Developer: Realtime Worlds
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Screenshots: Available here
Rating Guide: How I Review Games

Review: 

“I wonder if I can make it.  I’m pretty high up here and if I don’t time it just right I’ll die or even worse I won’t get the Achievement! F*** it!  My agility is 4 stars and I’m jumping baby!”

That describes one of the many ridiculously fun scenarios that I faced when playing Realtime Worlds’ Crackdown.  I was sitting high on top of the Agency Tower staring down and truly itching to jump off regardless of the height.  It was an adrenaline rush for me.  The majority of the people who play this game will have felt the same things I did when you level up and start jumping from building to building.  Welcome to my Crackdown review.  My name is Deacon and I’m an orb junky.

Gameplay, Graphics and Sound

Crackdown is set in a city called Pacific City where everything has grown so grim that genetically enhanced agents had to be created in order to restore peace to a city overrun by gangs.  You’re the city’s last hope in getting rid of all three gangs; Los Muertos, the Volk and the Shai-Gen Corporation.  The Agency is your calling card and you have the authority to deal your own form of justice.  You can either do this justice alone or with a friend in co-op play (both offline and online).

You have a variety of weapons and vehicles to aid you in your pursuit.  There are Agency Supply Points throughout the city in which you can store/retrieve your weapons and grenades for battle.  Each Agency Supply Point keeps an inventory of the weapons you confiscate from gang members during the game.  You can travel between each one once you control it.  It becomes pretty convenient when you manage to die.  Each time you visit you can resupply your ammo and select any number of primary/secondary weapon combinations. 

There’s a good selection of weapons ranging from snipers to heat seeking rocket launchers.  You’ll need them all as the game get pretty hectic throwing wave after wave of gang member at you when you’re trying to take out one of the bosses.  With each weapon, you have precision targeting.  This allows you to press/hold the Left trigger, lock on and select a part of the body to fire upon.  You can choose to take out an arm, leg, torso or give a head shot.  Bosses are spread around in each gang-controlled location.  You’ll have to comb each area to unlock the location of each boss.  Once you’re in close proximity of a boss (21 of them total), a Tracker will come up and give you a brief video (dossier) of your target.  The videos were definitely fun to watch.  They CNN-like when detailing one of the bosses.  Once they’ve been identified, your HUD will guide you the rest of the way.  When you encounter a boss your friendly Agency narrator, as I call him, will give you the odds of taking them out.  If the percentage is low, you might want to rethink your strategy. (just kidding, head in there like a real Agent no matter the odds!)

At certain points in the game, you might find yourself being hunted by Hit Squads.  At this point, no area is safe.  The gangs will fire at you on first sight.  Your HUD identifies the level at which you’re being sought after as well.  A white dot on your HUD means they’re not looking for you while a red one means you better be at the ready with your weapon because they’re out to get ya.

I really enjoyed the setup of the game.  There was no steep learning curve and you could really just pick up and start laying the smack down.  The really interesting part and perhaps the most addictive is the orb collecting.  Your Agent can level up his skills throughout the game by using those skills and collecting orbs.  You have five (5) main skills…Agility, Driving, Explosives, Strength and Weapons.  When you choose to use hand to hand to kill a gang member or use various objects, your Strength skill increases.  If you decide to hop in a car and drive over the local gang, then your Driving skill increases as well.  See where I’m going with this?  Use grenades and it increases your Explosive skill…etc.  Make sure you watch the civilians around you when you’re blowing things up because if you kill too many, your own Agency friends (Enforcers) will hunt you down.

Pay attention to the color of orbs gained as they identify which skill is increasing.  There are Agility orbs (green markers) placed throughout the city which increases Agility.  Some of these Agility orbs are in very high places.  The higher the orb, the more skill advancement you gain.  Hidden orbs give you a boost in all 5 skills.  The Agility skill controls how far you can jump and how fast you can run.  Once you level your skills to at least 3 stars (a total of 4 stars maximum for each), the real fun begins.  I reached level 4 with my Agility and I was a jumping madman.   Forget about driving…I was jumping everywhere I needed to go!

There are other various ways you can increase your skills including Stunt, Rooftop and Road Race Markers.  These are color coordinated as well.  (the narrator will point out the colors once you’re close to one of the markers)

Visually the game is stellar.  The choice in design was great.  You feel like you’ve been placed in some sort of comic book and you’re really the bad ass hero Agent floating around.  The scope of the city was impressive as well.  As you jump or travel between areas, there’s never any degrading in the city or loading.  I thought that was a true testament to how much effort the development team at Realtime Worlds put into this game.  Looking down at the city from the Agency Tower was great. 

The sound in the game is nicely done as well.  The standard 5.1 does its magic when you’re firing the rocket launcher or causing a massive explosion with grenades.  And as I’ve mentioned throughout, the narrator is nicely done.  He’s cool and to the point.

Xbox Live Extras

The only thing you can do is join in on a friend for some co-op campaign action.  The setup is nice though as you can join in on a friend no matter where they are in the game.  You can set your own game up to be joinable as well or not if you don’t want anyone to join.  I was hoping for some 16-player battles with this game but zero was delivered.  There has already been some downloadable content with the 4-Play Pack so hopefully that’s a good sign that the life of the game will be extended.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed Crackdown.  I can’t say enough about the fun it creates when you reach higher skill levels.  I could jump around across buildings all day and never get tired.  I wish there was some form of random crime element once you take out all of the bosses though.  Once you’ve killed everyone, there’s little to do in the game.  But still, that little to do is fun.  I also wish the Xbox Live play went beyond 2 player co-op. 

There’s always Crackdown 2 I suppose.  With all that said, pay no attention to the fact that all the publicity for Crackdown centered around the Halo 3 beta.  This game holds its own.  Crackdown is an addiction in orb hunting waiting to happen.