Thursday 22 Mar 2007

Are you a fan of Grand Theft Auto 3, Saints Row or other similar games? Do you have lust for causing mayhem and total destruction with no restraints? Then Crackdown is the game for you!

Created by David Jones, the man behind the original Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings, comes a new game best described as a futuristic GTA clone with light character building elements.

The game doesn’t feature a big story, but still has one nonetheless; the Peacekeepers, a law enforcement agency is having trouble protecting Pacific City. The city has been overrun by three major gangs known as the drug trafficking “Los Muertos,” the militia “Volk” and the advanced genetic power known as the “Shai-Gen Corporation.” The Peacekeepers have started enlisting people like you, genetically and cybernetically enhanced officers to clean up the city.

The game plays out as a sandbox game with a massive city broken up into 3 major islands. Each of these islands is owned by one of the three gangs. There is no real structure - you can go anywhere, do anything and you are free to find and kill any of the gangs and their leaders in any order you desire. Your weapons of destruction are your fists and legs, guns, explosives, vehicles and most in-game objects like dumpsters, bins, pipes and poles which can be thrown at people. Taking out these gangs isn’t going to be easy and you will need to upgrade your five available skills.

Skillz 4 killz

On each of the three islands there are gang leaders and one kingpin. Take out the gang leaders and your probability of taking out the kingpin increases. Each gang leader also determines the way the game is played; for example, take out one and you could end up getting less gang members in the area or less better weapons on the streets. How does this affect you? Well, with less gang members on the street, your skills increase slower and with less better weapons available, the harder it becomes to try and take out other gang members (using worse weapons). This allows for a lot of replayability in the end, as taking out gang leaders and kingpins in different orders plays a big role in the game. The game can be finished by taking out all three kingpins of each gang on each island.

Skills in this game work on a star basis. You start off with no stars in each category and by reaching 100% in each skill area, you are awarded a star. The maximum possible ‘level’ you can reach in each skill area is four stars. Your cop has five important and upgradeable skills: agility, firearms, explosives, strength and driving. Each of these skills is upgraded in different ways, shoot an enemy to kill him and you will get turquoise orbs – these will upgrade your firearms skill. Kill an enemy by blowing him up (with a grenade or missile launcher) and you will get blue orbs, which increase your explosives skill. Punching or kicking an enemy to death will give you yellow orbs – they upgrade strength and health. Drive over an enemy or complete road races and you will get purple orbs - these will increase your driving skill.

Agility is the only attribute that is upgraded differently to the other skills and requires you to find green, agility orbs scattered across the city. You can also complete rooftop races to improve this skill. Upgrading your skills greatly affects the game play as you start to jump higher, run faster, aim better with guns, pick up heavier objects, cause bigger explosions and drive vehicles better. Personally I recommend upgrading your strength and agility skills in the beginning - for each star rating you have on strength, you gain an extra health bar.

One BIG city

Not only is Pacific City huge in terms of its width, but it’s also huge in its height. Unlike GTA where much of the action only took place at street level, Crackdown has a lot of action happening above the streets. There are many tall rise buildings that you are required to scale. Many of them have agility orbs at the top of them and sometimes there are gangs for you to take out. There are 500 agility orbs scattered across the city for you to find and an additional 300 harder to find secret orbs. Collecting a secret orb will increase all your skills – but not by much. I found myself spending hours finding agility and secret orbs. It became addictive and a game within itself –it’s similar to Easter egg hunting when you were a kid.

The city is also ‘alive.’ Some areas are densely populated with pedestrians going about their daily lives. They will either run when they see you or cheer you on when you come close to them. Most areas, and areas you will probably never go, are very detailed, from billboard signs to music coming out of night clubs to cleverly placed windows and ledges, the city is well made.

The draw distances in this game are insane. One can literally stand at the top of the agency building (the tallest building in the game) and see the edge of the city and cars miles and miles away. There are no load times between areas -the game will load once when you start off and that’s it. This is thanks to the semi-cell shaded graphics and the capabilities of the Xbox 360. The graphics and the look of the game are unique; semi-cell shaded graphics. Everything has a distinct black line around it with either very textured or sort-of textured surfaces. This gives it a slight cartoony feel, but don’t let that put you off. This has to be one of the only games ever created that gives you a sense of vertigo when jumping from building to building.

Crackdown (known as Riot Act in Japan) boasts quite a big soundtrack – 105 tracks to be precise, but it doesn’t come through well. You will only hear music once you get into a vehicle (there is that GTA similarity coming through) and that’s about it. If you are like me and loved to jump and run around everywhere, you’re hardly going to hear the soundtrack. The soundtrack features mostly unknown artists and ranges from metal to hip-hop to trance. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but worth a listen.

Co-op

Multiplayer in Crackdown is only available in the form of co-op over Live. It’s essentially the same as playing the game solo – you just have an extra helping hand. Get a friend to join you (via drop-in play) and you can run a riot in the city, take on missions and race each other. Both players can freely explore the city with the each others position noted on the HUD. If you and your co-op friend choose to participate, you can race against each other in both rooftop and road races. This adds a little extra fun to the game if you are into that kind of thing. The co-op feature is great, but it would have been nice if other multiplayer modes were included. Perhaps a ‘deathmatch’ or ‘capture the flag’ type mode.

If you are a gamer (or not even one) you are going to love this game no matter how old or fussy you are. Crackdown is a sheer blast and a lot of fun. If you enjoyed the Grand Theft Auto or Saints Row series, love sandbox games, love causing massive amounts of destruction and enjoy having mindless fun then this game was made for you! If not, then this game was still made for you.

Pros: Extremely fun; massive city; addictive.

Cons: Not much to do once you’ve finished the game; not much of a story.

Rating:
Contributor:	Martin

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