Crackdown was some of the smartest marketing of 2007. It was a very unique looking game and it seemed like it had a lot of promise. Somewhere up in Microsoft HQ they decided the game itself wasn't enough though. To fix this they added a little thing called the Halo 3 beta. Needless to say people freaked out and knew that if they didn't get into the beta via the internet, their only option was to go out and buy a sixty dollar game. I was one of those people who didn't get in online. I, however, wasn't so disappointed because the game looked like a blast. Once I got I realized the game had lived up to the hype surrounding it. Sure it was kind of repetitive but when you are a super agent that can jump 40 feet straight into the air minor stuff like that doesn't bother you as much.



Crackdown really had no story. I think that worked in it's favor. The main character was a voiceless super agent who's entire job consists of killing hundreds of gang members. That is what the game consisted of, just killing gang members. This is where the game started to rub people the wrong way. There is something like 21 bosses to kill. Some of these are optional but that is a lot of bosses for a one trick game. What helped keep this fresh was the environments the game had you in. You could be in the middle of a city jumping from 100 foot towers. The next you could be out by the ocean jumping to an oil tanker. The diversity is what really saved the game from falling into the Assassin's Creed trap.



The graphics were one of the best received parts of the game. The cell shading comic book style worked very well with the direction the game went. As always with cell shading, it allowed the developers to have enormous draw distances which helped when you were on top of the games mountains or skyscrapers. One other part of the game that was a huge success was the the coop. The game allowed two players to beat the game completely. The coop also had no distance restrictions. One player could be fighting a gang on the western island while the other player takes out another gang on the northern island.



Overall Crackdown was a fun gaming experience. Nothing life changing but nice inclusions such as full coop and well, being a unstoppable killing machine. There were some drawbacks to the game but the positive far outweighed the negative. Oh and did I mention it came with the Halo 3 beta? What more do you need?

P.S. I got a sweet new banner thanks to ShiverBoo. She rocks!