Why bother with impressive realistic looking stunts when you can engage in over the top crazy looking stuff that looks far better. This is what Crackdown is all about. The game is lets you do it all bigger, better, faster and with more over the top pyrotechnics.
This game, which is the brainchild of some of the original Scottish lads behind Gran Theft Auto, is being hammered together for the 360 by developer Real Time Worlds. Simply put Crackdown is a driving action hybrid that aims to make Gran Theft Auto look like Driving Miss Daisy. You are a supremely powerful genetically enhanced ‘supercop’ and (as you’d expect) you have been called in to try and restore law and order to a city on the brink of utter chaos.
Nice wheels
How do you do this? By opening your own home brew can of whoop ass and chasing down gang leaders mercilessly. Crackdown lets you fight fire with fire in a big way and you are probably the most destructive force in the city. Indeed if you get out of hand the local plod squad will try and curb your ‘law enforcement gone nuts’ approach and the consequences can be serious. So taking out innocent civilians is something you might not want to do too often.
However if you keep the bulk of your attention focused on the bad guys you will have a lot of fun using the ridiculously over the top powers that are a pivotal part of the game’s makeup.
Some of these tricks include being able to literally leap from skyscraper to skyscraper, punching cars to bits and destroying buildings with your bare hands. Crackdown aims to serve up a heady cocktail of insanely violent brawling, gunplay and vehicular hoonery and the end result could be one of the most satisfying and slapstick action games to lob on the 360 next year.
Gunplay looks the goods too. You will be able to be very specific when targeting objects, especially people or vehicles. Instead of mindlessly shooting at a car that a bad guy is using to get away you can play it smart and aim for the tyres to stop the filthy criminal. Even better you can make the paperwork back at the station redundant by honing in on his fuel tanks and turning he car into one ripper of a petrol bomb.
The same system works for people, but there are even more targeting points. If a nitwit criminal is legging it you can take shots at their feet (using a special targeting reticule) to slow them down. Or if you are looking for a new eunuch you can take out their cods with a well timed shot in the ‘groinal’ region. Just try not to wince as you squeeze the trigger.
Finally if you are more of a traditionalist you can simply go for the quick and always effective headshot and kill the bad guy before he even knows what is going on.
Everyone loves explosions!
Games have experimented with location specific damage before, but Crackdown’s approach is really quite smoothly implemented. The targeting reticule has a small zoom scope and you can then toggle areas you wish to target.
The guys from Real Time Worlds have also had a lot of fun with Quake rocket launchers in the past as the rocket launcher in Crackdown is brilliant. You’ll be able to perform some amazing ‘enemy juggling’ feats as you bounce a rocket off the ground, sending your target skywards and then keep them flailing around helplessly in mid air as you use well timed rocket shots to just keep on juggling. This was probably the funniest part of the demonstration when we saw the game at the X06 game event in Spain earlier this year.
Driving is also looking like being a lot of fun if you like your action seriously over the top. Jumps and rolls are just a cinch to perform and your cars also have unique abilities, some of which are mighty comic. There is a massive truck you can use to hammer through other vehicles and a four wheel drive that can go pretty much anywhere and jump vertically using its suspension.
A Physicist says what?
However the funniest car is a super aerodynamic racer that has a sharp nose not only for aerodynamic efficiency, but because it can pick up speed and simply turf other cars that are in the way into the air, racing under them as the bounce off its bonnet. This is bloody funny, even if again it is very much in keeping with the escape from reality that is Crackdown’s mantra.
Crackdown also has a progression system so you can tailor your crime fighter to suit the play style you like best. As you get better in the game you will be rewarded with skill points and these will lead to skill upgrades, cooler morphing cars and new super weapons.
Crackdown might sound gory and rather violent, but the game has a decidedly unrealistic approach. The cartoony cell shaded graphics with loads of bright colour give the game a real sense of style while also making it clear that you are wreaking all of this destruction in a well crafted fantasy land.
The massive levels and Xbox 360 visuals also make this game something to watch out for.
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