Crackdown Review

I bought this game pre owned for about £6 at Game expecting to be an average GTA copy cat. It is created by the GTA creator and when released had a Halo 3 beta code which was why it was so popular. You might be thinking this is just a rubbish game with a code for one of the most popular games ever.

This game is a free roaming, shooting game only available on the Xbox 360 console. The idea is you are working with the Peacekeepers basically Police to get rid of the gangs in the city. Each gang controls their own island and the gangs are Los Muertos, The Volk and Shai-Gen. You play the character of an agency super person who has many special abilities which as you advance through the game improve. The game is slightly cartoony which works very well.

My favourite thing about this game is the free roaming and how you can just drive and jump around the city. This brings me onto my next point on the game you can jump onto any building and cling onto nearly any object creating a whole new world and making the map seem twice as big. It is great fun jumping up buildings and trying to work out how to get up each one.

For each gang there are 7 different leaders including the boss. Each time you kill one of these leaders the gang is made worse and the main boss is weaker. For example killing a leader may mean the gang have less powerful weapons.

On the islands there are lots of supply points which you can capture. If you capture a supply point you can change your weapons and get full ammo. When you die you regenerate and choose a supply point to come back to getting you around the island quicker.

The game also includes a fantastic selection of vehicles including cars, lorries, vans and then special agency vehicles at the agency supply point where you start the game. These agency vehicles include a Supercar, SUV and a lorry. I nearly always choose the SUV or the Supercar as these are my favourites. As your driving skill gets better you can do better stunts in the air e.t.c

Your character has many special abilities including strength, driving, agility, firearms and explosives. The driving skill can be improved by killing enemies while driving and performing stunts and tricks. There are also races which will improve your driving skill if you complete them.

Strength is improved by throwing objects at gangs and killing them by punching or kicking them as well. As your strength improves you can pick up cars and lorries to throw at gangs which is pretty cool!
Agility can be improved by finding green agility orbs which are usually on buildings and there are 500 to collect. Agility can also be improved by killing people from high up and completing roof top races. You can also improve agility by finding hidden orbs similar to the agility orbs but harder to find but these improve all your abilities at the same time. Agility makes you jump higher and run faster and is one of the most important abilities.
Firearms skill can be improved by shooting and killing gangs with guns. You can shoot any part of a gang member`s body and as your skill builds up it is easier to kill people.
Explosives can be built up the same as firearms but just by using grenades and other types of explosives and makes grenades e.t.c more powerful.

Graphics

The graphics on Crackdown are brilliant and have a cartoony style to them this makes the game look great in its own way. The graphics are really nice and are another good thing about this excellent game.

Multiplayer and Xbox Live

Sadly this game does not let you play two players on the same console which is a shame. However you can connect to Xbox Live and play coop mode.
On Xbox Live there is lots of extra content and some are free and some are not. One of the free downloads gives you extra characters. Other content to download such as extra races, multiplayer challenges and even some new agency vehicles for about 600 -800 Microsoft points (roughly £3 - £5 depending on where you get your points from.)

Conclusion

This game does not disappoint and is not just some duff game with a code. I would recommend this game to anyone who wants to buy it. It is really cool jumping around, driving vehicles and throwing cars! This game is great fun but the story mode is quite short.

This game is quite cheap and can be found at a good price if you look around. I recommend you buy this game because there is so much fun to be had!