Crackdown was one of several games at E3 2006 for which we adopted a “wait and see” approach. Would it end up being a simple GTA knockoff? Would its semi-cel-shaded graphics be a stylistic plus, or just a cheap cop out for not being able to make a game look realistic? And, most important, would its sandbox gameplay offer anything new?
Having spent some time with a recent preview build, we’ve changed our stance toward Crackdown. The game’s still rough in a few spots, and it doesn’t offer many new elements, but what Crackdown offers as a whole is shaping up to be pretty fun, especially with a friend. And what we’ve played is shaping up better than we could’ve ever hoped.
The gameplay is a mix of any action-RPG you’ve played in the past three years and Activision’s Spider-Man games. This combination actually does a better job at making players feel like a superhero than any other game — albeit a superhero who can’t fly. Most of Crackdown is spent running or jumping from building to building, seeking out enemy strongholds and taking down the bosses in each of Pacific City’s three territories. Pacific City, the gang- and crime-infested town in which Crackdown takes place, is absolutely huge, and depending on your gameplay style, offers shootouts both on the rooftops and on the ground.
However, as much we were hoping the leveling-up would be based on our gameplay style (like Fable or Oblivion), it’s not shaping up to be quite that deep. Improving your artillery skill is logically achieved by shooting enemies, and you earn more of a stat boost depending on their distance from you or how precise you are when aiming. Improving your driving skill, though, isn’t done by simply driving around Pacific City, but by completing races or running over enemies. Improving your agility isn’t done by just hopping around, but by gathering special agility orbs at the top of certain landmarks. And improving your strength isn’t simply a matter of picking things up, but of picking them up and hitting enemies with them.
In that sense, anyone who’s enjoyed exploring Manhattan in the Spider-Man games will love Crackdown, even if it doesn’t change much between now and its February release. And, if you’ve got Xbox Live or a fellow gamer in the house, there’s no reason you won’t like it even more, because you can take down crime lords cooperatively.
The co-op mode takes Crackdown to a place open-ended games haven’t been before. For instance, one supercop can take to the rooftops while the other goes with a ground-based attack, a “tactical combat lite” approach that’s is even more intriguing when you consider that you can combine your skills. For instance, if your character is super strong and your co-op partner is a monster with explosives, you can hoist him off the ground and toss him over a fence into an enemy compound, where he can proceed with blasting them all to kingdom come. Or, if you’re a sniping guru and he’s a driving master, he can cruise through a compound to lure enemies into the open, at which point you rain down bullets.
In many respects Crackdown is going to be its best when played with a partner, most notably because the campaign seems to get a bit repetitive. But when you add the fun of a second player, the repetition probably won’t be as much of an issue, because you can each take a different approach and work on different skills together.
The build we’ve played of Crackdown isn’t final, but even if the game were to ship right now we’d be pretty darn happy. There are still some delayed-audio issues, the camera gets wonky when you’re in close quarters, and the inability to easily switch targets can cause some frustrating deaths during melee combat, but those things will ideally be fixed come February. When the free Crackdown demo hits the Xbox Live Marketplace this week, there’s no good reason to miss checking it out.
— Jonas Allen
