Crackdown Review - Ehhh
Crackdown is an open-city, futuristic shooter which packs in a good amount of next-gen thrills. You play as a super-human, scientific experiment, working for the only ones around to clean up the streets from evil gangs who are...well, everywhere. Where's Guliani when you need him?
The game looks good...at times. There is no excuse for the comic book cutscenes in this generation of gaming, but luckily the in-game world has a cartoony, yet good-looking look. Textures on buildings and rocks sure look good, and character models look good, even though you may see some pedestrians over and over and over...but that doesn't matter so much.
The game shines when it comes to the premise that makes Crackdown different from GTA games and GTA clones that have already hit the 360, like Saint's Row. The premise is that, being a 'super-cop' you can do some crazy things! As you go along, killing the different gang leaders that plague Pacific City, you'll develop your running, jumping, shooting, pick-up...ing, and driving skills. Before you know it, you'll go from picking up trash-cans, to picking up minivans and that's not even how far your limits take you!. You'll also be jumping across the city with minimal leaps, as you'll cross over rooftops with sickening speed. How do you get to the rooftops? Well, besides for stairs, basically any ledges can be grabbed onto, and you can push yourself higher and higher, getting a better view of the beautiful city as you get higher.
You can see the next-gen charm everywhere, from the damage that develops on your vehicles, to just how many different things you can rip off and/or pick up. As a cop, you've got to shoot and use melee attacks, and both are not very satisfying for the most part. Its always fun to kick a crime-boss while he's down, but shooting doesn't feel that good, with GTA-like targeting that we've seen again and again in games like this. Luckily, throwing a grenade and watching the debris fly high and bodies flop every which way with a crazy physics engine is great. Things explode real nice in this game, and creating a large car pile-up and watching the whole pile explode thanks to you is one of the best parts of the game. Driving mechanics are a mixed bag. Steering can be annoying, but there is a decent variety of vehicles, and you're skills at driving increase as you go along.
Despite how fun some of the things you can do are, it's very disappointing that the story and variety of what you do in the story is incredibly limited. You just kill mob boss and gang members and do it again and again...you kill one main guy (the only difference between him and his members is that he takes longer to kill and looks different) and you're on to another. Sure, you traverse all over the city as you go, but even the fun of that wears off after a while. Why? because there are constantly clusters of gangs attacking you and causing trouble. This was obviosuly a way to make the game feel intense, but while trying to get to the main men, you'll never have a break once you enter his area, since there will be a never-ending gang flood attacking you the entire time. Trust me, it can get pretty irksome. Besides the main storyline (or snoreyline!!!Oh, that wasn't too funny was it), all you have to do are some lame side-missions like races on foor or in car. Also note the repetitive voice samples and constant flow of information that interrupts your game to tell you that there's a guy who needs killing, and once you kill him, that it helped create problems for their gang!
Another problem is that there is no offline co-op with one 360 (WHAT!). There is downloadable content, but it costs money, and the $60 price tag (at this time of writing) may not be worth it to some gamers in the first place. If you like blowing things up and acting all super-hero (or villian) throughout a stylish future city...despite the fact that said city is filled with waves of repetitive gang members and almost nothing more to kill (without your boss yelling at you)...then this game will keep you busy. You'll have some great fun with the game no matter what, for a while, but its staying entertained for long that's the problem with Crackdown.
PROS:
- BOOOOOOM! Explosions are pretty
- Roof-jumping
- Stylish look
- A lot of things to pick up and throw
CONS:
- Not Enough Mission Variety at all
- Endless gang members are annoying!
- Bad story and Bad cutscenes
by SkcUslnd