Crackdown

Aug. 14, 2008

After hearing a talk about Crackdown on the GDC '08 disc I was too curious about it, so for today I went and rented the game. I thought it would be fun, but I was shocked at what a good time I had.

Category

Sandbox Action

Pros

• The ability to run super fast and jump super high is just awesome. Collecting agility orbs is extremely fun. I did not at all grow tired of leaping up tall buildings while I was playing, and was eager to collect enough points to be able to jump even higher.
• The game has a few simple systems built in that I was able to grasp within the hour. The talking narrator helped a lot, too, without becoming annoying.
• The auto lock system is superb for players like me who can't aim for shit with a joystick.
• The look of the game is just right for the action, and the game runs very smoothly.
• The cars that I drove in the game were easily handled, which is a breath of fresh air after racing games and GTA4. It's not as realistic, but it's a hell of a lot more fun.
• This is true of most sandbox games, but the freedom to do whatever you want was really felt in this game. You're never locked into a mission, and if you get bored you can go do something else.
• Good autosave system meant I was never behind whenever I died.
• Speaking of dying, I died a few times without the game becoming so challenging I got mad.
• The game was just plain fun.

Cons

• This game suffers from a serious case of Infinite Enemy Syndrome. I hate it when it feels like I'm not making any progress on killing a mass of enemies because more magically keep appearing.
• There was nothing particularly special about the two boss fights I encountered except for that there were more bad guys around than usual. This led to less-than-memorable battles.

Verdict

Yes, yes, yes, I would (and will) most certainly be playing more of this game.