Leveling Down

Picking up cars and throwing them at thugs – all in a day’s work in the land of Crackdown.

Not quite done with the game, but with it selling for $17.49 at CompUSA for the next couple of days, I might as well put out the review so you guys can see what I have to say about it before ordering it. I feel like I’m getting close to being done with the game anyway. At this time, I’ve beaten the game once, but only gotten about 500 Achievements so far. But with many of the remaining Achievements only granted for the optional quests, I figure I’ll decide later if I want to go back and get them. I was always curious about Crackdown; the game had almost no storyline whatsoever but the game play seemed fun so I checked it out and was not disappointed. Crackdown is a good example in my book of a game that doesn’t need a strong storyline to be enjoyable – it all comes down to the gameplay.

Intro
Crackdown was developed by Real Time Worlds and published by Microsoft. Real Time Worlds was founded in 2002 by Dave Jones, one of the creators of Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto. He was really only involved in Grand Theft Auto 1 and 2, but with the popularity of Grand Theft Auto 3 and on, the headline “from the creator of Grand Theft Auto” certainly has some attractiveness.

Crackdown was released in late February of 2007 by Microsoft. With Real Time Worlds being an unknown developer at the time, Microsoft decided to throw in the Halo 3 Beta with the game to increase the game’s marketing and sales. It worked, as the game has gone on to sell over 1 million copies worldwide. How many of these copies sold due to just the Halo 3 beta?

The Halo 3 Beta probably overshadowed the game itself for some people, as I remember seeing pictures of joke signs saying stuff like “Halo 3 Beta (with free Crackdown included).” The game came out at a good time too; there hadn’t been an Xbox 360 “heavy hitter” title since Lost Planet came out in early January.

For the most part, reviews were favorable for the game. I was somewhat skeptical at first as I didn’t think the game was worth $60, so I waited. One week prior to the Halo 3 Beta, Amazon put Crackdown on sale for $40, so I picked it up then, figuring $40 was a more fair price for a game with no storyline and the Halo 3 Beta. With the Halo 3 Beta over now, the game’s retail price has been dropped down to $39.99 and I think the price is fair for the game.

You can choose any character you want before you load your game – it’s just a skin change and they’re all referred to as “Agent” anyway.

Storyline and Premise of the Game
There’s a very weak storyline to the game – in fact, even the main character you choose has no name as you’re just referred to as “Agent.” The premise is pretty simple – Pacific City has been overrun by three large gangs, each controlling a different section of the city. As a “super-powered agent,” your main objective in the game is to clean the streets of Pacific City up from crime.

Each of the three gangs has about seven mini-bosses and one main gang boss. It’s possible to take down the main leader in each gang without taking on the smaller mini-bosses, but it’s much harder. The gang boss and his minions’ attributes are enhanced with each mini-boss that are still alive. Thus, the main “premise of the game” is to take down all 24 bosses in the game.

Each boss occupies a certain large landmark in Pacific City, whether it’s a building, an oil rig, a ship yard, etc. Taking down a mini-boss cuts off the spawning of gang members in that landmark, and taking down the gang boss removes the entire gang from the city. Taking down all three gang bosses wipes the city completely clean of crime, but the game doesn’t end there.

There are other parts of the game as well, namely car/foot racing and orb collecting, but none are required. Those that enjoy these optional “sidequests” or are completionists may find that these extras lengthen the game considerably, but not necessarily in a good way. Some are quite enjoyable, like trying to build ramps to get your car to go high enough through various stunt rings located around the city, but others, like finding all of the hundreds of hidden orbs, prove to be quite a pain. But, with these sidequests being optional, it’s really up to the player if they want to go through with them.

Performing a certain task levels up your skill. For example, killing a thug with a firearm will generate a few firearm “experience balls” that will fly over to you.

Game Mechanics
As a super-powered agent, there is an RPG-like growth system for the agent’s five main attributes in the game: agility, driving, explosives, strength, and firearms. By performing tasks related to each attribute in game, the agent gains experience and levels up to a maximum level of 4 for each attribute.

Here are the five attributes described in detail:

Agility
With the Agility skill, you can run faster and jump higher. Maxed out you can jump 30 feet, which is a lot of fun. The only way to really increase agility is to find the Agility Orbs throughout the city. There are 500 of them on top of buildings everywhere, but fortunately, you only need maybe 200 or so (which are very easy to find) to max out your Agility skill. The Agility skill is what really makes the agent feel like a superhero and one aspect of the game I enjoyed.

Driving
The higher the driving skill, the faster a car’s acceleration/top speed is for the agent. With a higher top speed, you can fly further off of ramps and perform more aerial tricks. The Agency cars: a supercar, an SUV, and a truck cab, also upgrade along with your driving skill. At max Driving level the supercar has mounted machine guns, the SUV has hydraulics that allow you to jump and climb walls, and the truck cab gains a nitro boost to allow for a serious clearing of anything in its way.

Explosives
The explosives skill dictates how big of a radius and how much damage any explosions caused by the agent does. They start out small, but as you level up your explosives skill explosions become 15-foot radius blasts, sending cars and bodies flying every which way. This skill provides for some very amusing kills.

Strength
How much you can lift and how far you can throw something is determined by strength; as you kill enemies with objects you throw or melee attacks, your strength level increases. At max levels you can pick up cars and throw them at people. I personally enjoyed maxing out strength since  single jump kicks kill enemies right away. Strength also determines your life bar. The Crackdown life system consists of a shield and life bar. When the you take damage the shield bar depletes and when it is empty, the life bar depletes. Both regenerate out of combat, with the shield regenerating first at a faster rate. Increasing your strength level will allow for more life bars; maxing out strength provides the Agent with a shield bar and 5 life bars that must be drained before he is defeated.

Firearms
Firearms skill determines how long it takes to lock onto a target as well as how much damage you do with non-explosive firearms such as rifles, handguns, shotguns, and machine guns. Simply killing enemies with firearms raises this skill.

There are “safe houses” throughout the city that allow you to restock your ammo. When you load a game, you can start from any “safe houses” that you have discovered and while you’re in the game, you can warp from any safe house you’ve discovered to another one you’ve discovered.

Online
There is also a co-op feature to the game. Two players can play at the same time, with one player being able to drop into another player’s game at any time. The guest player will be playing in the host player’s world and save file. The two can wreck havoc across the city, take on the bosses, or even discover new things for amusement.

Higher agility allows you to jump higher and further, making it easier to climb up buildings.

Achievement System
I’m pretty content with the Achievement System in the game. The Achievements are varied and thoughtful, allowing someone to really spend a large amount of time in the game if they wanted to do everything. There are Achievements for killing the gangs, finding 500 Agility Orbs and 300 Hidden Orbs, winning all the races, performing car stunts, and doing interesting tasks such as keeping a body in the air for over 7 seconds, etc.

I’m a little disappointed that the Achievements only totaled 900 when the game was released. The developers claimed that they wanted to see what people were doing in the game before deciding on the last 100. They finally released the last 100 along with some free downloadable content. However, it gets lumped with the 250 extra Achievement points that came out with the premium downloadable content, but it’s confusing to figure out which Achievements need the premium content and which ones don’t so I probably won’t bother.

Getting a lot of air time with cars raises your Driving skill, which in turn allows you to hit a higher max speed to perform even crazier stunts.

Final Thoughts
I never really thought I would enjoy a “super hero” game like this, but I stand corrected – it’s probably the best super hero game I’ve played. I had a lot of fun maxing out my stats, jumping from building to building, blowing up cars, people, etc. I initially believed climbing buildings to be a hassle, but came to have fun with it. From this game alone, I can see why people enjoy rock climbing. Looking for ledges to grab onto so that you can ascend to the top does provide for a rush, especially since you can’t really die if you mess up in this game.

The game took me about 10 or so hours to clear through all the bosses, but because the combat is so fun I’m going to reset all the bosses (there’s an option to reset all gangs if you’ve cleared them) and go through it again when I get a chance. Maybe I’ll also try it out co-op and on a harder difficulty.

I give the game a B. The lack of a storyline hurts it some, but with the gameplay so enjoyable it’s still quite a good game. I found the Achievements to be a little more difficult than I liked, but I think that’s due more to the fact that I don’t really enjoy looking around for 300 hidden orbs or winning every street car race. I’m pretty sure any action gamer can find something that they enjoy about this game, whether it’s the super hero elements, the unique weapons and amusing violence, or even just the cars.

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