I was lucky enough to get a copy of Crackdown and have been playing pretty religiously. It’s the first game in a while that’s been able to break my Zelda addiction. I’m probably two-thirds of the way through Zelda (desert region now), so that’s a pretty big achievement! Not going to write a review since I’m nowhere near finished, and there will be plenty of official reviews coming out sometime in the near future. But I did want to share some thoughts/impressions.
Overall, love the game. For what it’s worth, I was never a Grand Theft Auto fan; there’s something about the gangster/crime theme and overly-hip attitude didn’t do anything for me personally (though I’ll admit I’m obviously in the minority here). The only fun I ever had with GTA was when I ignored the story and just played in the world – and that’s what Crackdown has really nailed well. It’s pretty apparent that an immense amount of time was spent building out the city you play in. The regions (three islands) feel quite distinct from one another, and many areas just “feel” right - meaning that you could easily imagine places like this existing in the world today.
A few folks have written about the verticality of the game – don’t underestimate this aspect. When you first start playing your character’s stats are pretty low. You might be able to jump to the eave of a low-hanging roof and pull yourself up. But as you start finding power-up orbs (green candy/so tasty!) you quickly start being able to jump higher and further – and that’s when you find that the design of the city I just described extends up as well. You can climb higher and higher over time and there’s a great feeling of satisfaction from finding a choice perch to rain death and destruction upon your opponents.
Your character’s ability to power-up is pretty impressive. I had a chance to play co-op with Ken Lobb for a few hours, and as you might imagine he’d pretty much maxed-out his character. The result was pretty amusing as I’d start “hopping” my way toward a location and he’d just jump a few city blocks and make it in one leap. There’s also something amusing about exploring the world, hearing “You forgot your car!” and then ducking as it sails over you to crash and roll on the beach. The agency vehicles are also fun in that they literally expand and evolve in front of your eyes based upon your skill. Ken would jump in and the SUV would basically beef up in front of you, sort of like a mad Transformer. But if he hopped out and I hopped in our ride quickly toned down. The fully maxed-out vehicles also have some great bonus powers that I won’t disclose – the fun is in the finding!
Speaking of fun, obviously there’s a game here where you’ll go chase down crime lords and their minions. I won’t go into tons of details, but I will say that you should listen to the descriptions of what the different bosses enable for their organizations, and the effect your removing them has on the overall crime syndicate. What’s described is actually exactly what happens in game terms – if you remove the guy who supplies explosives, you won’t have to face those (oh so fun!) rocket launchers at a later point in the game. The effects are subtle when playing on the standard level, but they’re key if you play on the harder levels. It’s almost a puzzle to figure out the best way to dismantle the organization.
The final aspect I love about Crackdown is its co-op support. I’ve been evangelizing co-op for many years now and I have to say this title is one of my favorite examples yet. (May god have mercy on my soul the day Nintendo delivers a co-op Zelda Twilight.) Anyway, I spent a few hours playing with Ken and it was a blast. Interesting trivia – when you’re playing co-op, each person’s game world is actually running on each console, in lockstep. What this enables is that each person sees their world in terms of orbs/power-ups they need to collect, but share in-game experiences such as battles, explosions, etc. You can do some really fun stuff – I think one of my first questions to Ken was why I couldn’t shoot stuff when sitting in the passenger seat of the car he was driving. Answer? Why sit inside when you can stand on top? And that’s what we did. I think we spent 15 minutes just rampaging around city freeways as he drove. I stood on the roof (feet nailed), picking off cars with the rocket launcher and watching them soar past our heads as we raced by.
What else can you do when playing co-op? I’ll just say that things go bang really, really well in this world:
[YouTube:eaWqseH2A60]
So obviously I’ve been gushing about the game, which no doubt helps my pro-Microsoft flunkey credentials in the community. Sadly, the game is that good… so be it. Is it a perfect game? No – the auto lock-on controls are sometimes a bit touchy and miss the target I’m looking for. And co-op, while incredible fun, does take a bit of focused attention if you want to stay and play together. It’s easy to get a decent distance away from your partner while playing… but then again, the fact that you can attack the problem your own way could be seen as a positive as well.
Check out the reviews when they hit to get more detail. I’ll be curious to see if GTA-loving fans like the game, especially as I know three people (not including myself) who didn’t like GTA but really do like Crackdown. And download the demo from Marketplace! It’s how the video above was made, and you’ll get a really good sense of whether you like the game or not. Look forward to your thoughts when you get your hands on it!
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Quick thoughts on Crackdown
I was lucky enough to get a copy of Crackdown and have been playing pretty religiously. It’s the first game in a while that’s been able to break my Zelda addiction. I’m probably two-thirds of the way through Zelda (desert region now), so that’s a pretty big achievement! Not going to write a review since I’m nowhere near finished, and there will be plenty of official reviews coming out sometime in the near future. But I did want to share some thoughts/impressions.
Overall, love the game. For what it’s worth, I was never a Grand Theft Auto fan; there’s something about the gangster/crime theme and overly-hip attitude didn’t do anything for me personally (though I’ll admit I’m obviously in the minority here). The only fun I ever had with GTA was when I ignored the story and just played in the world – and that’s what Crackdown has really nailed well. It’s pretty apparent that an immense amount of time was spent building out the city you play in. The regions (three islands) feel quite distinct from one another, and many areas just “feel” right - meaning that you could easily imagine places like this existing in the world today.
A few folks have written about the verticality of the game – don’t underestimate this aspect. When you first start playing your character’s stats are pretty low. You might be able to jump to the eave of a low-hanging roof and pull yourself up. But as you start finding power-up orbs (green candy/so tasty!) you quickly start being able to jump higher and further – and that’s when you find that the design of the city I just described extends up as well. You can climb higher and higher over time and there’s a great feeling of satisfaction from finding a choice perch to rain death and destruction upon your opponents.
Your character’s ability to power-up is pretty impressive. I had a chance to play co-op with Ken Lobb for a few hours, and as you might imagine he’d pretty much maxed-out his character. The result was pretty amusing as I’d start “hopping” my way toward a location and he’d just jump a few city blocks and make it in one leap. There’s also something amusing about exploring the world, hearing “You forgot your car!” and then ducking as it sails over you to crash and roll on the beach. The agency vehicles are also fun in that they literally expand and evolve in front of your eyes based upon your skill. Ken would jump in and the SUV would basically beef up in front of you, sort of like a mad Transformer. But if he hopped out and I hopped in our ride quickly toned down. The fully maxed-out vehicles also have some great bonus powers that I won’t disclose – the fun is in the finding!
Speaking of fun, obviously there’s a game here where you’ll go chase down crime lords and their minions. I won’t go into tons of details, but I will say that you should listen to the descriptions of what the different bosses enable for their organizations, and the effect your removing them has on the overall crime syndicate. What’s described is actually exactly what happens in game terms – if you remove the guy who supplies explosives, you won’t have to face those (oh so fun!) rocket launchers at a later point in the game. The effects are subtle when playing on the standard level, but they’re key if you play on the harder levels. It’s almost a puzzle to figure out the best way to dismantle the organization.
The final aspect I love about Crackdown is its co-op support. I’ve been evangelizing co-op for many years now and I have to say this title is one of my favorite examples yet. (May god have mercy on my soul the day Nintendo delivers a co-op Zelda Twilight.) Anyway, I spent a few hours playing with Ken and it was a blast. Interesting trivia – when you’re playing co-op, each person’s game world is actually running on each console, in lockstep. What this enables is that each person sees their world in terms of orbs/power-ups they need to collect, but share in-game experiences such as battles, explosions, etc. You can do some really fun stuff – I think one of my first questions to Ken was why I couldn’t shoot stuff when sitting in the passenger seat of the car he was driving. Answer? Why sit inside when you can stand on top? And that’s what we did. I think we spent 15 minutes just rampaging around city freeways as he drove. I stood on the roof (feet nailed), picking off cars with the rocket launcher and watching them soar past our heads as we raced by.
What else can you do when playing co-op? I’ll just say that things go bang really, really well in this world:
[YouTube:eaWqseH2A60]
So obviously I’ve been gushing about the game, which no doubt helps my pro-Microsoft flunkey credentials in the community. Sadly, the game is that good… so be it. Is it a perfect game? No – the auto lock-on controls are sometimes a bit touchy and miss the target I’m looking for. And co-op, while incredible fun, does take a bit of focused attention if you want to stay and play together. It’s easy to get a decent distance away from your partner while playing… but then again, the fact that you can attack the problem your own way could be seen as a positive as well.
Check out the reviews when they hit to get more detail. I’ll be curious to see if GTA-loving fans like the game, especially as I know three people (not including myself) who didn’t like GTA but really do like Crackdown. And download the demo from Marketplace! It’s how the video above was made, and you’ll get a really good sense of whether you like the game or not. Look forward to your thoughts when you get your hands on it!
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