Crackdown gives you cool abilities to toy with, but there probably isn't enough content to keep you interested for long
In Crackdown, you play as a superhuman cop sent out to eliminate 3 major gangs throughout a giant city. Each gang has seven leaders, and they're all scattered around on various islands of the city. Other than that, there's no actual plot to speak of, but surprisingly, the game doesn't really need one. The fun factor in this game definitely makes up for some of the lack of a plot.
The controls are very easy to pick up. Once you're sent out from your Agency headquarters, you're free to do whatever you want. Your character has superhuman strength, so he'll be able to climb up buildings and smash cars right off the bat. Your abilities will be increased by finding orbs scattered on top of buildings or by completing missions. Speaking of missions, there isn't an awful lot of structure to them. Instead of a game like GTA 4, you just have to travel to where the gang leader is, not to a mission icon.
Each leader is usually on top of a building or some sort of tall structure. But be warned, he or she is always well surrounded with gang members. Both fortunately and unfortunately (for some people like me), the gang members are pretty easy to take down. You have regenerating health like Call of Duty, so you can just take out an enemy or two, hide behind a corner for five or so seconds, then come out and go back in, guns blazing. Your enemies do seem to take quite a lot of damage from your machine guns, so you'll often have to take the enemies' weapons.
There are some cars to drive around in, and they drive surprisingly well (in my opinion), but there's rarely any need to use them. The side missions are almost exactly like the main missions, except with less gang members to take out. You can play the game cooperatively with another person, but the drop-in system could use some work. If someone requests to join your game and you say yes, you'll automatically get kicked from the session, and you'll have to tell the person to invite you back. You're probably better off playing with someone who's around the same in the ability category. It's not fun when you're playing with a veteran gamer who's already maxed out his abilities and can jump onto buildings while you have to take the stairs. By the time you get up there, the gang leader will already be killed by the other player, so it sucks some of the fun out of it.
The audiovisual presentation is surprisingly good for a game made in early 2007. The environment is highly detailed, but it does have a futuristic look to it, especially the cars. The draw distance is also pretty impressive, since you'll see the two tallest skyscrapers from miles away. The audio during gameplay is solid--like all shooters these days--but there's nothing spectacular about it. The voice acting is OK but not great.
Crackdown has a neat idea and certainly does deliver on the fun factor. But what's missing is the depth in both the story missions and side missions. It's definitely fun to blow some stuff up and jump around either alone or with another player. But unfortunately, there isn't enough in-game content variety in Crackdown, preventing it from reaching its full potential of being something truly special.