Crackdown (Xbox 360) Review
Posted by Chris McCarver on 03.26.2007
Freeze, punk! Busting a cap in your ass will help me jump higher!
Crackdown
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Developer: Realtime Worlds
Platform: Xbox 360 (exclusive)
ESRB Rating: M (blood and gore, intense violence, sexual themes, strong language, use of drugs)
Release Date: Feb. 20, 2007
Review by CHRIS McCARVER
Since Grand Theft Auto showed the gamer community what a "sandbox game" could be, countless imitators have crawled out of the woodwork to try and one-up the Rockstar freeform juggernaut. Some, like Saints Row and Far Cry have vastly improved the archetype, while others... coughPimpMyRidecough, excuse me... have fallen flatter than an overcooked soufflé. As next-gen becomes current-gen, developers have been chomping at the bit to further surpass the sandbox sub-genre, both in terms of variety of gameplay and in scale of their game worlds. The house that Bill Gates built has now thrown their hat into the ring, enlisting Scottish developer Realtime Worlds (owned by GTA creator David Jones) to create the developer's first console title, Crackdown.
Graphics
Crackdown's graphics were something of a challenge for me to form an opinion on. Beginning with the positives, the draw distance in this title in bloody incredible. We're talking Spider-Man 2 incredible. Assuming you can get to a decent level of altitude, you can literally look out at the skyline for over a virtual mile. And the city is a marvel to look at, with sprawling futuristic neon landscapes, dilapidated inner-city industrial areas, and virtual miles of interconnected highways. The building architecture isn't just pretty, but it plays a role in the gameplay, as the dozens of ability-upgrade orbs seeded throughout the city are often situated in not-so-easy-to-reach areas that take some skill to traverse.
What happens when Joel Schumacher directs the Reno: 911 movie.
On the downside, Crackdown has employed an art style that seems half A Scanner Darkly and half X-Men Legends, with every character and interactive object spraypainted in a cel-shaded texture map that the game's lighting refuses to affect, complete with thin black borders around each one's perimeter. It's a nice stylistic choice, but it seems wholly out of place in a game that's largely a bullet-spraying crime-fighter title.
Gameplay
Set in the fictitious, Blade Runner-esque metropolis of Pacific City, players assume the role of an unnamed officer of the Agency, a nationwide merger of every local police department in America. Criminal activity has raged through Pacific City to such a degree that the Agency is actually on the extreme defensive, holed up in their HQ and losing each of their satellite precincts to gang control. The player's character is a genetically enhanced operative capable of unparalleled levels of physical strength, agility, and marksmanship. Your job: clean up the streets of Pacific City from the three gangs besieging it (the Latino Los Muertos, the Russian Volk, and the Chinese Shai-Gen) by neutralizing key figures within each gang, which each have six "generals" and a boss.
See that faded set of rectangles in the background? You can go there.
The gameplay, on its face, is a little on the shallow side. While your character's physical abilities are higher than the human-norm and upgradeable to Incredible Hulk-levels through various power-up orbs and you can jack any vehicle GTA-style, the main emphasis is essentially on spraying lead all over the populace in pursuit of your criminal prey. Most of the game is spent driving around Pacific City without any sense of where you're going until finally the often-annoying voice of your Captain/Chief/Employer tells you something (a target, a captured equipment depot, orbs for boosting your abilities, etc.) is nearby. And if you die? No problem! The Agency will just respawn, er, clone you and send you back out for more gangster-cappin' mayhem. Another detriment is the game's storyline, mainly since the game doesn't have much of one. You're the good guy, they're the AI-deficient bad guys, commence to killin'. Not high drama by any means.
Unfortunately, my biggest complaint about Crackdown has to be the game's aiming system, which auto-targets to the nearest character to your targeting reticle, which isn't always the nearest character to your character. Which means you'll find yourself sometimes locked onto somebody two blocks away while someone is taking a pipe to your brainpan. Also a detriment to this game is the handling of the various vehicles; regardless of whether you're in a sportscar or a garbage truck, each vehicle has a turning radius a fraction of an inch, making navigating the streets of Pacific City a major pain and Hulk-leaping through the game's plentiful assortment of car-race minigames preferable to driving a car (and yes, the game will let you do the car races on foot). The races are themselves a bit of a pain, since the game penalizes you whenever you run over people, and when the race paths run right through large crowds... well, imagine just how much fun this isn't.
More than one way to flag down a Good Humor van.
Sound
For a city rife with people in flavors of cop, robber, and man on the street, this game features very little voiceover work of any great importance. Most of the VA you'll be hearing will come from the narrator of the game (voiced by longtime anime voice actor Michael McConnohie), either narrating dossiers on your various criminal target bosses or notifying you if any remotely important objective is nearby. You'll soon grow to hate the narrator's voice as it pops in almost incessantly and will occasionally overlap itself if more than one objective is close. The music isn't much to write home about either. While the music soundtrack boasts over a hundred songs, most of them are forgettable Euro-techno tunes that don't supplement the gameplay experience at all.
Lasting Appeal
What really makes Crackdown anywhere near a must-own is the game's multiplayer options, wherein you can call in a friend over XBL to take on the game in online co-op. Multiplayer can also be played over System Link, but no split-screen co-op modes are offered (bad for those who have friends that physically visit your home). Players can hop in and out on the fly, and orb collection runs independently on each console, so, whether you decide to pair up, take separate paths, or actually compete against one another, you and an online friend can grab up orbs without having to worry about one outgrabbing the other.
"There, Pete, just capped your stylist. You snipe my mother-in-law yet or what?"
Fun Factor
Crackdown passes itself off primarily as a futuristic shoot-'em-up, but the game's true enjoyment comes from collecting ability orbs to upgrade your character. Seriously, playing through the nonexistent story of this game pales in comparison to the gotta-catch-em'-all element of grabbing up these little nuggets of blue and green luminosity. Multiplayer is the other major draw of this title, since playing through this title as simply a single-player third-person shooter is quite honestly a lackluster experience. It's a bit of a shame that, as addictive and enjoyable as online multiplayer and the orb-collection aspect are on this game, Real Time Worlds didn't give us much beyond a short second-rate shooter in single-player.
The 411
Crackdown is one of those guilty pleasure titles that’s worth a weekend rental, but isn’t something you’d want to slap down half a C-note for. The game’s story mode is short, its control issues noticeable, and its presentation hit-and-miss. If you’re in for little more than a fun shooter without much depth, especially with deft multiplayer and the game’s element of collectibles, Crackdown may be a title worth your time. Otherwise, this game’s worth giving a spin in your 360, but only a short one.
Graphics
7.0
Massive city rife with people and detail, city design plays a role in gameplay, cel-shaded character models seem out of place
Gameplay
6.5
Main single-player campaign somewhat average, orb collection alleviates the mediocrity a bit, weapon-aim and driving controls lacking in precision
Sound
3.0
Narrator voice all too prevalent and repetitious, NPC citizen dialogue uninteresting, forgettable music selections
Lasting Appeal
8.0
XBL multiplayer a saving grace and largely unrestricted, no split-screen multiplayer option
Fun Factor
6.5
Secondary objectives outweigh the primaries, single-player gameplay pales in comparison to multiplayer, largely enjoyable but uneven
