As only a minor fan of the Grand Theft Auto series, I was a little bit apprehensive about Crackdown being possibly another GTA clone. The game immediately struck me as a cross between "Demolition Man" and "Judge Dread". Although there were no flying superbikes, this impression held pretty much throughout. Whether I was flying from rooftop to rooftop or running over civilians with a supercar, the game was just plain fun.

The Crackdown Story

The story is set sometime in the near future. Pacific City is an urban center controlled by three rival gangs: Los Muertos, The Volk, and The Shai-Gen Corporation. In the middle of all this strife is The Agency; a futuristic police force. With all the street wars happening, the police force has been having troubles getting new recruits. In desperation they turn to human modification to create super agents.

She is bad and ugly. Kill her!

As one of these super agents, your mission is simple; kill the gangs. In order to do this you are given intelligence on a variety of gang leaders located throughout the city. Each gang leader serves their own purpose within the gang (i.e. enforcer, etc…). As you kill more leaders Agency Police Officers appear more frequently, and the gangs become weaker. Through killing the subordinate leaders, the main boss’s army is diminished, making the end mission more easily accomplished. Throughout the game your progress and odds of success are narrated by hilarious commentary from “The Chief”.

Environment

One of the best things about next gen console games is their ability to incorporate an incredible amount of detail into the world environments. The world (Pacific City) is an urban metropolis of incredible detail. Unlike many previous games in this genre, if you can jump high enough to get somewhere, you can go there, and there are definitely some staggering heights involved.

Time to go Spiderman on their asses

As you mount the tallest of buildings, combined with the 5.1 surround, you get a feeling of real altitude as the world quiets to just the whistling of the wind. Each of the gang territories has a feel appropriate to the gang. People in the Los Muertos territory speak Spanish and so on. Even after having finished the game, the world will lend itself hours of enjoyment and exploration.