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Review : Crackdown for Xbox 360
For the past week I have been obsessively playing Crackdown on the Xbox 360 by Microsoft and Realtime Worlds.
There are untold thousands of Xbox nerds that have purchased this game since it comes with a way to get into the Halo 3 public Beta-test but that should just be icing on the cake since this is a damn well made game.
It is sort of a spiritual descendant of GTA 3 and that is good since it had David Jones formerly of Rockstar Games (Wasn't he one of the Monkeys? ), one of the creators of GTA 3 at the helm of the games development.
In Crackdown you play a super bad ass genetically modified cop who has a license to kill just about anybody as long as you don't kill to many innocent civilians at one time. However if you space out your collateral damage then the authorities are fine with you gunning down a few civilians who wander into a fire fight or get turned into paste during one of your high speed car chases. The game starts out by stating about how crime has gotten so bad all the police forces in the world joined together and things went so bad from there they had to make genetically modified super cops. Now you can't fly but you heal from damage really quick, can run fast forever, can jump like twenty to thirty feet in the air and have bones almost as strong as steel. When you start the game up you can pick what race you want the bad ass hero to be but the default sort of reminds me of Shaft. He is a bad mother who can scale giant freaking skyscraper by leaping straight up and grabbing closed windows and ledges, then he can pop off a few rounds against some crack head gang members who are also on the roofs from like a million miles away. Then he can get right back up after falling down about half a mile and smacking into the cold hard ground and he is OK after a few deep breaths. I mean you can fall to your death but it has to be from about a full mile straight up.
Unlike GTA this guy can only carry two guns at the same time and they magically appear in your hand when you switch them. The magical guns also go away when you are hanging from ledges and doing your Spiderman thing. I know it sort of sounds like I am complaining but I am not. I freaking love this game. Doesn't try to be a realistic simulation or anything. It is a pure adrenaline packed bad ass action game that the developers understood that it is just a game and so they focused on making a bad ass super fun game rather than worrying about something as trivial as reality.
Also like Saints Row and GTA 3 the main character never says a word to anybody. What is up with that? Are we supposed to be more empathetic since the dude is mute?
Now the city scape is huge and detailed and have a freaking far viewing distance. I mean you can see building far away in the distance miles away and the walk right up to them. This is exactly the kind of game that your going to be thankful to experience in HD. The graphics have a kick ass slight cel-shading effect to them. The explosion and firepower bullets are detailed and cool. The game's designer put more effort in the game looking cool than it being a slave to realism. The physics are powered by the kick ass Havok engine so when you smash into someone with a car and high speed they will bounce against things several times like a rag doll.
This is an "interactive sandbox" action packed real time crime action game set in a giant living city. Yeah I know. It sounds like GTA but since it's got good old Davy Jones of The Monkeys at the who was sick of being a Beatles rip off so he laid down hardcore with a mind-blowing genera-popping game like GTA 3. There is no same or foul when you rip off and remix your own stuff that you made it the first place. This is brilliant on Microsoft's part because they got one of the major creators of GTA 3 to make a game that can compete with GTA IV and it is almost a year before GTA IV and an exclusive to the Xbox 360.
Jake at March 8, 2007 
Reviews
Comments
It was fun whilst it lasted, but I've played games like this (Spider-Man 2, Hulk : Ultimate Destruction) to death and it bores me. Once I completed the main mission, I traded it in towards a copy of FEAR. Like I say, it's a good game well made but it's limited once you've maxed out your character. There's only so much you can do until leaping around from rooftop to rooftop gets worn out.
Posted by: Jim Yates at March 9, 2007 12:50 PM
Crackdown would be a nice game, but the roof-hoppin gets old real fast. Especially when there is no story to speak of, and it just gets boring too fast. Great idea though for a game, GTA will wipe the floor with Crackdown though.
Posted by: Sammy at May 23, 2007 4:59 PM
I disagree. I think the multiplayer and city design was stunning.
I really have not been impressed with Gta games since Vice City on ps2.
Posted by: Jacob Metcalf ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.8bitjoystick.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 23, 2007 6:27 PM
i also disagree. crackdown is a great game ans gta hasnt impressed me since a while since gta3. but i will miss the roof jumping and picking up cars. great feature.
Posted by: V Turk at April 19, 2008 5:28 AM
