Death_Burnout

WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 is the 9th game in the long running smackdown series, and recently the series has seen far better times, and so has the WWE its self, thankfully though THQ and Yukes have managed to bring the series back up to a respectable level. However, that doesn't mean to say that Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 is a complete overhaul from SvR 07, the game does have a handful of new features, but still, the game does has an incredible amount of bugs and visual glitches, such as clipping, pretty much all the same stuff from the last game. Again thankfully most of the irritating glitches from the last game have been touched upon.

Right off the bat the first thing you will notice is how streamlined the menus have become, for one thing when setting up an exhibition match, the matches are no longer categorized to the actual match type, instead its all been grouped under the amount of players that participate in the match, while this is certainly more user friendly, it does seem just a tad too messy how some of the match types have been placed into categories such as "6 man", also it's a little hard to find exactly what you want. The first new addition to the menu is the play now option, which essentially is just a standard quick play mode, plus you have your standard "game modes" which take up the main core of the game, and of course, your always welcome "create modes" The major new core game mode this year is the 24/7 mode which acts both as a season mode and the every popular GM mode, the season portion of the mode is pretty basic, you can either select a created superstar or one of 19 (sadly only 19 due to voiceovers) available regular superstars, the more well established the superstar, the higher in the "legend" status you will be, when playing a created superstar you start at the very bottom of the ladder and Your basic aim in this mode is to make it to "legend" status, but its not easy, your superstar has to train stats, such as stamina and strength along with quick challenges, train skill, such as camera skills and pain management, and perform daily activities such as autograph signing, these new additions along with the possibility of injuries add something interesting to the board, but look a little deeper and these features seem a little tacked on.

The Story lines them selves are the usual rivalry type of affairs, in between matches a standard cutscene will appear to try and help create some atmosphere, but these scenes are little to be desired, they usually feature your superstar strolling down a corridor bumping into other superstars who may be participating in your current story line, or just walking away from the ring in a bad and battered state, trouble is it usually makes no sense what so ever, you will see your superstar occasionally show good sportsmanship to your rivals for no reason, and the next, show disrespect to your partner, its clearly a rushed and flawed system. Other than that the 24/7 mode is somewhat enjoyable, its still no "Shut Your Mouth" kind of season, but it is at least a more free from ordeal.

Once again with the credits you earn-from 24/7 mode in this case-you can purchase a select few items such as legend wrestlers and alternate attires, moves sets and new to this year, fighting style "kits" that train your created superstars stats the easy way. Sadly once again, there's hardly anything interesting to buy, just the usual list of legends and slightly adjusted attires. The challenge mode from previous games has been given a makeover as the "hall of fame", here u can take a select few "direct challenges" and achieve other activities such as getting a created championship belt to maximum prestige, once you complete one of these challenges a small section of the "hall of fame" logo fills up, again this mode is nothing entirely new or interesting and feels, again, tacked on.

However probably the best new addition to the game modes this year is the tournament modes, here you can partake in various tournaments such as, of course, the King of the Ring, Beat the clock sprint, Road to Wrestlemania and you own custom tournament, the best part about this mode is the freedom of choice, there's a bunch of variations to choose from, and with the custom tournaments specifically you can choose from a lot of the gimmick matches for just that match, its most definitely the best new mode in the game, especially for people who love multiplayer tournaments modes.

The Create modes are pretty much the same as last year, which in some regards is a little disappointing, the create a superstar has had a little makeover with some of the categories, for instance things such as mask designs and tight designs have now been categorized to make things somewhat easier, sadly, crotch blurring is still in there. Create an entrance remains the same, but with some good improvements, for one thing the music isn't on loop when previewing the final product and timing fireworks and camera angles has been made easier with a new time bar at the top of the screen. Create a belt hasn't been improved but it never needed be, however, making title matches with created belts has been made far easier and thus, making created belts is far more enjoyable.

The actual gameplay this year is almost identical to last years, its still pretty much the same stuff, but the main new crux is fighting styles, each superstar has 2 different fighting styles, whether it's a "high flyer", "powerhouse" or "showman" is all down to the superstar, before each match, you can choose which primary fighting style you want, but you do still thankfully get the secondary abilities from the second fighting style to mix things up. The fighting styles themselves are diverse in ability, but aren't completely overwhelming in the amount, of abilities, "high flyers" can do a wide array of aerial moves, "showman's" can steal taunts and finishers, and "powerhouses" can activate a brief moment of invulnerability, if it wasn't for a second fighting style, it would be pretty bare. That said, you don't entirely want a lot of abilities that alienate other superstars more than it already does, no other superstar than a "dirty" superstar can remove the turnbuckle padding and no other superstar than a "high flyer" can perform "special" plancha moves from the apron, those may be small niggles, but to die hard fans who are used to being able to anything with anybody, it can alienate them as well.

Major props go out to Yukes and THQ this year for improving upon the hardcore element of the WWE, which appears to be dead nowadays, even with ECW as a sub brand, its still appears to be dead, but that's not the case with SVR 08, certainly not with new addition of the ECW Extreme rules match, here, things get very hardcore indeed, and rightly so since last years game, and the 2 iterations before it, had hardly any hardcore elements at all. This is where, for me, SVR 08 really shines, and especially if you are using the " hardcore" fighting style, before each match your able to choose which 4 special weapons you want to be in the match, this consists of chairs, kendo sticks, guitars, sledgehammers and the like, as well as tables, ladder, trashcans and barbed wire 2x4's that come with the match as standard. No longer is it a case of a specific weapon from under the ring, now a new radial menu appears when reaching for a bone shattering tool of destruction, allowing you to choose what you want and when you want, on top of that, this match also features the ability to set 2x4's and tables on fire!, and overall, that's just awesome. Sadly this does leave the hardcore match feeling slightly redundant. Speaking of match types, many of the old classic match types such as "Hell In The Cell" have still not been improved, and are beginning to look really dated, which is a real shame.

Of course this is a smackdown game, and a smackdown game with no bugs and visual errors would have to appear in "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" because its just not going to happen, that said things have been improved…slightly. The collision detection is way off once again and there is still a lot of clipping here and there, but still, there is some noticeable improvement, even if its not a lot. The AI this year is still abysmal, even on legend difficulty, the AI will still often stand there, or when ladders and tables are around, pick them up and mess around with them like a crazed child. Even when THQ said Yukes were working on it, its still hard to believe that, as with every year.

Visually the game looks fairly impressive, its no overhaul from last years game, but for a game that is made under a year it looks somewhat better, there is some great depth of field work in there, and some really good detailed player models, the flame effects look exceptionally impressive as do some of the pyro effects, the game runs super smooth on the 360, on the PS3 there is some serious framerate issues on a SD TV.

A few other things to note are the achievements, soundtrack and the roster, the achievements this year are a step above last years, stuff like making every ECW Superstar bleed at least once is a real neat addition to the list. The roster this year is probably the worst one yet, with the WWE releasing talent left right and centre, the roster is incredibly out of date and short, its even missing a lot of crucial superstars who are still in the WWE, mainly tag teams, which can be a little irritating. The soundtrack this year is superb, it's the usual rock/metal-core mix up of a soundtrack, with the occasional hint of hip hop, but the actual songs are great this year, and luckily, none of them are irritating bar the rap tracks.

Overall, Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 is a major improvement over 07, but not a major improvement in the series, it still has its irritating nuances, glitches and tacked on features, and has a long way to go. While its no "Fire Pro" its still a really fun enjoyable experience for any wrestling fan, fans of the series however may be left a little disappointed.


~Death Burnout

The quirky Japanese cooking game that is Cooking Mama is a intriguing case, for one things its colourful and delightfully Japanese, however, its far too easy and lacks any real incentive to play, though that will never stop you from having fun for as long as it lasts you.

There are 3 main modes in Cooking Mama; “lets cook” which lets you (as the titles suggests) cook one of the 76 recipes, “lets combine” lets you combine two recipes together to string two sets of mini games and “use skill” provides you a handful of challenges based on the mini games in “lets cook“. Right off the bat there aren’t that many modes and it probably could of done with more and it is the lack of things to do in Cooking Mama that makes it only suitable in short bursts.

In the 76 recipes you will be cooking that includes pizza, sandwiches, rice balls, sushi and even a cup of ramen, Mama (as she is so adequately named) will guide you through the cooking process step by step, you will be cutting, kneading, frying, basically everything you would expect to do in real life. The actual input put in to these tasks via the touch screen is fairly well done to say the least, some are dead easy and some are a little convoluted and tricky, more so than they should be, but the instructions for each task are always there if you can be bothered to read them. Throughout a recipe you will be doing roughly 4 to 7 tasks, and since some of them only take about 5 seconds to do, and 1 recipe wont last you long, some tasks however let you arrange things on a plate and stuff that lets you add more finesse to your meal with no time limit, depending on how long you take could extend the lifetime. Depending on how well you have done you will be scored out of a 100 and given a bronze, silver or gold medal and that’s where the challenge in Cooking Mama practically starts and ends, cooking is easy, but perfecting the tasks isn’t, so getting gold medals every time wont be happening. If its challenge you want then Cooking Mama can provide it in the “use skill” mode, here you can perform the majority of the tasks seen in the main game, only this time they will be a lot harder an ridiculously timed, however this mode doesn’t offer any reward to the player and is just there for a few more moments to kill time aimlessly.

Graphically, Cooking Mama is hard to describe, it seems to have gone for a more realistic look in terms of the food, and in the process, looks a little rough, you can see some very striking pixel problems around the edges of some images and that’s what sadly most of it is, images. The menus and mama her self look very colourful and quirky indeed, that’s not enough for it to really make up for the peculiar looking food although it does help a lot. Games and good soundtracks are becoming more of a staple than luck theses days and Cooking Mama sadly does not deliver that staple, the main game music is just monotonous and boring, its drones on throughout the game and really begins to make you feel like dropping the DS on the floor hoping it would just go away and leave you alone, that said the sound effects in Cooking Mama are actually pretty good, things fry, things boil, and things just get cooked in a convincing and generally good way.

Overall Cooking Mama just doesn’t have enough going for it, it often pleases with its visual style and certain mini games that do require some skill (its shame its only some) but above all that the one problem still remains, there’s no real purpose, no real sense of achievement, no reward, its simply just a time killer that can be enjoyed in short bursts. If your looking for a DS game that will provide you with hours of play and will be most likely in your DS away from the dust than actually collecting the dust, this game isn’t for you, however, if your just looking for something fun and quirky for a few hours then its worth giving Cooking Mama a shot.

~Death Burnout

Fun has always been the quarter-stone of old-school shooters, not graphics or anything else you will find in current day titles, just pure unprecedented fun, and that’s exactly what you get in Earth Defence Force 2017, huge enemies, huge explosions and huge amounts of fun, plain and simple. Sometimes too simple for its own good however, EDF is something of an acquired taste, while it does have a budget price (and budget restrictions for that matter), the game still might not apply to everyone, but to anyone who has enjoyed classic shooters back in the day, will most likely appreciate EDF 2017.

The whole premise of the game is that earth is being invaded by aliens (go figure) dubbed the “ravagers” and its up to the “Earth Defence Force” to save humanity form the evil aliens, this is inherently Japanese and since it’s a Japanese game, one can expect the most crazy Japanese sci-fi horror ever seen in a video game. Surprisingly the story is enticing, and since you never know what to expect, you eagerly want to know how this battle for mankind unfolds, and what a battle it is. You will be fighting giant ants and spiders, huge walking robots and (you guessed it) Godzilla like monsters, all in the comfort of Japan and a 3rd person perspective.

The main goal of the 53 missions, is to eliminate all the enemies in the area, and while this seems far too simple, the game does a good job of mixing up scenarios so you don’t get bored, its basic but it sure is a lot of fun for just shooting huge enemies in the mountains or in the city. You wont be fighting these huge monsters alone, you are part of the EDF and the EDF fight together, your AI team mates really add the sense that you are fighting for mankind, they talk to each other during battle, and chant and cheer as they march on into the fray of destruction, in fact, they are often hilarious when fighting. Not only do the EDF act great but they are also crucial to your success in a battle, they provide a good distraction for you to kill the enemies without them noticing and attacking you, you will surely want to have them around in the later difficulties because it can get really hard.

There are 5 difficulty settings, easy, medium, hard, hardest! And finally inferno. inferno mode is simply insane and only the most skilled players who know the all the exploits and weapons down to a tee will be able to complete it at this level, but as for the other levels of difficulty its more accessible to more casual players, and players who want to play the game without suffering. The difference between the difficulties is mainly the enemies, they will have more health and much stronger attributes, so an ant in easy moves as slow as you’d expect a giant bug to move, but in inferno or hardest, it moves as fast as a real ant…fast!. Strategy is required, you are only allowed to take 2 weapons into a battle, and as the menu voice will tell you over and over again, you need to think hard about the weapons you are going to take into battle, there is a whopping 150 weapons in the game ranging from assault rifles and shotguns to rocket launchers and missile launchers, and while they sadly don’t differ in looks, they all have unique stats and types of fire, the harder the difficultly you play on, the better weapons you’ll most likely find, so searching for powerful weapons is crucial for you to at least succeed on inferno. With all these difficulties, the game becomes instantly re-playable and will take you a long time to beat the game on all.

There are vehicles scattered around certain missions that are there to help you annihilate huge swarms of enemies, or so they should. Only 1 of the 4 vehicles at your disposal are actually manoeuvrable, the mech, helicopter and hoverbike are all hard to control, the tank is the only one that will at least get you out of tight situations in a hurry, that’s not to say the other vehicles aren’t powerful, the mech specifically will take down the largest of enemies super easy with its chain cannon, flamethrower and rocket launcher mercilessly hammering away at the enemy. In short the game features a lot of simplicity but since when did that stop the likes of Smash TV from being fun, its simple in terms of gameplay, and its also simple in terms of graphics, since its a budget title, you can’t expect the most astounding of graphics, but it does try its best.

The animations are poor throughout the game, the way your character moves has a lot of comedic value, and the bugs also don’t animate in the most conventional of ways, they will often climb walls and become jaunty in the process, when aircrafts hit the floor, they will clip right through it. The environments are fully destructible, every building, tree and object will collapse, but often just through the floor, with all these shortcuts the game still suffers from occasional slowdown and framerate drops ,especially when there are a lot of explosions going on, but one cant help look at them over and over again because they are awesome, when a robot gets destroyed it doesn’t just blow up once, it blows up, hit’s the floor and blows up again, the flames literally engulf the screen with a glaring haze. The overal graphical quality is slightly medicore, but its easily understood why.

Things sound perfectly fine, everything sounds as it should, gunfire, explosions and the general bug noise all sound reasonably well done and pitched perfectly on a sci-fi level, the games music score is also something that brings the eerie sci-fi theme to life. The voice acting (as with any other Japanese port) has comedic value from the start, however it does have its charm, and even though the menu voice will get on your nerves from time to time, its still over the top stuff which is always welcome in a game that features giant robots and bugs. One of the highlights if the voice acting is Michael McConnohie who has done countless voiceovers for anime films and television programs as well as games, his talent here is probably at its best, its captivating and enjoyable all the while still being a little humorous.

With its simple style of gameplay comes simple and disappointing achievements, there are only 6 total, and while they do add a considerable amount of replay value, it does seem that there is a lot of missed opportunity with the achievements, completing the game on a certain difficulty is the common achievement and the collecting all the weapons is the only unique achievement. The game also has a battle mode between 2 players and its such a terrible mode its not even worth mentioning.

Earth Defence Force 2017 is certainly simple, but its fun, and is always fun no matter how many times you play it, its simplicity will alienate some people, but for old school shooter fans or anyone who wants to blast away robots, bugs and a deathstar looking mothership, this game is a must have.

Crackdown is one of the very few free-roaming games that takes the sandbox formula and almost re-invents it entirely, fusing multiple types of gameplay together to form a game of one of its kind. Simply put, Crackdown is one of most fun experiences a sandbox game has had to offer in recent history.

The one thing that might come surprising about Crackdown is how fast it drops you straight into the game, you have your basic main menu that of course lets you decide what you want to do, but the main mode, campaign mode, is really all there is from the get go. Crackdown lacks any real in-depth story, all that is needed to know, is that the futuristic metropolis that is pacific city is overrun by gangs, and its your job as a super-agent (yes, super-agent) to clear out those gangs, and that just about sums it up, Crackdown is more of a freeform sandbox game than a huge story-driven adventure and that only helps bring the game down, and as a result, leaves Crackdown feeling a little shallow at parts, but all that really matters is the fun and intense action Crackdown has to offer.

You play as one of eight agents, but these aren’t your average agents, they have 5 key adaptive skills that evolve over the course of the game, these skills are; Agility, Driving, Explosives, Strength and Shooting. These 5 skills are pretty much the 5 main cores of action in Crackdown. In pacific city there are 3 main gangs that rule over 3 unique territories, and by taking out the 21 unique gang bosses and wiping out a gang completely, you will gain skill points depending on how you take down the enemy, for instance just shooting a guy will improve your shooting abilities, and using explosives will improve you explosive abilities, its actually a really clever way of advancing through the game in your own way and adds to the free-from play that Crackdown does so well, as these skills improve you will see a dramatic change in your characters appearance: new facial features, hair, a bigger build ect. and of course the parameters of that said skill such as bigger explosions from explosives and precision targeting enabling you to aim better shots. The skill system is really what separates Crackdown from the rest of the Free roaming games to come out in recent history and instantly the one of the best features Crackdown has to offer.

With the agility skill the world becomes more “open” then any other free-roaming game, its basic benefit to you is the ability to jump great heights and run at super fast speeds, this enables you to get from place to place really easily instead of having take long journeys and getting hopelessly lost. There is a lot of verticality to the environment so climbing up to the top of a skyscraper is not only fun, but it opens a whole new world of transportation, you can jump from building to building like some sort of superhero and that’s probably some of the most fun you will have playing crackdown. Increasing your agility is a lot of fun too, there 500 agility orbs scattered around the world and they are all situated at high places (of course), in addition to those, there are rooftop races which test your jumping abilities in a series of checkpoints, these races are a nice thing to get sidetracked on but unfortunately, these are pretty much the only distractions from the main game. There are some surprisingly high places to scale and climb though, and the games impressive draw distance only makes climbing a building that more exciting.

Of course there is another mode of transportation, but in all fairness you’d be better off just sticking to jumping, the car handling is pretty mediocre even when the driving skill is maxed out the civilian cars handle like garbage, but the gang cars step it up a little, they tend to have a little more power under hood and therefore feel more responsive, but in hindsight, the agency cars at your disposal are what you should be using, as your driving skill increases by doing races and mowing gang members down, your agency cars will take a dramatic transformation, similar to your character changing appearance, whereas that is primarily aesthetic, these changes improve the power and abilities of the cars accordingly, not only do these cars improve, but your overall car handling is increased, even though the civilian cars are pretty much rendered useless to you throughout the game. You will be stuck for choice however, Crackdown has an interesting variety of vehicles, and while there aren’t any bikes or boats, you will find a variety of compacts, sedans, SUV’s and even armoured vehicles, and with your super strength these cars become instant weapons.

The combat in general is great, the 3 main components that consist of the combat are using the objects around the environment, shooting and using explosives. One of the impressive features is the ability to pick up and throw practically every object you can find in the city, whether that’s a trashcan or a 2 ton truck is totally up to you and down to your strength skill, throwing these objects at gang members will not only feel gratifyingly good, but it will also improve the skill, and when that happens, you’re able to throw things at a much larger scale and take more damage. All of the objects deform and break really well: lids flying off trashcans, concrete tiles breaking into loads of pieces ect. and all of the parts that do break apart can also be picked up and thrown, and its all down to the impressive havok engine that creates a huge amount of possibilities, however there are some technical issues with actually picking the objects up, if an object is tucked away in a corner or is in an awkward spot, the command to pick things up will not always immediately show up and end up leaving you venerable while desperately trying to grab an object. If using the environment as a weapon was not enough for you, then there is always your super strong kicks at your disposal, you can literally send objects flying at a tap of a button, so there’s never a dull moment to be had in Crackdown.

The shooting element is just fine, but as with all the skills you start off pretty weak, and since you are using a gun you would probably assume that that’s all you ever probably need, guess again, even with the strongest firearm skills, gang members do not go down easily unless you cap a solid headshot, even when using precision targeting, enemies still take a while to die, but the neat thing with the precision targeting, is the ability to shoot specific parts of the body or car, so undermining a targets mobility whether it’s a car or a person, is easy. Crackdown has a good set-up of weapons, you‘ve got your SMG‘s, sniper rifles, handguns, your usual line up of weapons, there isn’t necessarily a huge amount, but it’s evident a lot of care was taken into the overall design on some of the later firearms you will acquire, but for the most part, they all resemble modern weaponry used today, and the Explosive weaponry is just as fun as the standard shooting, similar to practically every other skill, using explosives to kill gang members is the way to improve it, and once improved, there’s never a chance of being bored because utter chaos awaits at the end of one single grenade. With all these skills in hand, you would think that there’s no way anyone can stop you, but you’d be wrong, Crackdown throws in enemy after enemy at you left, right and centre, and there’s no stopping the action at all, its damn right chaos from the get go, but its undeniably fun, you’ll notice a ton of random events occurring, from gang wars to civilians defending themselves, it just keeps going on and brings up the replay value to an insanely high amount.

Most free-roaming games will always try to create “a huge breathing, living world”, that bold claim can only be heightened even further with a developer name like “Realtime Worlds”, and the good thing is, they’ve done just that. The world has been designed beautifully, it may be a little smaller than what you would come to expect from most next generation games but for what it lacks in width, it makes up for in height, and there is no shortage of high places to go. There is a surreal variety to the environment, one minute your in suburbia, the next, in a rocky countryside, what makes this surreal is the distance between the two, its all very compact and is not initially perceived to be there, but it is, and its great. The civilians are just as impressive as the world is, there is a lot of them on screen at once, you do get the sense that the world is definitely breathing and most certainly living, they will say some great stuff, trouble is its hard to hear them, the game has a bad unbalance with sound effects, there is an option to make the quite noises louder, but still, civilians sound far too quite, but only when they are talking at least, you can pretty much hear their screams of terror all the time, which is always a welcome notion that something bad is going on, but it would be nice to hear their comments a little more clearly.

One voice that will never seem to be quiet is the disembodied voice that is the agency director, at first he seems really appropriate for the style of the game, but eventually he will just get on your nerves, his main goal is to show you the ropes and give you certain Intel, he’ll make a few comments here and there and generally just try to help you out in certain situations, but when you practically know everything, there’s no reason for him to carry on, he will cut down on some obvious comments but for the most part he really is unnecessary towards the end and makes tons of mistakes based on your location among other things.

Crackdown isn’t the hardest game of all, while the later difficulty levels do get hectic, the main incentive of the game isn’t a total challenge, sure the later bosses do get harder, but you could rush through the entire game fairly quickly without having too much trouble. Thankfully the enemy AI is pretty good, if you get too close they will use the objects in the environment as weapons giving you a taste of your own medicine, and they wont hesitate to use heavy weaponry at a distance either, there are some rough spots though, they wont entirely notice you from some angles, but rest assured, they will get more aggressive as time goes by.

One of the big parts of Crackdown is blowing stuff up, and its only fitting that they look exceptionally good, from black smoke pluming from a car explosion, to a burst of flaming bodies and debris flying through the air, you wont be disappointed when something blows up. With the mix of cell shading and textures, the graphics feel totally unique and add such a character to Crackdown, it has such a great draw distance on the landscape its breathtaking, sadly as far as cars and certain other objects are concerned , the draw distance isn’t so good. that’s not the only graphical blemish Crackdown has, cars will disappear quickly if you look away for just a second, and sometime cars just fail to show up at all and leave the driver floating in mid-air, also, when the physics are pushed to the limits in an explosion for example, the framerate can dip and can get messy, but other than that the game runs at a solid framerate throughout.

With a great visual experience comes a great audio experience, the soundtrack for Crackdown is surprisingly bad, there are a huge amount of tracks, sad thing is it’s a huge bunch of tracks from artists you may have never heard of, you can look at that any way you want, but it is a disappointment nonetheless, this doesn’t mean the music itself is bad, it actually pretty good varied music. Apart from the fact that the soundtrack in Crackdown is somewhat poor, the sound effects emitted from gunfire and explosions is spot on perfect, the explosions are so loud you’ll have to prepare your ears for it, overall the audio experience Crackdown has is really something special.

Crackdown has a interesting set of achievements, they vary in difficulty but are all easily achieved to some extent, some achievements don’t even have any points tied in with them, they simply are just another way of building your skills which is a first for an Xbox 360 game, the achievements are really unique as the rest of the game is, “body juggler” is just a glimpse at the creativity Realtime Worlds has put into the achievements.

Crackdown is just one of those games you wont forget anytime soon, in fact, you will take a lot of the things you can do in Crackdown for granted, when playing any other game of the same calibre you will feel the need to jump 30 feet, use objects as weapons and generally cause as much mayhem as possible, but you will find you can’t, or not as well as you can here, and that’s when it becomes apparent, that Crackdown is truly a game of one of its kind. Crackdown is a must have for anyone who likes the genre, but more specifically to anyone who has gotten bored of the free-roaming experience previous games have had to offer.

~Death Burnout