We just spent the last 2 hours playing the Crackdown demo and so far we're impressed. Crackdown immediately offers players with several possible objectives, and multiple paths to complete them. We played through the demo twice and found new and different things each time, even with objectives that we had completed before. The gameplay is fairly simple, it's your job to take out local gang leaders and eventually each gang's kingpin. In what manner and in what order you do this is entirely up to you. There are multiple weapons and skills available to you, and each one of them is useful (though we were particularly fond of the agility and explosives skills). The demo tasks you with eliminating leaders of the Los Muertos gang.
Of course, many players will find satisfaction just running around the city, leaping across rooftops, and eliminating a few thugs here and there. There are a few side objectives -- rooftop races and the like -- that you can complete when you get tired of chasing gangs. Unfortunately, you won't be able to run around forever, because the demo becomes timed once you reach level 2 in any particular skill (this won't take long). Once this is acquired, you have 30 minutes to wreak as much havoc as possible. We managed to cap off three different gang leaders in one play through, though there may be more to be had. Honestly, we spent most of out time collecting agility orbs, which grant you the ability to run faster and leap higher once you've collected enough of them. Half the time, we simply stumbled upon a local boss as we leapt from roof to roof.
Gun play is simple, but entertaining. You have a basic lock on system that allows you to target different body parts. At first, your targeting reticle will be large, indicating that your accuracy is low. The reticle will slowly zero in on your target -- the smaller and further away your target, the longer it takes. Once it has zeroed in, your shots will be more accurate and damaging. As you acquire more skill in firearms, the reticle will zero in much faster, making things like headshots easier.
Firearms are nice, but explosives are nicer. We didn't find any RPGs or missile launchers in the demo, but we lobbed a hell of a lot of grenades. Lobbing a grenade under a pile of cars and watching the resulting megasplosion is a sight to behold. Handily, it also kills a lot of gang members simultaneously. If you can manage to raise your explosives skill by a few levels, grenades become positively devastating.
Sure, you can blow up cars for massive damage, but why not cut out the middle man and just toss the car instead? Buff up your strength skill and you can toss almost anything into the fray. Cars, dumpsters, explosive propane tanks, it's all up for grabs. There's nothing quite like heaving a truck onto an unsuspecting foe. It's very satisfying.
In fact, that may be the best way to describe Crackdown, it's satisfying. Granted, it's similar to games you've played before (Spider-Man 2 and GTA come to mind), but it's fun. Almost everyone should be able to find something they like, and co-op only makes the pot sweeter. The game yields lots of fun moments and little surprises (see if you can find the sniper rifle, very handy for rooftop entrances). We can already tell that the potential for machinema and YouTube videos is very high. All in all, the Crackdown demo is a lot of fun, and we're looking forward to spending even more time with it.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
1-23-2007 @ 1:27PM
BklynKid said...
God damnit! My Xbox is in for repair (minor, CD-tray was sticky) and they better hurry the fuck up! I wanna play this, NOW!
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1-23-2007 @ 1:29PM
Chris said...
This game has a bright future.
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1-23-2007 @ 1:31PM
Cal said...
Im downloading it now. Cant wait
GT: caldog101
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1-23-2007 @ 1:52PM
MDK2002 said...
i have been trying to download this demo since 6am pst and still no luck it gets stuck in different places and it wont download. This is the first time this has happened to me, normally im the first person with anything and everyone else is waiting.
This sucks!
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1-23-2007 @ 1:52PM
ThweeSiddy said...
stuck at work, cant play yet. question...
is the time unlimited, similar to saints row demo? if not, how long can you just run around until the demo ends?
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1-23-2007 @ 1:53PM
Dave said...
Huh, I must not have gotten my targeting high enough, because all my character wanted to do was target corpses.
Still though, the game's fun, and I like the super hero elements. However... there's no excuse for the graphics. I'm not sure why they decided to use Renderware and havok for this, but both look horribly outdated. The ragdoll physics are terrifyingly bad, and the game looks like GTA with half-assed cel shading. And I don't understand why it is so damned jagget at 720p. If you're going with simple, at least make it clean.
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1-23-2007 @ 1:55PM
hppymnky said...
The time limit is WAY too restrictive, I just wanna run around leaping from the rooftops all super hero like. The demo sealed it though, I'm definitely buying this game, it absolutely rocks!
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1-23-2007 @ 2:09PM
Chris said...
@ ThweeSiddy, once you character levels up any 2 core abilities, the time limit becomes 30 minutes.
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1-23-2007 @ 2:26PM
Alex said...
The next HUGE hit for the 360. The game is insanely fun.
It really hit me by surprise. I wasn't expecting much of anything.
But wow, what a great freakin demo. I drove to EB Games just an hour ago after playing the demo, to pre-order the retail version. CAN'T WAIT!!!!!
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1-23-2007 @ 2:27PM
Studley said...
This article is spot on. There are a few simple set objectives, but there's plenty of fun to be had elsewhere in the game world.
For instance: There’s a skip just outside the entrance to the agency, I’ve spent the past half-hour seeing if I can fill it up with debris from around the game world. Started running out of large objects so I had to shoot police and civilians, and dump their bodies in there.
Now I’m going to try the same thing again, but this time filling it with live gas canisters. Then I’m going to stand in the skip, lob a grenade, and see where I end up.
If only real life was this much fun...
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1-23-2007 @ 2:46PM
MaX PL said...
omg yeh i'm typically a hate of gta/saints row type games but i just played co-op til the demo forced me to end and it was so much fun.
go for agility orbs on tops of buildings is really fun.
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1-23-2007 @ 3:48PM
Joe said...
Nice gameplay but crap character design!!!!!!!!!
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1-23-2007 @ 3:51PM
mike said...
this game will generate so many youtube videos, due to the coop and sandbox nature of the game, just played for an hour before the demo times out and i just spent the whole time trying to climb as high as possible :-)
back to it to level up the firearms skills instead
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1-23-2007 @ 3:53PM
Joe said...
THEY LOOK LIKE GAY RAVER BIKERS FOR GOD SAKE!!!
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1-23-2007 @ 4:03PM
w0rddriven said...
The time limit is actually two-fold. It starts either when anything reaches level 2 or you've been playing for 30 minutes. It's DAMN difficult to keep things under level 2 but if you balance everything out then it's doable. An hour to play is a lot better than 30min + whatever time it takes to get to level 2.
I loathe the time limit personally. It's solely based on the fact that you are boxed in and can only play a section of an island. Time complete access to all levels, not a sandbox that may or may not even be as big as the Saint's Row one. At least in SR there was a glitch that made things interesting. I guess I'll just have to be content with playing this over and over until the game hits in a month. It was originally planned to release October of last year and I was well interested then. Now the wait is torture :/.
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1-23-2007 @ 4:14PM
Freakin' Pothead said...
This game is awsome. The time limit is killing me but if you play it through a few times concentrating on a different dicipline each time you can really get a taste of what you'll be able to do. ANOTHER great game. man, it's going to be an expensive spring.
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1-23-2007 @ 4:48PM
Jay said...
there must be something wrong with me then. i thought the demo absolutely sucked ass. saints row was way better and i dont even think that game was all that great..
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1-23-2007 @ 6:58PM
Don Wilson said...
Demo was great, but as typical there were a couple of bugs: theres no quick targeting (you keep focusing on dead people for no reason), and enemies far away, when targeted and I'm shooting, my character starts to punch as if I'm right next to them, forcing me to untarget then target again.
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1-23-2007 @ 7:00PM
DHalo said...
Now, after playing this demo, I feel no shame in buying this game for the Halo 3 beta, as I actually enjoy playing this game!
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1-23-2007 @ 7:01PM
:( said...
I'm on a T3 line and since starting the download at 1pm, it's taken four hours to get 21%. :(
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