Imagine a short story of Peter Parker, except he's a cop rather than a photographer and you've got Crackdown.
Now, before you start complaining and say, “But I don’t want to be the Fuzz!” do know that Crackdown isn’t like many other games in its genre. And by this, I’m referring to how, like GTA before it, Crackdown is a sandbox game. You’ve got all the basics like being able to steal other people’s cars, run civilians over and take part in gang battles. But unlike many other GTA rip-offs, Crackdown decides to take your character, inject him with steroids, caffeine and a whole load of kick-ass. Unlike just about every singe GTA clone out there, Crackdown’s emphasis is action as you break the boundaries of a regular human being.
Basically, you’re given multiple abilities such as being able to pick up cars, jump to insane heights, and even cause certain cars to morph. Initially you can’t do all of this, you need to work your way up. Crackdown has an RPG-like leveling system in which you have five skills, each of which are measured by stars, allowing you to reach a total of four stars. These five skills are agility, driving, explosive effects, strength and firearm use. Three of these skills can only be improved by killing gang members by utilizing that skill. So, killing gang members with guns increases your firearm skill, killing with grenades, rockets or any other method involving explosives raises explosive skill and strength is improved by beating enemies up. Driving skills can be improved by either running enemies over, performing insane stunts (usually in midair) or doing checkpoint races.
As for agility, you’ll need to either collect agility orbs scattered across the city or set new records on rooftop races. This is where the game’s exploration comes into play since you can find two different kinds of orbs. There are agility orbs which increase your agility and hidden orbs which raise all of your skills by a small percentage. There are a total of five-hundred agility orbs and three-hundred hidden orbs, so there’s plenty to look for during your free-time in the game. And trust me when I say this, you’ll want to find these orbs if you hope to increase your skill. Otherwise you might as well schedule your next few dozen clones to be ready off the assembly line.
Yes, you heard me right; Crackdown has an excuse for why you can keep on coming back to life. Apparently during the future in Pacific City cloning is possible, so whenever you die, a clone will come to take over its predecessor. It may not sound like much, and the game might not be the most realistic considering your abilities, it’s still nice to see at least one game make an excuse for why you come back to life. And don’t worry about losing your character’s progress when dying; your clone will take on the attributes of their precursor.
So, what’s the story behind Crackdown you might ask? Well, funny you should ask, since about all the game offers in this department is you trying to take out the three leading gangs of Pacific City-the Los Muertos, Volk and Shai Gen. That’s it, nothing more, nothing less; aside from the nameless Agency leader who gives you advice, with lame dialogue, lots of lame, corny dialogue. While some of the lines he says may get a chuckle out of you, most of them are random and flat-out awful at their best. Oh, and yes, since you are able to climb skyscrapers you will hear him utter “I can see my house from here".
But the story isn’t what Crackdown’s about, it’s about the crazy action, and it does this exceptionally well. Once you begin to improve upon your skills the true game will begin to come out. This is where Crackdown really shines, as it manages to nail off the concept of wacky, a**-kicking in every sense of the word. With being able to morph your Agency Supercar into a Batmobile look-alike and let your SUV do long jumps, kick enemies several feet away in one hit and kill enemies by jumping from rooftop to rooftop, style is what Crackdown is all about.
And Crackdown has an interesting style to its visuals to help accompany the game’s crazy attitude. Rather than just focus on making the game look realistic, Crackdown uses a graphics engine that draws a combination of cell-shaded and realistic visuals. The result is a stellar look to the game that, while not the most technically proficient, proves to give the game a bit of flavor. Pacific City itself is nicely detailed, from the buildings, to the water and cars. On the other hand, the character models are less than impressive; not even your character looks that detailed. You’ll also notice the framerate dip in a few areas when the action gets really intense, primarily when you chain together explosions that could rival a nuke. Fortunately, Crackdown’s graphical style manages to outweigh its few performance issues and graphical shortcomings.
The game’s sound and audio isn’t so solid, more like absurd and barely passing quality. As I indicated earlier, the voiceovers and dialogue are about as bad as a game can possibly get. Crackdown’s radio soundtrack is pretty large, though incredibly forgettable with almost no recognizable artists. The audio and effects are what really help the game rise above being a failure in regard to its sound. Each car in the game has its own distinctive tune and most of them sound as you’d expect, though there are obviously a few exceptions as with any game with as many cars as Crackdown. As for the weapons, they usually sound realistic, although I can’t say a light machinegun sounding muffled compared to an assault rifle isn’t exactly fitting.
Next to the sound, Crackdown’s biggest weakness is its longevity, which is becoming a standard weakness for just about every game out there now. While the game can potentially hold your attention for a few short sittings if you explore a bit, it’s possible to beat the game in about ten hours. Beyond those few hours the only thing you’ll have left is collecting all the orbs, maxing out your skills and getting the last few achievements. Unfortunately, these side objectives in their own right are uninteresting and not that fun to take on if you’ve already beaten the game. There is a cooperative mode, which is a hit or miss depending on your taste and tolerance of certain issues, but it really isn’t a necessary addition for a short game like this.
Crackdown is likely to be a game in most 360 owner’s collections strictly to gain access to the Halo 3 beta. But for those who are planning to get a 360 or are thinking about getting this game, I’ll give you my recommendation. If you’re wondering if Crackdown is worth your time, the answers’s a yes, but since it likely won’t hold your attention for long, wait for the price to go down and/or for the beta’s release to be announced. If you’re a die-hard Halo fan that simply needs to get anything Halo 3 ASAP, then do what you think is necessary. Otherwise, depending on whether you’re a fan of Halo or not, either rent the game or just wait for a price drop and beta release announcement. In it’s own right though, Crackdown is a good game well worth checking out, but it just doesn’t manage to have enough to hold your attention.