Few games give you the satisfaction of nailing someone in the face with a cinderblock like Crackdown for the Xbox 360...
Graphics: 10
The graphics in crackdown are unbeatable for this genre. The draw distance is perfect. If you find a tall enough building, or The Keep (the Agency tower) You can see every nook and cranny of Pacific city. The environment looks great and the framerate is high, and stays high, Unless Havok (The physics engine in the game) is overworking the CPU, say during an explosion with alot of of movable objects.
Audio: 8
The Audio in Crackdown is very well done, though you won't nitice it with a little mono speaker tv... The explosions are deep and loud as thunder, The car sound FX are better than any in it's genre. The sould is great, but ths Music?... not so much.... It's mostly Hispanic, and none of it is real, licenced music. And the games announcer is just plain annoying He constantly tells you things you already know, or gives false information. If you buy Crackdown, do yourself a favor and turn the voice and music down to zero... Don't worry, you still hear everything, the only thing you don't hear is the announcer, and in-car radio.
Gameplay: 9
Crackdown is an awesome gameplay expiriance, One thing that I personally like better than GTA or Saint's Row (though I love both of them too...) is how you play. You don't have to follow a story, or do a mission a certain way. Your not forced into annoying time limits, Your not forced into impossible races, or having to give people rides to fifty places within two seconds... That stuff always drove me crazy... In crackdown, you take these gangs out how YOU want to. You can take the safe route like me, and take out all of the gang generals and then the leader, or you can take the hard route and head strait for the head honcho. And the edition of co-op through the entire campain is awesome. But that leads to a problem or two... I was informed by intervies, TV, friends and such that co-op was seamless. You could be playing, and someone would request to join, and they'd simply be in there with you. But instead, you have to stop what you are doing, and RELOAD your game in co-op mode. and when that player leaves, you have to stop again, and restart the game entirely... That's pretty annoying. and even after the patch was released to address co-op lag, If your friend has a slow internet connection YOU pay for it... That's right, the host of the game gets lag because of a friend's bad connection... Iv'e noticed this because One freind joined with a Fiber optic connection and no lag was present. Another friend joined with Sattelite internet... It was barely playable. I gave Gamelpey a 9 instead of a 10 for these reasons. Don't let that stop you from buying Crackdown, It is still an amazing game. Even with the issues Co-op is an overdue addition to this genre... Ever since GTA 3, wev'e all wanted it...
If you get a copy with the sacred marking of Halo 3 on the fron't, you also have a little extra chunk of gaming heaven. Sometime this spring, you will have acces to the Halo 3 Beta program. My sources say it will be some time in April. You will need your Crackdown disc to play it. and the Program won't be running forever. Once the beta time has expired, you won't be able to play the beta anymore. Iv'e heard alot of people have been buying this just for the Beta... It's not worth spending 60 smackers over... I hope that all of you who bought this just for the beta will actually play this game and see how great it really is...
Gameplay: 9
Graphics: 10
Sound: 8
Value: 10
Tilt: 10
9.2