It seems that “sandbox” games are all the rage these days. With everyone and 50 Cent’s mother making one, it’s slowly becoming a genre dangerously close to over use. With that said, it seems that there is still room for innovation in the genre and Crackdown for the Xbox 360 seems poised to fill that space. How well it succeeds depends on what kind of gamer you are…and if you have friends.

Crackdown takes the idea of roaming around a big city and amps it up by letting players assume the role of a mutant super-cop. Feeling two steps away from a standard cape-wearing superhero game and the flip side of the Grand Theft Auto coin, Crackdown manages to embody a formula that feels both familiar and unique.

Players start out by picking their character from the available 15 or so skins. It does nothing for your character other than make it look different but I appreciate the effort and it’s a nice touch. You start out your game in the Agency Headquarters tower. While the Agency is thinly described in the game, no one really cares what the Agency is about, only that it seems to be the home of a bunch of mutant-power wielding super cops. Fine by me. Your next job is picking from one of three agency vehicles to drive around the city. From a fast moving car, acrobatic SUV (I know, I don’t get it either) to the hulking Semi the vehicles all have different uses and feels. After driving your vehicle out the tunnel and into the city proper the game truly begins.


Gameplay is simple. You have three areas that connect to form one big city. In each of these areas you have a gang that controls the territory. Each gang is comprised of 9 gang Generals, one overal gang leader and about a billion minions all running around the city trying to shoot you. Your mission is to eliminate each of the gang Generals and then do away with the leader of the group. Do this and the area of the city is cleaned up and secure. As you travel around the city the Agency sends you dossiers on the next criminal that you have to kill in order to make the city safe. Usually located in some sort of fortress, you have to infiltrate it, kill the hundreds of soldiers hanging out there and then find and kill the general. Do this and the outcome effects the rest of the game in some small way. For instance, if you kill the munitions expert the amount of guns on the board starts to shrink as they, theoretically, have no more supplier. When one boss is dead, another dossier appears on your screen and the next boss is found and ready to be taken on.

Rinse and repeat. That’s not to say that the whole process isn’t fun, just that it’s a bit repetitive. The gangs do get tougher as you progress through the game, but with your character getting stronger as you go, none of them really present too big of a challenge. What, you ask? Your character gets stronger? What's that about? I’m glad you asked.

Your character has a series of attributes that can be developed as you progress through the game. Most of them are the obvious attributes that we’ve seen in countless RPG’s over the years. Ability is, of course, one of the attributes in question and can be leveled up by picking up many brightly colored green “orbs” that litter the city. The Firearm skill can be leveled up by shooting enemies and the Strength skill gets stronger the more enemies you kill by punching and kicking. As you increase your skills certain aspects of the game will change, from the look and abilities of your vehicles to the distance you can jump. All these heightened abilities make clearing the city easier and more fun.

And here is where half the joy of the game resides. Far from just running around killing enemies, the fun in Crackdown comes from trying to find more and more Ability Orbs so that you can jump to taller and taller buildings. Finding your path around the rooftops of the city, looking for orbs becomes a challenging task in and of itself. Insanely fun and addicting, the need to collect all the orbs sucks hours from your playtime. In addition to collecting orbs or killing enemies there are also a series of challenges that you can complete at anytime from more ability points. One of the races types is for your car, the other is for your character and involves jumping to various parts of rooftops over the city. Overall, the idea is a good one, but often these races turn into annoying diversions as opposed to fun ones and if there were no ability points to earn I don’t think I would have completed any of them.

As always you can forget all that and simply run around the world and explore the various locations in the game, which all look very good. Subtle use of cell shading give this game an “out of the comic book” look to it. Not abused but used to give homage to the origins of Crackdown, the cell shading manages to embed you into a world through subtle touches in the look and feel of the game. In addition, Crackdown sports one of the most amazing draw distances of any 360 game so far. From the top of the tallest tower, you can see the entire city without fog or missing buildings. It’s a very impressive sight and really makes you feel as if you are part of a large city.

While there is plenty to do in Crackdown, the problem becomes one of too much repetition. None of the gang Generals that you need to defeat are really anything more than a minion with more hit points. Killing these ringleaders really doesn’t offer a big challenge and the need to kill them is only to open up more areas. Fun for the first few areas of the city, the premise gets old pretty fast. Enter online multiplayer.

A remarkable system is in place that lets your friends join your game at any moment (with your permission, of course). Having a friend pop over and help you clear out a boss or two is not only a great way to make the game easier, but also a ton of fun. Running around the city and clearing out enemies is really where the game shows its true colors. As old as the game can get in the single player, it shines that much brighter in multi player. In fact, I’d say this game is made for multiplayer action and to not play it in that fashion is a crime. The online interface is easy to manage and playing with another via Live is a smooth and lag free experience that is highly recommended.

Of course, once you have leveled up your character as far as he can go and once you have cleared the city there is very little left to do in this sandbox world. Sure, you can pop over to a friend’s world for a few hours, but even that gets to be a bit old. Here is where Crackdown has yet to prove its worth, in the endgame element. While we’re hoping that some serious downloadable content will breathe new life into this game, there is no mention of anything at this time.




Article By: Hilden