Crackdown

Crackdown, initially released back in 2007 is best summed up as a sandbox game of similar vein to GTA and clones but with a superhero twist. You play the role of a ‘Super Agent’, a genetically engineered superhero, capable of jumping as tall as a skyscraper, strong enough to lift huge trucks over his head and… uh… shoot real good. You’re tasked with cleaning up Pacific City, a metropolis choked with crime, and at the brink of going under. The gangs controlling the city aren’t open to a diplomatic solution; the only language they understand is force, and maybe a rocket to the face.

The above paragraph basically sums up the entire storyline to Crackdown. Apart from a single ‘oh, I guess that makes sense’ right at the end, you won't get any elaborate back story, no twists and turns and definitely no Hollywood standard writing. Instead, you're in for an ideal game for taking the edge off a rubbish day. Kick back, relax and laugh hysterically as you chuck a gang member off a skyscraper onto the busy roads below, and maybe setting fire to him and helpfully chucking him into the sea.

The entire premise is extremely simple, you play as the above mentioned super agent, and you’re tasked with cleaning up Pacific City from the 3 gangs plaguing the streets. To do so, you will have to take out the seven crime lords of each gang, causing disruption within the gang and one huge riot, as a final push to try to regain power. Crush their last defiant effort, and the gang is no more, you won’t run into the gang members littering the streets, it’ll be a safer, happier place.

Pacific City is split into four areas, one area for each of the gangs, and right smack bang in the middle is the Agency’s base of operations, the Agency Tower. From the tower, you’ll have a tunnel into each area;

The first and only area you can visit is the home of Los Muertos – The Dead, a Latino outfit specialised in drugs trafficking and the acquisition, modification and selling of cars. They’re holding up in the part of the city called – La Migre. Head down tunnel one to get down to the Muertos streets.

The second area you can unlock is home to The Volk, an Eastern European gang specialising in weaponry, ranging from rifles to lorry mounted rockets. Formidable adversaries, they’re based over in the Den. Head down tunnel two to visit the Den.

Finally: the Shai Gen Corporation. A department founded and funded by the previous, collapsed government. The Shai Gen calls ‘the corridor’ their home, and probably the toughest of the 3 gangs.

There are certain perks to go with the job of being a genetically engineered superhero of course, you won’t necessarily be able to shoot lasers from your eyeballs or freeze people with ice cold farts. You have 5 main skills, you’ll start off at level 1 for each skill and the more you use a particular skill, the faster it will level up:

The 5 skills you have at your disposal are:

Strength – The ability to lift heavier objects, mainly levelled up by killing people with hand to hand combat, or throwing objects at them. You’ll start off struggling to lift a dumpster, but by the end of it all, you’ll be lifting up huge trucks and lamping gangsters with them.

Agility – The ability to run faster, and more significantly, jump a lot higher. You’ll start off with an impressive leap, but by collecting ‘agility orbs’ you’ll be able to jump to insane heights. There are 500 agility orbs to be found on the map, but you won’t need to collect all of them to max out your agility skill.

Firearms – The ability to do more damage with your firearms, I found it to be completely unnecessary and really difficult to level up. Why shoot someone when you can simply kick them to death?

Explosives – Somehow, being more experienced with explosives makes your grenades and missile launchers create a bigger explosion.

Driving – The more people you mow down, the better driver you are! Levelling up will make cars handle better, and the agencies vehicles will upgrade to have special abilities themselves, the sports car will grow machine guns, the agency truck will get a huge boost, and the SUV will have a jump, that will also allow you to drive up vertical walls and buildings. Awesome.

Unfortunately, the agency cars are the only cars worth driving, every single civilian is subtly different, but they all shame one thing in common: they’re all absolutely terrible. You’d get more response taking a trip around an ice rink with a car with four flat tyres.

But, enough back story and setting the scene, Crackdown is a triumph in open world design. The city environment is as generic as they come, yet despite all the greytone the city maintains its own personality, and it works well, as much design has been put into the rooftops as street level, and it shows. The level design is superb; you’ll be leaping from rooftop to rooftop fluidly in no time, it’ll just link together.

The art direction and design is bound to split people right down the centre as cell shading usually does. I generally believe in this instance the cell shading compliments the superhero theme, while keeping its dark humour and maintaining a lot of clarity. The graphics are clean, crisp and clear, exactly what the doctor ordered. One particular special mention goes to the draw distance; you’ll scale the Agency Tower and be able to see the extreme reaches of the map. Technically, it’s a very impressive feature; unfortunately your missiles will explode long before they reach the cars in the far distance.

I can’t really comment on the sound direction of Crackdown, as I’ve found the music just blends in too well to the background, I’ve spent hours in game, and I can remember there’s a Hybrid track in there somewhere. I’m not entirely sure if this is a good or a bad thing, I might argue that it means that the OST lacks personality, but you could argue that it does such a good job of not having bad songs that stick out. Talking of sticking out, the commentator is the very definition of broken. You’ll find his little quips amusing to start off with, but after the 100th time of him saying’ Kills for skills agent, kills for skills’ it’ll really begin to grate. Thankfully you can disable him from the options menu, which I’d recommend you do immediately. Don’t even give him the benefit of the doubt. Please.

Crackdown is a game that turns the incredibly tedious task of item collecting, and paints a nice coat of fun on top of it. As I mentioned earlier, you’ll have 500 agility orbs placed amongst the chimneys of Pacific City, it’s fun to work out how to climb the higher structures to get that tantalizing orb. In most cases, when you finally crack it, you can often see several other orbs from your high perch, and away you go to grab those orbs. Chuck in 300 ‘hidden’ orbs as well, and you have a fair few hours on your hands. Just be warned, getting 499 orbs and desperately searching the city for the last remaining orb is a complete nightmare.

On top of this, you have the option for joining a buddy online and tearing up Pacific City. The main story is open to the both of you as well as the foot races and vehicle sections. It’s a lot of fun, as usually it’ll generate into you and your buddy kicking each other off high buildings.

There are currently two available content packs for Crackdown, one is complimentary, and the other is paid downloadable content. I would sincerely recommend picking both up, as they add hours onto an all ready time consuming game. As part of the DLC, you’ll receive a stunt buggy, an incredibly nimble bit of machinery. Doing quadruple back flips off skyscrapers in a car has never been this much fun before.

Ultimately, there’s little to no reason not to get Crackdown. As it had a Halo 3 beta invite included, you can find hundreds of copies second hand, for as little as £7, or $15. In return you’ll receive a game that will provide hours upon hours of entertainment, just as long as you’re willing to put up with a shallow storyline, and do a bit of dirty work.


Good:
Incredibly deep, will provide hours upon hours of fun.
Graphics are beautiful
Extremely cheap now-a-days, excellent value for money.

Bad:
Commentator is broken.
Storyline is shallow, could do with a bit of fleshing out.
Sequel.....Please?