Crack Down: Game Review

With the third entry in the series being released only one year shy of a decade from its previous entry; it's time to look back at the game that started up the entire franchise itself. In Crackdown, you are no longer a regular video game consumer entering another sandbox experience. You are instead a dangerous superhuman vessel for the Agency, a shadowy corporation whose sole intent is to bring peace and protection to the citizens of Pacific City by any means necessary.

Picking up the controller for the first time as a teenager back in 2007 felt remotely the same in 2020. This is a franchise that has quietly endured many setbacks and releases day push backs and has continued to push the envelope as to what creative opportunities can be possible in a good cop bad cop setting.

The timeless aesthetic of Crackdown is very simple at first. The ability to gather skill points through everyday actions as a Crackdown agent such as reckless driving, laser beam accurate head shots and the superman - like strength to take out opposing gang leaders with deadly head kick molding your character to your play style is what has made Crackdown a true Xbox 360 original classic.

Back in the Golden Era of the Xbox 360, few games even attempted big sandbox themes such as free-roaming for gamers. Ironically, saying that exact statement in today's advanced day in age could probably be thought of as utter madness. That is because the majority of game developers are dedicated to giving gamers these same principles and options to get more immersed in the game world throughout.

A lot of these factors about open-world games have become more relevant when we visit the Grand Theft Auto’s, Drivers, True Crimes: LA, and even the Saints Row franchise because the games cannot be brought up in the same conversation without naming Crackdown as a top contender for sandbox experiences in the early Xbox 360 days. Concerning that, some of the small negatives of Crackdown simply boil down to a lack of mechanical innovation within a few of the skill points required to obtain early on in the game to advance.

For example, the need to soar through the sky jumping from rooftop to rooftop is only as fun as the height of the jump the player's character can manage due to the low level of agility obtained at the time. With so many options of mobilization, Crackdown gives the players to engage and conquer their enemy some may wonder why the game developers of the franchise stopped at making some of the core mechanics such as brawling and structural climbing a minor detail. For if these minor yet very vital details were to have been tweaked a bit more the game itself could have won the game of the year easier.

None the less Crackdown is a nominal gaming experience that puts you in the hands of a gun-wielding futuristic Captain American. There will be plot twists and hidden motives sprinkled all through your pilgrimage in the Crackdown universe. And yet whichever skill set each player chooses to utilize makes the experience as rich as the aging your in-game character you will develop by the end of the campaign itself.

When the world is in peril, and heroes are called upon to save the day -- Crackdown has an ironic side of showing what that might look like with a vigilante twist to it. "Skills for Kills Agent, Skills for Kills." The mantra helps narrow in on accomplishing that goal every time. In an era where being a hero is the standard thing to be nowadays, revisiting the Crackdown franchise should be on any Xbox owner's bucket list.

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