Yes, I know I am a little behind the curve here. You have probably already read plenty of reviews on Crackdown, and have played it already if you were ever going to play it, but Crackdown certainly lived up to the hype and deserves my attention. If you have ever played GTA and wanted your character to be able to scale the buildings like spiderman, pick up cars, leap 50 feet from one roof to to another, and morph a car/truck/SUV into a super car then this is your game. Players will spend most of their time searching for the never-ending supply of green agility orbs in an attempt to make their character jump farther and higher. When you max out at 4-stars, it may be the ability to morph the Agency Vehicles based on driving skill that catches your eye. Or perhaps those 5 ton concrete pipes are just begging to be thrown by raising your strength meter.
Whatever ability has caught your eye, one thing is sure: the storyline will not be the reason you buy Crackdown. That is not to say the story sucks, but rather that the bulk of the game lies in progressing your abilities, racing in your upgraded SUV/Supercar, or leaping around for a rooftop race. You will find the bosses rather easy to kill, and there is not real story connecting them. Realtime Worlds (RtW hereafter) obviously pulled a page from the Mercenaries book on this front. As in Mercenaries, you must take out the lower ranked targets (cards) to get to the head hauncho, or Kingpin. What is different is that by taking out the Kingpin's pawns, your odds against the Kingpin rise in your favor. Each boss controls some aspect of the Kingpin's opperation: weapons, vehicles, recruiting, intelligence, and so on. This idea, though brilliant, is entirely underdeveloped. There is no noticeable difference in firepower, enemy density, intelligence (how do you measure that?) or anything that should be affected.
Story aside, this is a great game worth spending quite a few hours on. RtW did a great job mixing GTA with an RPG, and I was always hyped for my next ability star. I will never forget my first time reaching the top of the Agency tower, gaining my High Riser achievement in doing so, and taking one heck of a plunger hundreds of feet into the ocean below, to receive another achievement. Though I have seen frustration over the commentator/narrator, I loved hearing from him as he offered a bit of needed cheesyness-factor to relax the seriousness of the game. It is sad to say, but when you have hit 4-stars in all 5 abilities you will have to be XBox Live achievement driven to see replay/continued play in Crackdown. You will try desparately to reach 4-stars in agility, thinking how fun it will be to be able to leap from roof to roof, but when you reach that point you will realize that leaping from roof to roof, finding ways to the top of buildings, and looking for orbs is what you have been doing for the past 8 hours. Needless to say, the thrill of 4-stars will drain quickly.
Visually, this is an impressive game. Yes, there are nay-sayers but just climb to the top of the Agency Tower and take a look around you. If you aren't at least a little impressed, I'll eat my manual. The comic-book visuals, a page out of City of Heroes, are limited to the characters and cars fortunately. Buildings and scenery are impressive and the sunset is rather well done. All in all, RtW did a good job finding a balance between the comic-book feel and the GTA feel.
Bottom line: Crackdown was worth my $60 dollars to run through a quick, but entertaining, storyline and perform all sorts of interesting feats to reach my peak ability. Though I was obsessed for a week or so, long time obsession was not meant to be. Crackdown is now in my game drawer, halfway down the stack.
Overal Rating (out of 10): 8.0
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