| Crackdown |
| Posted on 4th March 2007 by Tom Hully |
When the developer Realtime Worlds, developers of the original Grand Theft Auto, announced they were in the process of making yet another sandbox game; some people shrugged their shoulders and expected nothing special. Crackdown, however; is all that you should love about a sandbox game and more. The game is set in the sprawling Pacific City, which encompasses three linked islands each run by a separate criminal gang. The way these gangs have been realised really is very detailed indeed – from their nationality to their location and their undoubtedly criminal intentions. First, there are Los Muertos (or “the dead” in English) who have set up camp in the standard suburbs of the city with it’s blocks of flats, clubs, restaurants and a very inviting beach. These Spanish miscreants prefer to deal in drugs and other narcotics; and cruise around their third of the island in modified cars, vans and trucks – all of which are a joy to drive thanks to their upgraded speed and agility coupled with the above-par vehicle handling, which is excellent and pretty much on the same plane as GTA. The other two thirds of the island are controlled by the Volk – a Russian gang with a passion for heavy industry (mining, oil production etc) and the mysterious Shai-Gen Corporation, a very Japanese outfit with high hopes for big business, albeit illegal. These other environments look absolutely stunning in an almost graphic-novel style, with the contrast between the suburbs under Los Muertos to the industrial sector controlled by the Volk and the shiny high-rise offices of the Shai-Gen realised perfectly.
To combat this triumvirate of underworld menace, you play the role of an elite member of the Agency, a futuristic police force employing genetically and electronically enhanced Agents (who you become a member of) as well as your regular everyday cop. As a superhuman justice-dealer though, you get access to some very cool vehicles and personal abilities, which become nothing short of amazing once you reach the maximum skill level of 4 in each of the 5 areas. These break down to Agility – concerning your movement abilities of running and jumping, Driving – an advance in this area gains you upgraded versions of the three signature Agency vehicles (the insanely fast Supercar, the high-flying SUV and the monolithic Truck cab) which perform some awesome transformation sequences once you get in depending on your level, Explosives – advancing this skill increases the destructive power of your grenades, mines or rockets, Strength – getting this skill to its maximum gives you truly superhuman powers (enough to lift anything weighing up to 10 tons!!) and finally Firearms; where increasing your skill gives you greater accuracy with each of the very well balanced weapons.
Increasing these 5 skills is paramount to your success against the three criminal organisations, each having a total of 7 bosses which are organised logically into 6 lower commanders and the overall head honcho. Here lies one of the great assets of this type of game, as with GTA you can do anything you want; whether it’s related to the story or not – then again there isn’t much of a storyline to speak of, your objective is very clear from the outset although you are supplied with interesting background detail on each of the bosses once the desk-fillers back at your home base (the Agency Tower – which boasts one of the most impressive visual designs of any building in the game as well as being the tallest, as it is in the centre of the three separate islands of Pacific City out on its own outcrop in the bay) gain enough useful information to provide you with an interactive dossier on a given boss. The freedom to do anything means you can tackle the total of 21 bosses across the three gangs in any order and using whatever method you want to – that said trying to be gung-ho and employing run-and-gun tactics with a basic character from the beginning will not get you very far. As I said earlier, working to gain experience in the 5 skill areas before you begin to tackle some of the tougher bosses will allow you to reap the dividends, not least survive the encounter. However, don’t think you have to devote time to train these skills without working towards the bosses, as any action you perform (killing a gang member with either a weapon or your fists, or performing a stunt in a vehicle) gives you a certain amount of experience every time you perform that action – the best example of this is using one of the two rocket launchers in the game to take out a group of gang hoodlums: the amount of blue explosives experience orbs which fly at you is phenomenal.
Other skills give you a fantastic opportunity to explore the environment of the game to the full – as unlike other games of it’s type Crackdown is as open as open can be on both planes, either horizontically on the ground or vertically up a building. Your reward for making these climbs is green-coloured agility orbs, which give you a helpful amount of agility experience depending on how difficult they were to reach. The second type of orb the budding collectors will want to hunt down are the turquoise secret orbs, which as the name suggests are hidden in various alcoves around Pacific City and give you a small boost in all of the 5 skills when you find them. There are 500 agility and 300 secret orbs in total, although you should be very close to maximum experience before you find them all. Another option for exploring the rooftops are the green foot races, which employ a series of checkpoints spread over the roves of various buildings requiring you to run and jump your way to a hopefully fast time, the reward being a set amount of agility experience.
Overall, the control system is very well mapped and becomes enjoyably simple to use. This is best illustrated in the inevitable scenario of combat – you lock on to enemies by looking at them and holding the left trigger, which gives you free reign to shoot them, blow them up or physically beat them to death; whichever takes your fancy. Death is also no barrier in this game, as thanks to the genetically enhanced program of development being deployed by the Agency you can simply select your nearest supply point (which can also be used as handy ammunition depots) and get right back into the action.
For a double dose of fun though, undoubtedly the best way to play Crackdown is in co-op. The concept of complete freedom still applies here, so you and your friend can either work together or go off to completely different areas and work that way. The possibilities for sheer goofing around are multiplied when you get a friend to join in as well – I spent a good 2 hours running around the city with a friend throwing cars and trucks at gang members, climbing buildings and base jumping to the ground and causing plenty of destruction with the well-balanced explosive weapons, which produce some very attractively modelled explosions upon impact.
All in all, Crackdown is a must for any fan of the sandbox genre. It is without a doubt an absolute riot, and incredible endless fun, even though the depth of the story may be a little too thin for some. |
Single Player Score: 8/10
Multiplayer Score: 9/10
Overall Score: 9/10 |
|
|
