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| | Title:
Crackdown

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System:
Xbox 360
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Genre:
Action
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Publisher:
Microsoft
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Developer:
Real Time Worlds
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Release: Fall 2006 ..............................................
Online: No ..............................................
ESRB: Rating Pending (RP)
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With Crackdown coming out February 20th, Microsoft was nice enough to release a very big and entertaining demo for the game just a few days ago. Coming in at around 1.24 GB, the demo is massive. With a demo that large, it gives a great impression of what the final build of Crackdown will play like. Suffice to say, it has come a long way since it’s unveiling at E3 06.
Crackdown is not a hard game to understand. Gamers take the role of a member of an elite crime fighting squad charged with keeping the peace in a very dangerous city. Being a part of this elite squad each member has a variety of “enhancements,” which come in the form of super strength, speed, jumping, and being able to handle any gun or create a variety of impressive explosions. Think of these “cops” as a cross between the Hulk and The Punisher. They jump across building rooftops, pick up cars, while at the same time, deal out amazing punishment with their arsenal of weapons.
So what is the basic gameplay that Crackdown is showing off? Run around and kill stuff? Well, yes, but there are a couple of features that set it apart from your typical run-and-gun games out there. Sure, it’s all about taking out the bad guys, but how you take out the bad guys is where the variety and ultimate entertainment pours out of Crackdown. There are just so many options on how to deal with the thugs. Gamers can shoot guns (both agency issue and ones picked up off of dead enemies), throw grenades, toss cars, throw telephones poles, punch, kick, or even run over the thugs. Even better is the fact that as you use more of these actions during the game, the better your character becomes at them. Throw enough car doors and eventually entire vehicles can be picked up. Toss enough grenades and the explosions gets bigger. Fire enough guns and they do more damage. What’s nice is the more the skills increase, the more options there are to handle the thugs.
Increasing skills is all done through colored orbs. These orbs drop based on what was done to take out a thug. Beat a thug down and strength orbs are the result. The same applies to all the other forms mentioned above except for the Agility orbs. Agility orbs instead are scattered throughout the city and a fair amount of trial and error are needed to collect all five hundred (yeah five hundred). So far this is the most rewarding thing about Crackdown. Seeing an orb is one thing, finding your way to it is another, and it turns out to be a lot of fun. It helps that almost every ledge in the game can be grabbed. Combine that with the extremely high jump ability, and Crackdown gives gamers a lot more freedom on foot than GTA ever has.
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More Reviews for this game: (displayed by authors name) Cloud890
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