The Sandboxiest Game of all Sandbox Games
Grand Theft Auto, undisputably a fantastic game. Saints Row, in my opinion a flop. The new kid on the block is nipping at the heels of GTA to become the new sandbox king.
The setting for crackdown is set of islands in the middle of nowhere. These islands are occupied by the Agency (the police) and 3 well put together gangs. There’s not that much to the story, basically kill the gang Kingpins after taking out a few of their Generals. The more Generals and key players of a gang you kill, the better chance you’ll have to beat the Kingpin. Most of your time will be spent looking for the different gang strongholds. If you get close to one it will show up as a permanent market on your map. If you notice you’re getting the snot kicked out of you within the first couple seconds of storming a compound, back off and go for something easier. After beating one of the other gang members, this one will become easier to mow over after that. After Los Muertos you take on The Volk and the Shai-Gen which increase the games difficulty. But there’s nothing stopping you from doing taking them out out of order, other than your lack of strength that is.
Don’t forget to get all the Re-Supply points during your adventure. Re-Supply points are marked by a big orange “skylight” to show you where they are (they will also show up on your map as you see them). These are the Crackdown’s version of both a reload and spawn point. If you find yourself sleeping with the fishes, you can spawn at any of the Re-Supply points that you have taken over. If you take out one of the kingpins make it a priority to grab their weapon, which is usually a heavy piece of weaponry, and bring it back to a supply point to secure it in your inventory for the rest of the game.
As your jumping from building to building, you are also tasked with collecting Agility Orbs. Glowing green pickups that increase your speed and jumping heighth. The harder it is to get to these orbs, the more they’ll increase your agility rating. This activity seems to take up the most time. You can spend many hours searching the rooftops for these powerups. Hidden Orbs are also included in your search. These are orbs that fill each of the 5 ability meters. Agility, Explosives, Strength, Driving and Firearms. The other abilities pretty much increase on their own. For example, if you kill a man by kicking him your strength rating will increase and so on. A 5 star rating is the goal for each of your abilities, some being easier to level up than others. But if you stay at it, a bevy of Achievement points are on their way =).
The visuals in Crackdown are pretty unique to it’s genre. Cell shaded characters on top of a cartoon city. The explosives are the most eye catching here. It’s kind of a combination cartoon and realistic render of the smoke and chaos flying from the explosion. Given the sheer size of the environment with no load times, this game is very pleasing to the eyes.
The most notable structure in the entire game is the Agency HQ. The talles most prominent building in the land. If you can make it to the top of this Mega Skyscraper you will be awarded with the best view of the entire map and 10 brand new Achievement points. After you’ve taken in the view, go ahead and leap off the top and land in the water (otherwise you’ll certainly die) to get even more Achievement points headed your way.
The story won’t keep you hooked, but the gameplay and abilities you have are definitely fun to play around with. Don’t stress yourself out too much on collecting all the orbs, you’ll go crazy trying to. But get your agility maxed out and that’s when you have all the fun. Definitely worth a buy if you’re into sandbox games.