Crackdown

[JaySevenZero]

Here's where you can leave your thoughts regarding Crackdown for possible inclusion in the podcast when it's recorded.

[Alex79]

Crackdown was one of the first games I played when I got my 360, and remains one of the most fun experiences I've ever had in gaming. Levelling up your character to scale building in a single leap, or beefing up the car so that it could drive up walls - I'd never seen anything like this in a video game before. I remember really liking the visual style too, if I remember rightly (and it's just as likely I don't) they had an almost cell shaded style to them which I've always found appealing. The hunt for those orbs almost drove me to despair, and I never did find them all but I'm sure I only had a couple left by the end. I only have one criticism of the game, and that was a total lack of variety between missions. It was only ever go here, kill some guys, kill the boss. The game could have been much improved with a better story and more things to do, but even with that said, it remains a wholly enjoyable experience. Much fun could be had just messing around in the world. Climbing the highest buildings, playing with the physics, piling cars around. I've never gone back to it, so can't really say how well it's aged - my fear is probably not very well. I imagine that a lot of what Crackdown did has been improved upon in games like Saints Row and Infamous, but for what it tried to do at the time, I think it did it brilliantly.

THREE WORD REVIEW: Prototype Superhero Simulator.

[lowestformofwit]

Crackdown. I regard it as a masterpiece. A cult classic. I believe it will have touched those (like it touched me) who loved the title when it was launched as I think it was a product of passion by a veteran developer (Dave Jones), something we are seeing less and less of these days.

If I were to deconstruct, I think it was a masterclass of creating something from nothing. The gameplay was incredibly shallow but the mechanics, the explosions, the giant leaps, the transforming cars which could drive up buildings - with a friend it was a lot of fun. If new gamers were introduced to this today it probably wouldn't hold up but you have to remember that when this was released co-operative gameplay was the latest new craze and wasn't as ubiquitous as it is today so these were new experiences to 360 gamers and it was exciting and very entertaining.

Standouts for me were orb collecting (I didn't get them all) and the achievement for climbing to the top of the highest tower and jumping off - and surviving. I particularly loved the way the sound reflected the tone of the climb as you received specific sound design (FX/music) the higher you got.

I love Crackdown. With Dave at the helm of Crackdown 3 I continue to prey that we see some of the magic back when it is released. Only time will tell.

[lowestformofwit]

Game design thought.

If ever a game NEEDED to rip-off the nemesis system is it Crackdown 3.

[Simonsloth]

I’m probably in the minority but I hadn’t played crackdown until recently. My chosen console of the big three at launch was a playstation 3 so I missed a lot of the early Xbox 360 back catalogue. Although I later rectified this I passed over crackdown as a poor man’s infamous.

Initially I thought my preconceptions were correct until I realised it was a completely different beast entirely. The more the game pulled me in with its RPG-lite elements the more I wanted to play. Those tantalisingly just out of reach orbs made me want to jump higher and run faster.

On paper I shouldn’t like this game. I enjoy narrative driven experiences where there is momentum and purpose to my actions.

In crackdown there really isn’t a narrative to speak of and it’s more of a playground with enemies evenly and predictably placed on the map for the player to eliminate one by one.

Despite my first impressions and preconceptions I had an absolute blast playing this. I loved the elaborate maze like buildings leading up to each boss which are made all the more tricky by the slightly dodgy platforming. I loved jumping over a building whilst throwing an impossibly powerful grenade a hundred yards then closing in on the survivors with ridiculously powerful karate kicks.

Its mindless fun and made a refreshing change from my usual gaming choices.

3 word review:
One Giant Leap

[xbenblasterx]

I came for some sandbox superhero action, but what kept me playing was finding every single one of those damn orbs! Many years on i can still remember the soft humming of a near by orb, microsoft really tapped into my completionist bug.

[Bakers_12]

I played the demo when it first came out and loved it was a perfect show case for the game. But for some reason I never picked it up. I finally got it when it popped up free on games for gold. The game still looks good helped by the styleized looks but it’s the gameplay that really stands out it just lets you go out there and do what you want. Sure you could go out and take down the bosses but you could course any amount of chaos for the hell of it and it felt like that’s what the developers wanted, even more so then GTA did.

[delb2k]

Crackdown's currency was fun, a title that realized the best thing to do in an open world is to both tempt and tease while making sure that a smile is permanently fixed on you're face. Everything is designed to provide a sense of empowerment and exploration. The orbs that provide the power ups are dished around the world to tease you into exploring while also teaching you about how to use verticality and the importance of creating new angles in combat encounters. The way you're body changes feeds that sense of strength, and the bigger the explosions get the more chaos you feel capable of causing. The game worked in part because it fulfilled a power fantasy, it scratched an OCD itch within most of us and it suck a simple set of ideas and executed them with a even simpler ruleset. But the bombast that created was all the game ever needed, each explosion and surprisingly well placed exploding barrel gives a basic but always satisfying endorphin rush.

In a time where open world games are getting ever more complicated, with more to do and secrets to find the basic joy of Crackdown cannot be underestimated. All it wanted you to do was feel like the good Robocop. Just with bigger rockets.

[ratsoalbion]

Welcome back Derrick!
Thanks for the post.

[Craig]

Crackdown is a game my brother and I wasted a fair bit of time on mostly just egging each other on to see what silly (and somewhat sociopathic) things we could do. However, we never actually bought the game. We weren't interested in the story, and the game let you play in a large enough area, with enough powers that we were quite content just using that as our sandbox. It was one of those cases where the demo was too good and we never felt that we'd get any more fun from the game than we already were in the trial version. In retrospect I feel kind of bad for the developers, but whenever I hear about current developers talking about the difficulties of creating a demo, I always think back to this game.

I'm sure the team will have come across this in their extensive research, but for anyone who doesn't know the Japanese localisation of this title was... different.



Title changed to Riot Act and artwork by Monkey Punch of Lupin III fame.

[psychohype]

I think the biggest lesson of Crackdown was that it got away just fine with being a fun, zany sandbox game—one with minimal story or narrative motivation. It was also, funnily enough, among those early open-world crime games where the rival gangs were basically ethnic stereotypes (Shai-Gen's enigmatic Wang, anyone?).

Anyway, the point—I think—with Crackdown was that they stripped out all the crap that made open-world games slow and tedious. Who actually wants to spend half the time actually driving around, confined mostly to some streets and alleys? Why not give yourself some superpowers that make it so you can just leap and bound your way through the world, take the combat up to the rooftops? Jump right into the thick of the action wherever you go. Yes, you did have to work a little bit to make those leaps and bounds more powerful, and yet they managed to make 3D platforming and collecting (hello orbs!) more enticing and enjoyable than any game since Mario 64.

At the end of the day, I think the lack of a strong narrative probably does limit its overall legacy. We'll see what happens with Crackdown 3 (and as a side note, I totally echo the other person in the forum who said the game needs to copy the nemesis system). But you can't deny the subtle influence Crackdown has had on open-world games. Just look at Saints Row 4. It took Volition that many entries to evolve into its own pure mode of play that was essentially Crackdown with a funnier story and an actual cast of characters.

Oh, yeah. I also did appreciate the 'gotcha!' ending. We totally had it coming.