Breakdown of Crackdown

I wish I could honestly say that I've completed Crackdown's achievement list. I wish I could honestly say that the achievements I did get in Crackdown were worth the effort. I wish I could say that Crackdown was even a little bit worth the effort, but if I did, I'd be lying.

I borrowed the aforementioned game from a friend who recommended it as something to sink my teeth into while I waited for some money to accumulate into a "Get Nomad a copy of Halo 3" fund. Bored of Assassin's Creed and desperate to play something other than Hexic HD, I happily threw it into the disk drive and powered it up. My first impression was something along the lines of curious shock. You see, I had just recently moved up from my GameCube to the 360, and though the purple cube of joy had given me many games which I appreciated greatly, I knew that this sleek white box of shinyness was capable of much more. Thus, when I saw a game which I felt could and should be on my GameCube, I was a bit put off.

Before I get into a full-on bashing of the game and it's achievement list, allow me to point out my happy points. First off, the two things this game is known for are well done. Jumping from skyline to skyline is very satisfying, as is the ability to jump three stories in the air and rain rockets down upon the vehicles of my enemies. Second off, for what it was designed to be (a filler game for those waiting for the "glory" of Halo 3), it fits the bill quite nicely. But that's it.

And down comes the hammer.

This game is mediocre at best. The combat is repetitive, the camera doesn't follow when you want it to and does when you don't, and the world feels kinda like someone dumped a bunch of boxes onto a carpet and mapped roads between the boxes to make a city. Missions to defeat "gang lords" are nothing more than "find a bigger gun than him, kill everything in sight, go home happy" kinds of scenarios. If the achievements and game ended there, I would have called this game good and ended it at that. But no, that's not it. There's a leveling system, jumps to make, races to complete, odd stunts to pull, and a long list of little mini-achievements required to make one regular achievement. While I can file the Orbs away under the same header as the Flags from Assassin's Creed, there are some achievements that get no excuses, the biggest one being "Body Armor." I'm all for DLC, but making achievements and parts of the game completeable only by paying an extra $20 seems a bit much for me. Needless to say, I won't be doing that.

So at the end of this post, all I have to say is that I'm disappointed. The game could have been better...not by much but by some. Yet it's not. As of this posting, I've got 505/1000 (1250 if you count the DLC, which I don't) gamerpoints for this game. Will I ever go back and find the 25 Agility Orbs I'm missing or the 138 Hidden Orbs? Possibly. Is it worth it as much as Assassin's Creed's flags? Not so much. Basically, this game feels like something that would fit perfectly on the PS2 or the GameCube, something with no achievement listing and no high expectations. As it is, it's a small fish trying to swim in a pond filled with big sharks.

Overall Gamerscore for Crackdown: 230/1000
+ Some fun and funny achievements...
- ...that get bogged down by many bad or difficult ones.
- Attempting to unlock achievements takes away from the game rather than helping it
- Game not quite as fun as it could be