Can't Wait Until April 29th? Or Just Wanna Practice For GTA4? Then "CrackDown"'s Your Game!
"CrackDown" takes place in Pacific City, a place filled with violence, drugs, and gangs! You play as a genetically enhanced member of a police-like group called "The Agency". Through out your adventure you'll be lead from one gang leader to the next by what I call "The Voice Of The Agency" who's helpful and extremely funny. Your job as a member of The Agency is to combat gangs by using your super-enhanced strength, speed, training in arms, and driving skills.
The first gang your put up against goes by the name "Los Muertos" (which in English means "The Dead"), and as you can probably guess they're a gang of Mexicans. Their territory is an urban part of Pacific City full of tall buildings and apartment complexes. Los Muertos arm themselves with basic but reliable weapons such as sniper rifles, sawed off shotties, machine guns, sub machine guns, and even shrapnel grenades. But with some hard work, determination, and very little man-hours you should be able to actually turn Los Muertos' into The Dead!
The second gang you'll face is known as "The Volk". The Volk's made up of European immigrants who came to Pacific City with their guns, drugs, and explosives in order to make a quick buck. The Volk reside in the industrial part of Pacific City full of factories and large refineries. The Volk arm themselves mainly with explosives, heavy machine guns, and high-powered sniper rifles. The Volk are gonna be pretty hard to take down, but if you strengthen up your agent and team up with a friend on Xbox Live you should be able to stop them dead in their tracks!
The third, most powerful, and final gang you'll meet in Pacific City is known as the "Shai-Gen Corporation". The Shai-Gen Corporation consists of deadly Asian hitmen, genetically mutated enhanced bad guys, and "CrackDown"s final boss who's humorously named Wang. Shai-Gen Corporation's territory in Pacific City is home of some the games tallest skyscrapers, underground passages/highways, and the most heavily guarded/fortified bases. Shai-Gen Corporation's weapon cache include heavy machine guns, shotguns, homing rocket launchers, and very powerful long range tactical. Shai-Gen Corporation is defiantly a challenge, but if you take down the lower gang leaders first and work your way up to Wang you should be able to defeat them without getting too aggregated.
I love "CrackDown"s open world, it reminds me a lot of the Grand Theft Auto Series, except you can scale all the buildings around you and leap across their rooftops too. Pacific City's beautifully designed and all the enemy AI are perfectly spread out so you shouldn't ever go more then a minute without shooting a bad guy. There's also Agency Supply Points placed all over Pacific City, and when they're captured from gangs you have a place to respawn from and store weapons; which saves you a lot of running around, because you don't have to find a save-point like in all the other open world games.
The cars and guns are balanced and fun to use. There are three kinds of cars offered by The Agency (and hundreds of others on Pacific City's Streets which you can hijack), each have their own special ability which strengthen the more you advance in your driving skills. The guns are balanced in strength so ones never really stronger then the other and they are unique from one another too, but I feel there could be more offered.
"CrackDown"s graphics are also unique and have a sort of cartoionish 2D-Like look that works out perfectly for the game. The sound qualities not bad; I love how the gang members never run out of quirky taunts and funny sounding grunts; which just brings more humor to the game. The controls are easy to use, but bring nothing new to the table, they actually feel like a rip off from Grand Theft Auto, which isn't a bad thing either!
All together "CrackDown"s a solid 360 title, which offers hours of fun just by climbing buildings and causing mass destruction. Some things "CrackDown"s lacking is a compelling story and a satisfying arsenal of weapons. Another thing I didn't like about the game is it's a little on the hard side, and some will have a problem beating it without help from a friend on Xbox Live. If you're a fan of the Grand Theft Auto series and possibley looking for some practice before GTA4 hits the shelfs (or your like me and just cant wait until GTA4's release date) I suggest you give "CrackDown" a try!