XBOX 360 Wire

Crackdown, Judge Dredd on speed!

Last night I sat down with the demo of crackdown, and much fun and merriment was had. This game is good fun, there are no two ways about it.

The demo starts with your character in the parking lot of the agency building where you get to select which type of agency vehicle you want to take for a spin, you have a choice between a car, an SUV and a truck. Each has its own unique benefits. The car is faster, the SUV better off road and the truck is like driving a battering ram. I selected the car (it was the first option and I was eager to get into the action). Once in the car you are provided with the details of the first area and gang that you are going after. A door opens to reveal a corridor down which you drive to reach the city outside. Driving down the corridor is like being in fighter launch scene from one of a million different Sci-fi movies. Lights flash past as your speed increases until you hit a ramp at the bottom and are launched into the unsuspecting city.

Once you hit the city you instantly realize that this is no happy thriving metropolis. From the second you car gets airborne a group of gang members open fire at you, and here is where the fun begins. Initially I flew around in the car attempting to mow down the pistol wielding bad guys, before jumping out of the car and unleashing all manner of assault rifle hell.

The demo has advanced skill progression, allowing you to very quickly get a feel for how the full game will feel a few hours in. The ability to jump the height of buildings and pick up and throw around cars adds nicely to the mayhem and chaos caused whilst taking down the bad guys. The control system feels solid and smooth and the graphics are suitably impressive.

So all in all it appears that this is shaping up to be a fantastic title, well almost. There is one drawback that I can see. The game play essentially revolves around running and jumping about taking down the gang leaders, from what I could see there are not really other sub missions (with the exception of street races which are used to increase driving stats) and I would be worried that the full game could become repetitive quite quickly. When it boils down to it this is a GTA-a-like with a super-cop twist. The problem being that GTA, and more relevantly Saints Row for the 360, had a variety of mission styles to make sure that you could always alter the pace of the action when you felt like a change, as well as playing in the sandbox environment when you didn’t feel like doing missions or tasks. Crackdown however is one giant mission, and as mentioned there doesn’t appear to be side missions to distract your attention.

From my first impressions this seems like a game that would be good fun to play for an hour or so at a time, but I can’t see it being something that you will sit and play through for hours on end. As a break from longer more involved games it would be great, on it’s own it may be a little lacking in depth.

Should you buy this game? Well based on the demo, Yes, for two reasons. It is coming with an invitation to the Halo 3 Beta, and for a lot of people that is all they need to know. In fact those people may never even play Crackdown which would be a shame because of reason 2, this is a good fun game. Maybe not the game that you will spend nights on end working through, but one that you will enjoy when you just feel like going on a rampage in a well implemented sandbox environment.

Posted by Mr-J - February 12th, 2007 -