Crackdown [Xbox 360]

Crackdown is an open-world, third-person shooter that does a decent enough job of placing the player into the shoes of a genetically-altered super cop inside a city completely controlled by violent gangs.

Gameplay
The plot of this game is extremely straight-forward and that’s honestly all it needs to be. You’re a cop with super-human abilities that has been tasked with taking down all three gangs that are currently running each section of your city. Beyond that, and where the game truly shines, is through the open-world gameplay. Even though different areas of the city contain stronger or weaker enemies based on narrative, you can truly go and do whatever you want. As you do, you’ll be hijacking cars, stealing weapons and leveling up your character to better fight crime. The game is generally fun and pretty unique in this idea even though elements have obviously been previously used in other games.

Mechanics
This game came out in 2007… and it shows. Everything about it screams peak Xbox 360 era where everything was a shooter and was either over-the-top and mature. That being said, a lot of it doesn’t age well and the game can feel clunky. There will be quite a few moments where you are wondering why things happen to you, or why the game was designed that way. Overall, driving does feel smooth apart from the occasional running into things that aren’t there or the civilian AI just running out in front of your car. Traversal around the map also has its moments where you get hit with a stray rocket and then are ragdolled down 100 stories to your death with nothing to do but watch and be sad about it. These frustrating moments are present enough to be annoyed with them, but not enough to ruin the experience.

Audio/Visual
Just as stated above, the graphics screen Xbox 360 era and are just fine. Sound, on the other hand, is absolutely the worst part of the entire game. You have sliders for both music and voice, but you cannot adjust sound effects. If you’re listening to the game on low volume, or where you’ve turned everything down, you will literally only hear the revving of your vehicle on most occasions. Then there are parts of the game that are quite before being abruptly loud. It’s just not balanced well and more user options would have been wonderful here.

Achievements
This list is pretty average. Nothing is too difficult, but, in generic open-world fashion, there are quite a few collectible achievements that are time-consuming beyond the point of enjoyment. If you want the 100% you’ll be spending a lot of time making sure you’ve gathered each weapon and brought them back to a Supply Point. Then again with all the vehicles and bringing all the way back to your base in the center of the map. Outside of these and hitting all the points of interest on the map, there are 800 total collectible orbs. 500 used for improving your athletics skill and 300 more that are hidden. They’re not too terrible to get, but 800? Ridiculous. This, combined with the extra time spent completing all 36 extra races is just not fun. Apart from the collect everything achievements this list is pretty straight-forward.
Note: Only including DLC in this review, because it’s all free.

Pros
– Fun gameplay loop for the most part
– Repetition isn’t boring
– Solid action

Cons
– Sub-par achievement design
– Frustrating movement mechanics at times
– Terrible audio mixing