I like it.

Is that a long enough review?

With all that being said I have to say this game is one helluva good time! I'm not going to lie and say it's revolutionary, but it does have some new tricks. I'm not going to lie and say the story is as deep as War and Peace, but there is one. I'm also not going to lie and say this is a GTA clone; you can carjack cars and that's about as close as you get to GTA.

My introduction to the "sandbox genre" was a bit of a slow one. I never played any of the GTA's. Well I just lied, I did play one and two on my old PC, but the new 3D versions I never touched them until they were released on the Xbox. I was apprehensive with all the hype surrounding the game and more times than not I have been burned by false hype...:cough: :cough: "Counter Strike" :cough: :cough:...to name one of many. So my experience didn't happen right away with the series. From the moment I turned the GTA series on, I was hooked. I am sure everyone loves the game for their own sick little satisfying moments, I have a few myself. So at the risk of being detained in a mental hospital I will leave the moments un-said.

At any rate when Crackdown was announced, I was hyped about it, what self respecting fan of GTA wouldn't be? Then some game play videos popped up and my excitement waned. It was a train wreck. Yes I know the videos were early, yes I know it was still a long, long way out and yes I know it was only an E3 demo. It still looked like shit. I wasn’t even convinced when the updated graphics and new pictures were shown. The E3 viewing still left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Then the demo came out…

…That’s when everything changed. I instantly fell in love with this game.

Now, as I said in the beginning I’m not going to say this game is the best one I have ever played, and it doesn’t reinvent the wheel. What it does do though is give the player freedom. It offers freedom to play, freedom of choice, and freedom to decide how and when you want to do things. You can go in totally balls out into the hardest parts of the game from the beginning or you can baby step your way into the mad-mad world. You can follow the missions or go off on your own and build yourself up for the harder parts of the game.

I’m sure everyone on this site is familiar with the overall premise of Crackdown so I’m not going to go into strict detail. Basically, you build your characters traits up that allow you to run faster, shoot better, jump higher, create larger explosions, and pick up incredibly heavy items. (It’s almost like Deus EX and the way augmentations work.) You take out gang members and kill the bosses. It’s a very straightforward, seemingly ho-hum violent video game for Jack Thompson and Tipper Gore to go after.

The basic premise is you’re a cop, you need to clear the streets of gangs….yada-yada-yada…a bit clichéd isn’t it? It’s because it is. The cliché changes when you become this super cop with the abilities of Superman, Spiderman, The Flash, Speed Racer and The Green Goblin all rolled into one fantastic character. The game takes on an entirely new mentality with these added abilities. It doesn’t consist of getting Point A by doing B it’s getting to point A by doing K, R, Y, and Z. This is an open-ended blast fest. All options are open, the speed is manic the explosions are huge, and the game is great fun.

It’s tough to review this game on its graphics, at first glance it’s just another large world with tons of buildings, but then you look deeper. It’s detailed, it’s deep, it’s far-away, it’s a huge world, it’s cell-shaded, and it’s glorious! It’s the little details that count, and this one offers them up in spades. I love the billboards that advertise the people who lead the race times on Live. I also love the sunrises and sunsets. I would have to put this game on par with….well let’s put it this way, I feel it looks better than Saint’s Row. It certainly isn’t Gears of War nor is it Full Auto, it falls somewhere in between.

The Havok engine does shine here, bodies flopping all over car parts blasting into the air!! It’s pure inner-child fun! Once you cap out at four stars on your explosives attribute, it doesn’t stop being fun! To be blasted out of the sky by a homing missile while you’re in your vehicle, is hilarious! Who can ever get tired of body or vehicle juggling with a rocket launcher?!?!? As with other games and Havok, the physics at times are a bit over done. I don’t know if I have ever seen anyone who could land on his head, have his back crack in half, arms dangling and legs to the sides, and get up and walk away…Havok, your time is coming to an end. Euphoria will take the helm here soon! Hopefully Euphoria won’t exaggerate as badly.

The multiplayer is a blast as well. Species and I were up playing this one night until what 5:30 EST?!?! We’re separated by about 2600 miles, which includes: an ocean, some desert, and some mountains, yet the game played smooth as silk. You pop in where you left off each time, depending on who the host is. The dual destruction is fantastic, it’s incredible actually. It’s a testament to how good the Live network actually is. Other “nameless” companies, say free is best, but I can guarantee it can’t keep up with Live. To be on the entire other side of the map and still keep pace with the other player is mind-boggling to me.

That’s not to say this game is not without its faults. It’s certainly not perfect. It has graphical glitches galore I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten “stuck” in the side of buildings and streets, nothing to do but reset the game. The game also does have some tearing when the game speeds up; it’s something that has plagued many 360 titles, although this one doesn’t suffer to badly. The glitches although they are there, they don't hinder the game play much at all.

One thing that this game does not offer is a story or a varied assignment list. One of the greatest aspects of GTA was the varied assignments, the game had so many different assignments it’s tough to chose a favorite. Crackdown doesn’t have any of that, it just has one assignment: take out the gang bosses. Whoop-dee-freakin-doo. It gets a bit tedious, but at the same time, the game manages to stay fun. It’s more about the ability to do basically whatever you want than anything else. So if you’re looking for an engaging story with a varied number of assignments stay far away from this game.

I have been giving this game a lot of play time since I purchased it a few weeks ago. It seems to get more fun each time your skill levels increase, it stays fresh and fun, there are plenty of skill courses i.e.: racing to increase your driving abilities or jumping to increase your agility. I’m just having fun blowing up stuff to increase my explosives level. Would I say this game is a must have? I don’t know, am I happy I bought it? Yes. I don’t feel I have wasted my money in the least. I do have to say I fall in line with most of the other reviewers out there. It’s a fun game, it’s not a classic, it certainly isn’t Grand Theft Auto and it certainly isn’t going to challenge that game anytime soon. Although, for their first attempt this series shows some promise. I’m having fun with it still, but I have so many other titles on the burner, that this one will be collecting dust soon. Until the Halo 3 beta begins of course!!!

-Merritt

I’m not much a grade giver, I don’t believe in numbers, grades or stars. I don’t feel that it’s fair to people. You the reader already finish with a conceived notion after you read the review so why should I highlight my overall impressions with a star, an A, a 9 or a 2? It doesn’t make much sense. I never understood the numbers system, because the scores are never an overall average…it doesn’t make much sense does it? So why add numbers at all…? Adding a grade? A-F? That’s entirely too much like school. Stars while pretty do remind me of third grade math. I’m much more astute than that.

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"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools."