With the upcoming release of the reboot of this series I was reminded that I never got around to playing this game. I remember people going crazy about it, and the open-world collectible fest is straight up my alley, but is the game sorta outdated at this point ? Compared to series like AC, Arkham, Saint's Row and Infamous is Crackdown just a pre-tense of what these series have done better, or does it have something special to it ?

Idk, I like Crackdown 1 better than all those other games. It's a great podcast/books on tape game because after a while you can pretty much mute it and jump around and level up. Hidden Ords are impossible to get 100% without a guide, but organically getting 100% of the agility orbs while listening to something is super fun.