Bits and Bytes: Crackdown not worth price of admission
With all the hoopla surrounding this game being packaged with the invitation for the Halo 3, Beta, many gamers assumed that this game was probably pretty bad because it needed such a marketing boost.
Although I love Halo 2 and still play it almost every week online, there was no way that I was paying $70 to get a so-so game and try a beta version of the game. Thank goodness my buddy bought it on the hype of the game itself (he's not the biggest Halo fan) and passed it on to me to play on the weekend, because it's been a while since I've had such mindless fun with a game.
To say that this game is a “futuristic Grand Theft Auto” is misleading because, although the game is in a city setting and you can tackle that game's enemy forces in whatever order you wish, the game play that GTA provides is real meaty, while Crackdown is more or less boney. That's not to say that Crackdown is sub par or anything, there's just no more of a comparison to GTA you can make.
You begin as this agent super soldier and responsible for helping clean the city up. The great thing is that although you are a super soldier, throughout the game, you have the ability to upgrade all your abilities to make your powers grow even more. By using grenades and rocket launchers, your explosive powers grow. By kicking the bad guys to end their reign of terror, your strength increases to the point where you can kick cars across the map and pick up huge items over your head and launch them at the baddies.
The best part, your agile jumping prowess, grows by collecting one of 500 ability orbs scattered throughout the city. As you gain the ability to run faster, jump higher and farther, these orbs get easier to obtain.
Running, jumping and shooting the bad guys is mindless fun, but besides going after the bad guys and raiding their bases, there's really nothing more to do in the game. Yes, there are some online modes and co-ops, but it's still basically the same stuff.
