Crackdown - Xbox 360 Review
Most of the GTA-type games focus on a bad-ass hoodlum working his way up the crime ladder, taking out cops, pimpin' ho's and taking out one boss after another on their steady rise up the ranks of street scum to overlord. Crackdown on the Xbox 360 takes the genre and turns it round. For once you are the good guy, tasked with single-handedly cleaning up the streets using whatever means necessary. Set in the future, you have the advantage of being genetically altered and able to power up to astonishing levels of strength, accuracy, agility and driving ability.
The game lets you loose on city streets with intel that there are three crime syndicates to take down, and gives you an assortment of vehicles and safe houses from which to do so in your own time, in your own way. Along the way there are plenty of opportunities to hone your skills, with racetracks, time challenges, climbing challenges and upgrades hidden around the city from the depths of the underpass to the top of the highest skyscrapers.
Combat is simple, lock on a target and take him out with guns, kicks, grenades, rockets or the roo bars on your 4x4. Each type of kill boosts a different skill, and as your skills mature you'll be able to leap higher, shoot more accurately, drive faster or destroy a bigger area. You work your way up the ladder of the gangs, taking sub-bosses who each contribute a specific attribute to the strength of the gang, weakening them and the defenses of the head honcho. It's a cool idea because if you can find him, there's nothing to stop you going for the head guy from the off, although without some of the better weapons and some additional strength and accuracy, you'll probably be cloning really quick.
Where the game lacks is in variety. Whereas GTA mixes stealth, gunfight and driving missions, all of your targets can be taken down with gunfire, the trick can be finding a route to their hideout, because some are right on top of skyscrapers, which means jumping from roof to roof, Matrix-style to get there. This is actually fun because some of the best upgrades are in hard to reach places, and I found myself abandoning the main objectives for hours as I worked to get that really tough upgrade on the top of a smooth-walled building. In addition the driving, stunt and climbing challenges are fun but for me they weren't exciting enough to distract me for long.
Graphically this game looks great, superbly detailed and animated, it is smooth, with enjoyable physics and great lighting effects as the game cycles through day and night. The bad guys are reasonably smart,and some prove a real challenge. Fortunately when you die you don't have to restart a mission - you respawn and the bad guys regenerate at a reasonable rate that when you return to the fortress often their forces are still depleted.
On the multiplayer side there's a cool Xbox-live co-op mode allowing people to join in to your solo game or for you to go looking for someone to co-op with.
All in all this is an excellent game, and a refreshing change to play a GTA game without the guilt of being the bad guy. Of course you can still turn bad if you want to, but if that floats your boat, go and buy GTA instead. It doesn't have the depth of the games it aspires to be but it is a great stopgap and there are many hours of fun to be had exporing a beautifully rendered sandbox and cleaning up the streets.
This page has been read:
2053
times