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Gameplay: 'Crackdown'
We can be heroes, just for one game
By Cory Casciato
casciato@mscd.edu

Crackdown Platform: Xbox 360 Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios Cost: $59.99

My superhero fantasies have been fulfilled.

Crackdown has arrived and answered my prayers, giving me the opportunity to leap tall buildings in a single bound, throw vehicles about like children’s toys and generally be a total badass. The game places players in control of a superhuman cop in a city overrun by gangs. These super cops, known as Agents, evolve over the course of the game, becoming increasingly proficient in five different skill areas, including agility, strength, explosives, guns and driving.

In theory, all of these skills are equally important, but in practice some are clearly better than others. What’s the point of driving around the city like a maniac when it’s possible to jump around it like a super powered-maniac? Why bother to schlep around a machine gun to take down the thugs when a couple of grenades or a well-placed rocket do the job so much more efficiently and explosively? Scaling a building, leaping from rooftop to rooftop (agility), throwing cars around (strength) and blowing stuff up (explosives) are all great fun. The mundane gaming standards of driving and shooting are implemented well enough; they’re just boring compared to the rest of the options offered.

The goal of the game is to clean up Pacific City by eliminating 21 gang bosses. These 21 gang leaders are divided evenly between three different gangs, each of which rules a separate section of the city. They can be eliminated in any order, but killing the lieutenants first makes taking out the top dog easier.

The entire city is open from the beginning, but the game wisely steers the player to the easiest part of the city first. Spending the time to tackle the Los Muertos gang and collect the power-ups in their area makes tackling the later challenges much more manageable.

Apart from the main task of eliminating the gangs there are auxiliary goals in the form of races and collecting the 500 agility orbs and 300 hidden orbs scattered throughout the city. Finishing races and collecting orbs increase the character’s skills. Beyond that, the game offers a huge, sprawling city to explore and some fun achievements to boost the player’s gamerscore. These added challenges are completely optional but exceptionally entertaining.

From a technical standpoint, the game is strong. The impressive graphics are done in a comic book style known as cel-shading that perfectly suits the aesthetic of the game. Once the game starts, load times are nonexistent.

Crackdown has its share of problems. The missions lack variety. The plot is so flimsy and unimportant it may as well be nonexistent. Many will find the game too short, especially if they don’t bother with the game’s side challenges.

Despite the problems, this is a standout title for the Xbox 360. It blends the open-world, do-anything freedom of the Grand Theft Auto series with the best platform-jumping and exploration aspects of the Super Mario series, then sets the whole thing in a Robocop-meets-Judge-Dread world. The results are phenomenally entertaining and highly addictive.