Crackdown Review

Crackdown is the newest GTA sytle game to hit the 360. Created by David Jones, the original creator of GTA, is Crackdown that revolutionary or just more of the same? The biggest difference that Crackdown has over other open-ended games is that you are an enhanced human capable of superhuman abilities. As you play through Crackdown, players receive orbs that level up their stats. The more you shoot, the better your weapon skills get, the more you find agility orbs, the faster you run and higher you jump. Driving skills, explosives, and strength are also upgradable. Crackdown is a very vertical environment, and it feels great to leap rooftop to rooftop and pick up cars like The Hulk. The most addicting part of Crackdown has to be collecting the agility orbs scattered throught the city rooftops. Each time you level up your agility you can jump higher and thus reach more orbs.

There are three gangs in the city that must be eliminated and each gang has a leader as well as lieutenants that make up their crew. Try and go for the head honcho right off the bat and you can kiss your genetically modified ass goodbye. By taking down the underlings, the gang will become weaker. Take out the lieutenant that handles weaponry and the troops will be less gun savey. Needless to say, the more lieutenants that are taken out beforehand, the easier the gang leader will be to take down.


Crackdown’s graphics are cell shaded and comic looking which really fits with the super-powered theme. The gun and explosion audio are deep but the game’s music is a techno nightmare. Headaches will ensue. Gameplay is like GTA except the aiming. You can manual fire or lock-on GTA style, but you cannot cycle through enemies like in San Andreas. This wouldn’t be a huge problem except that dead enemies can still be targeted which leads to issues of trying to target someone pumping lead into you and the target-lock being stuck on a non-lethal corpse. Driving is decent but there is not a ton of different vehicle varieties. Online play features a Co-Op mode that allows for two players to simultaneously be playing in the game world. Co-Op is my favorite online mode and the inclusion of this in a GTA style game is a feature I hope will be consistent from now on.

This game is not very long, about 8 hours, and there is no storyline whatsoever. I became bored with Crackdown after ridding the world of two of the three gangs, only playing a bit more to collect more agility orbs. In the end Crackdown is a good game but really nothing that will blow you away. Most people will be picking up this title for the Halo 3 demo and if that is your main reasoning, you will find a solid game to leap around in until it’s Halo time.