Think Mercenaries with super powers, and you got Crackdown.
This game is set in a city that is made up of basically 3 big islands all connected by bridge and then a fourth island sitting in the middle of the others. That is home to the Agency, a crime fighting organization that has assumed control of the cities police force as it tries to quell the 3 major gangs (you can tackle this gangs in whichever order you like, but some are harder then others) that have taken control of the city. You take on the role of a superhuman agent created by the Agency to restore order and peace to the city, by any means necessary, and that means you can blow the crap out of and kill anything that moves... in the name of justice! And that’s where the story ends, which is kind of a downer, but with this type of game you don’t really need a story to keep the game moving but it would have been nice to have one more then just gangs controlling a city. That said, there was quite a good plot twist at the end of the game (that I won’t spoil) which made me and my buddy go “Woww...”
The game play is similar to other sandbox type games. You start out with a pistol and SMG made my the Agency. You will also have five areas (Firearms, Strength, Explosives, Driving and Agility) that are 1 out of 4 stars. To increase these you must kill people with guns, blow things up, drive and so on and so forth. And as your skills increase, your character model that you choose (out of about 10 or 12 different looking models) changes. You start off as a pretty weak looking guy, but as your strength increase you turn into the Hulk, and as your agility increases, your appearance changes as you seem to age, which is a really cool affect that made me want to up those skills more just so I could see what my character will look like afterwards. There are also supply points around the city that you have to take back from gangs hands and then can be used to store gang weapons and picked up (and then access at any time), restock on grenades and ammo, and rez there if you die. Since this seems to be the near future, cloning is now a reality so when you die, a clone of yourself with all your memories and so forth is sent out to replace you. So other then losing a small amount of your skills, death isn’t that big a deal. You can also kick and throw things (which depend on you strength, at 1 star you can throw small dumpsters but by 4 stars you can lift objects up to 10 tons, so you can carry cars with ease) at your enemies. There are also orbs scattered around the city for you to collect. There are two types: agility(500 orbs) and mystery(300 orbs). You can collect these orbs which increase your agility and all your skills with the mystery ones. These adds to the replay value because you really want to find them all, and it starts to get really hard to after awhile. The driving also works really well, you can get agency vehicles from the Agency or ‘commandeer’ civilian vehicles. In the original game, you cannot store vehicles you find and use them later, but with the new 800 MS expansion you can. Also, when your driving increase, so does the handling ability and appearance of your agency vehicles, eventually giving them machine guns and nitro etc...
The sound in the game isn’t amazing, but it’s still pretty good. All the guns sound realistic and the voice acting for the civilians and gangsters are good. The city sounds like a busy metropolis, with the sounds of cars and people walking around. The only downside to the sound is the voice that is basically your helper throughout the game. At the start of the game he gives some good tips, but it eventually just becomes annoying because he does talk a lot and sometimes it makes no sense. Like you will be on the ground and he will say ‘That’s amazing that you reached this height agent!’ BUT IM ON THE GROUND?!?! Eventually you learn to tune out his voice but it would have been nice if there was a feature to mute him.
The graphic in my opinion are great, but others might not like it too much because it is a sort of cartoony, comic book style art to it, not the grittier kind like in GTA 4 and GoW. But I love that style because you are basically like a superhero in a comic book and it looks very nice, everything it detailed well, and when you climb to the tops of big buildings, you can see the rest of the city clearly, so it has a good draw distance. The characters are all modeled well and there isn’t a distorted look to them. Also, there are many different models of gang members and civilians so it never really feels repetitive. So if you are tired of games using the Unreal 3 Engine (even though it’s a awesome engine but like EVERYONE is using it nowadays), this might be a breath of fresh air to you.
Then there is the co-op. This allows another friend to join into your city or vice-versa and you can work together to take down the gangs or just have fun killing each other and such. You can go anywhere in the city in co-op, it doesn’t matter how close your buddy is. And in my opinion having a buddy to play this game with makes it so much more fun because you can spend just hours and hours killing each other, doing street races and just screwing around. With the new expansion you can also play games like Rocket Tag and orb hunting competitions, which just add more to this game.
The only downfall to this game is that there aren’t any side quests. The only mission you have it to track down the gangs leaders and kingpins and take them out. This is kind of a downer because it would have been cool to have other missions to play. That also makes the main game kind of a short, me and my buddy beat it in a weekend, but there’s just so much stuff you can do for fun that more then makes up for the lack of missions. There are also street and rooftop races you can do.
The boss fights (basically the gang leaders) in the game are okay, for the most part. There are about 24 in all, so about 8 per gang (7 leaders and 1 kingpin). For the first gang you fight, there boss fights are simply there’s the leader on a roof with enemies near him, go kill him. So it’s not too inventive or hard. But when you encounter some of the tougher gangs, they can be barricaded in buildings, on oil rigs, in mines and so forth. These fights really make you think ‘how can I do this without dying’ and it adds a level of strategy to the game that some others of the same genre don’t have.
All in all, this a great game which lets you do almost anything with no restrictions and really makes you feel that you are a superhero. The flaws, such as that annoying voice and the lack of side missions aren’t even close to enough to make up for the games numerous qualities. To anyone who likes the sandbox type genre or just loves superheros, this is a game you defiantly need to check out!