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The Halo 3 beta comes with a quite good free game. Crackdown, an open structure game from Real Time Worlds, really runs with the idea of being an open structure, “sandbox” game. The result is an ultimately fun game, although the lack of structure is readily evident and sometimes a detractor
In Crackdown, you play as a new breed of supercop out to improve the streets of Pacific City by ridding it off the three gangs fighting for control of the city. Your goal is to take out each gang by eliminating each gang’s seven leaders. True to its sandbox nature, the game lets you choose which gang you can take on although in practice you’ll notice that is a logical pattern to follow based on how powerful your character is.
The game is very light on plot as the game focuses squarely on fighting the various gang leaders and evolving your character along the way. Aside from simply beating up on gang members, the game has two side missions: a vehicle-based race and another on-foot rooftop race. The main singleplayer mode will only take about ten hours to complete, although it can take longer if you don’t work on improving your skills aside from the actual battles. Of course, as a sandbox game, you will spend plenty of hours simply causing mayhem, particularly later in the game when it is so easy to do so.
Crackdown focuses on five main abilities. You gain agility by collecting orbs located on rooftops. Increasing your ability lets you increase your jumping skills from a decent jump to the ability to jump from rooftop to rooftop. The other abilities don’t require collecting items and simply improve the more you use them. As you gain strength you’ll increase your health and eventually be able to do things like throw cars and kick enemies and watch them fly. As you gain driving skill, you’ll notice improved car speed and handling, as well as the ability to request powerful cars from the agency. These vehicles have special abilities like the ability to host a machine gun. As you gain firearm skills, you’ll unlock an improved auto-lock system that is faster and more responsive. Finally, the game includes an explosion skill that increases the radius of grenades or rockets. All in all, you begin with a relatively unimpressive character but near the end you are a true supercop.
A full cooperative mode is included in Crackdown. You can join other games or enable people (or just friends) to join your singleplayer game. While the experience isn’t obtrusive, it could be a little more intuitive. Having someone join your game means that you will have to stop playing and reload the game, and you’ll notice that the game ends if the other person quits. Of course, coop works best when players are about equally skilled. If not, the leveled-up character will have a very easy and unrewarding time and the other player won’t get to do much of anything.
As expected, Crackdown’s visual highlight is the large, detailed city that the game renders. Realtime Worlds made sure to craft a distinct city with noticeable skyscrapers and a nice skyline. The game does have a few indoor areas, which look pretty good and which you can enter without seeing a loading screen. The character models are fairly impressive, although they have a bizarre mix of fully-textured 3D characters with cel-shaded style outlines around them. Technically speaking, Crackdown’s framerate is top-notch and the draw distance is among the most impressive of this generation.
The audio in Crackdown won’t blow your mind, but gets the job done. The game’s inoffensive soundtrack plays when you’re in cars, but it comes along with a noticeable pop-up advertising the artist’s name and track title. The sound effects are probably the highlight of the package thanks to crisp and powerful explosions and gunfire. The game also features an announcer, which blurts out a few repetitive lines here and there.
Crackdown succeeds in building a city that you want to explore, and giving you the ability to simply mess around and have a good time. Crackdown is certainly a good game and recommended for fans of sandbox style games, but unfortunately, the limited singleplayer mode and sparse side modes keep the game from being a must-buy for everyone. Oh, and remember, it does come with an invitation to the Halo 3 beta. -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Mar 5, 2007
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