Crackdown is by far the best open world super hero game on the 360, nearly topping inFamous as the greater!
You're a new recruit to the Agency, the law enforcement agency struggling to keep Pacific City under control. Pacific City is made up of several small islands comprising three large districts, each run by a different large scale organised crime group, affecting the city with their own distinct flavour of nastiness. The opening words of the narrative sums it up perfectly, "It's all gone to **** Your mission is to clean up the city, one crime boss at a time. Thankfully, the Agency has some nifty technology at its disposal, the most important being the augmentations your character receives, enabling superhuman abilities that evolve as you progress through the game. The three areas of the city are run by three rival groups, the thugs of Los Muertos, the mobsters of The Volk, and the brainwashed inductees of the Shai Gen conglomerate. Before taking on whoever is at the reigns of the operation, you'll need to start small, defeating their henchman one at a time, which affects the group in different ways. Take out the defense expert of the Shai Gen, and the enemies defending the leaders fortress will be less capable of doing so. Each time you take out a henchman, the Agency recalculates the odds of you winning a battle with the leader. How does it play, I here you ask? Like every game ever based on the Matrix, or Marvel IP should have. Just starting out, you can jump around 10 feet, and jumping around in a video game hasn't been this fun since Mirrors Edge. When you're airborne, you get this fantastic sensation of brief weightlessness before dropping into free fall. Hit the ground from high enough and you'll cause cracks in the pavement along with a mighty thud. Everything pumps along at an intense speed, even before you've built your characters stamina, and especially so once you have. Capcom take note, Lost Planet would've been infinitely more enjoyable had the protagonist been able to run this fast. Take over supply points scattered over the city, and then once you die you can regenerate at any one of the supply points, thanks to the Agencies advanced cloning techniques. It's always nice when a game's plot smoothes over the holes in those oh-so unrealistic game conventions (Lost Planet did this with it's arctic setting, using thermal energy and giving the tired medipack convention a rest). Take any weapons you find back to a supply depot and you can then grab one from a supply depot at any time, with full ammo. What really makes the game shine is just how free you are to do what you want. Your contact at the agency will let you know when you're out of your depth, but you're free to cruise around the entire city at will the moment you step into the game, it's really fun to do this, and remains fun to re explore each time you increase the maximum height of your jump. You're also free to tackle the missions however you'd like, charge in the front door with guns blazing, or take the time to scope out the surroundings and find a more stealthy approach. You can decide to specialise in whatever skill you'd like early on, or just play and let it all happen, and there's no lousy gym mini games like Saints Row 2 or Sanandreas, so you'll not be reduced to mere button tapping once. Your character has five core abilities that can be advanced: Agility, Strength, Explosives, Firearms and Driving. Once you've maxed them out, you'll be able to perform a number of incredibly neat tricks, scaling massive buildings in a couple of effortless hops, picking up a bus and throwing it at an enemy 150 feet away, and taking enemies out for good with one swift roundhouse to the head. Agility is built by finding the 500 Agility orbs scattered throughout the map, Strength is built by taking out opponents with projectiles or your fists, Driving is built by taking out opponents with a vehicle, or completing races, and the remainder should be self-explanatory. There's also 300 Hidden orbs that give all your stats a boost. I'm perfectly aware this is all old news as far as game mechanics go, but where Crackdown has succeeded is that in a vast majority of circumstances, it doesn't feel like a chore to build your stats, which is handy, as you'll want to be maxed out by the time you even think about taking on the final boss (which I have yet to do). As a whole, the package is beautifully presented. The art style is cel shaded, which is a brave option to take amongst the current climate of graphical powerhouses like Gears of War 2 and Fable 2, but it's executed well, and meshes with the super hero theme. While it's definitely pretty, the level of detail is not quite there when compared to the aforementioned, but allowances have to be made for a pumping frame rate that rarely skips, and a really impressive draw distance that makes things feel more like a sand city than a sandbox. The cutscenes, which appear as intelligence updates regarding the henchmen you're up against, are particularly well done, superbly animated, and entertaining enough that I never felt the need to skip them. What really lets down the presentation is the in game HUD. It's functional enough, it's just that it looks like crap, particularly the tacometer that appears once you jump into a car. I can't figure out why vital information like health and armour is hidden away in the top left hand corner of the screen, while your less important skill statistics are given more real estate in a more prominent position. What I can figure out, is that when my major complaint with the presentation consists of something so trivial, they've done a pretty damn good job with it.
Everything sounds great, the pop and hiss of an incoming RPG, the thud of hitting the ground after a 100 foot fall, the smack of the butt of your rifle hitting an enemies face, and the roar of your super-car hitting 100 MPH down the main strip. The voice of your contact at the Agency is hilarious, and laden with satire. Having incoming communications like "Pedestrians are a barely tolerable nuisance" or "That music is a clear indication of illegal activity! Get in there and shut that party down!" are an effective comedic interlude to the intense action. Music only plays when you jump in a car, but you can hear muffled music coming from cars passing by, or nearby clubs which is a nice subtle detail. There's a couple of really nice tunes in here. There are some horrible, cheesey rock and dance songs though! Thankfully you can cycle through the tunes by using the LB and RB buttons. Simple enough. There is one massive problem, well two. I have nearly completed the game already, and I have only had it for a day. The other, the gameplay is very repeative, and you'll see yourself doing certain things, over and over again! Ahh! But, Crackdown has proven itself as another must have title entirely of it's own merit, snatching the title of most enjoyable sandbox game from Saints Row 2, and finally gifting the world with an enjoyable super hero game, and lets face it, it was always going to take a developer without a movie or comic license to deliver one, given that licensed games sell no matter how badly they stink, and developers subsequently see making them not stink as a waste of time. Another exclusive title of this caliber is a huge asset for Microsoft. I'd say it's not long before Microsoft finds themselves another franchise as prolific as Halo. I suspect Crackdown will still be fresh in players minds and hearts when Mass Effect 2 is released in 2010, or Splinter Cell Conviction, and much like Gears of War, Crackdown is going to have one hell of a sequel next year! Fact!
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Good Points: Stunning graphics and gameplay, good action, amazing selection of music and sound effects, brutal combat and funny as hell voice acting!
Bad Points: Not long enough, some repeative combat and gameplay, a few bugs and glitches.