Crackdown is set in Pacific City. Pacific City is home to three gangs, the Los Muertos, the Volks and the Asian Shai Gens. You’ll take control of an enforcer for the agency and your role is to try and crackdown on these gangs. You won’t need to bring these gangs down on your lonesome though, the other police in Pacific City will help you out. Initially you’ll begin as a pretty standard agent, but you’re able upgrade your powers as you progress through the game.
An overview of Pacific City.
Leveling up your character isn’t restricted to being able to run further. There are five skill areas to be improved, agility, driving, explosives, strength, and firearms. Each of these skills is improved as you progress through the game, for example if you choose to use your weapon then your shooting skills will be improved. There are also 500 agility orbs scattered throughout the city. By collecting these orbs your character will be able to act superhuman, so whilst initially you’re only able to jump small distances it isn’t long before you’re able to jump long distances. The superhuman abilities are what really set Crackdown apart from other sandbox titles, it is a lot of fun half of the time just jumping around.
The final version of Crackdown will also support co-op play through Xbox Live and locally. You’ll be able to jump into a game with your friend almost instantly, which should make Crackdown a compelling multiplayer experience, thankfully you should be able to turn off co-op play so your friends aren’t just jumping into your game without your permission.
Whilst it’s a lot of fun just roaming around in Crackdown we do have a few concerns about the game. Missions are given to you whilst you’re driving around Pacific City and the game seemed to lack direction, it felt a little bit like the game was giving you missions as you coincidentally pass rival gangs. Missions are also a little bit repetitive, so it feels a little bit like you’re just going to be trying to kill as many gang members as possible.
This shot always makes it into screenshots for open world games.
One of the more unique areas of Crackdown is in the visual style for the game. Crackdown has a cell shaded look, but RealTime Worlds have ensured Pacific City looks gritty but colourful and alive. When you’re jumping into the air you can see miles ahead of yourself, so technically Crackdown is very impressive.
Crackdown has received a lot of attention recently because it’s going to come with the multiplayer beta for Halo 3, but Crackdown is a title that can definitely stand on its own. Just running around the city causing mayhem is a lot of fun, whilst we're not sure yet whether the game will have much of a storyline or if the missions will become repetitive we are sure that Crackdown is a fun game and Pacific City is a great place to be.
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