get hints at hot to approach taking down the bosses and play with a little more strategy. Achievements add even more time to that and then toss in a fun co-op experience and you’re looking at adding about 100% or more to the original time.
My complaints would have to be the fact that I wish they did more with the game. Giving the bosses some sort of personality, making some side objectives on how to beat them ( In defense of the game, this did happen for a few bosses. There are a couple where you have to do some things to get access to the bosses ). Would have helped add more personality to the game. Speaking of personality, the word never feels like a true living city. There’s next to no interaction with the hundreds of people roaming around besides the occasional fender bender or gang member rampage. Seeing people that did more than walk or run would have been nice, and seeing more gang on gang fights would have made the world seem more authentic. Anyhow, with the amount of sales this game is likely to receive due impart or not to the Halo 3 beta invitation, I don’t see why a Crackdown 2 wouldn’t be in the works. It’s a solid first game but leaves a lot of room for improvements and fleshing out.
Review by Smerlus
Nometet.com says 82%
