Metareview - Crackdown

via joystiq

Crackdown draws a dividing line between gamers, offering a virtual world in which to play freely (by the developer's rules), while scrapping efforts to provide an engrossing narrative driven by forced gameplay scenarios -- not that there couldn't have been room for both. Realtime Worlds has clearly demonstrated which side of the line it stands on.

It's difficult to know how interested we'd be in Crackdown if Halo 3 Beta had never been tethered to the game disc; 'Crackdown' is a name that's been floating around a list of AAA-exclusives, but the beta brought its presence to the forefront of early '07 anticipation. Perhaps this game is too niche to make non-360 owners jealous, but there's no denying that it adds an important element to the Xbox 360 library. That's not to say Crackdown necessarily defines greatness. They don't get more subjective than this...
1UP (90/100) - "Yeah, Crackdown's a little like Grand Theft Auto and its ilk... [but so] much of the bullshit has been stripped out ... that Crackdown is barely in the same genre... [However,] Crackdown's greatest disappointment is in its lack of variety... Given the superhuman abilities of your agent, it would've been nice to come up against a comparable challenge. How awesome would it be to go toe to toe with another rooftop-leaping, car-flinging supervillain?... Most of the game's joy comes not from single-mindedly taking out bosses, but taking advantage of the big box of toys your agent's been dropped into... That it represents the best, if not the first, online multiplayer sandbox game on a console is just gravy."
Worth Playing (90/100) - "Crackdown is the rare open world game that actually gives you incentive to explore every nook and cranny of the city around you... This is an absolutely incredible game for co-op... Playing in co-op mode lets players who've gone for different agent "builds" really complement each other in their teamwork, and it brings a new dimension to the frankly unprecedented strategic elements inherent in Crackdown's spin on the open world genre. Best of all, there's no poorly implemented, tacked-on versus multiplayer to muddy up the waters... This is a game that Microsoft expected the vast majority of 360 owners to want to have this spring, and rightly so. Games like Crackdown are the cornerstone the 360's passionate user community is built upon, and why the 360 is developing an increasingly deserved reputation for being the next-gen console of choice."
IGN (80/100) - "This huge, streaming game ... is built around simple basics: Shooting bosses and collecting orbs. So how can Crackdown ... be so simple yet so god-damned addictive?... Once you boot it up, the game's allure ... will suck you in and leave you wanting more. It's called Crackdown for a reason... While the action carries Crackdown, unfortunately the story couldn't carry a bundle of sticks... Let's just say you wouldn't buy this game for the enthralling narrative and compelling characters. You'll buy it to become a slobbering mindless slave to orb collecting... On the downside, exploration is limited to only two orb types. Sure, there are 500 agility orbs, and 300 secret orbs, which is a lot. But other than orbs, you got nothing... Crackdown won't last that long, it's uneven, and the story and the music are weak sauce... But overall the thrill of jumping like a mutant kangaroo from rooftop to rooftop is unrivaled!"
GameSpot (78/100) - "[An] open-world game that feels more open ended than any other game of its type, but that lack of structure makes the game feel half finished and shallow in a few spots... The weird part is that none of the story really matters, because the whole point of the game is to provide open-ended freedom and a large, interesting city to explore... The game tries to make the co-op a seamless experience, but in reality, it's anything but. When you're playing alone, you can set an option to allow other players to request to join your game. You can limit this to friends, if you like, but either way, you can always deny a request if you're in the middle of something. If you accept, the player doesn't jump in alongside you or anything. Instead, you're kicked out of the game, and you have to reload to get back in. If that other player quits, your game ends, as well. A more on-the-fly join/quit setup would have made this mode a bit more effective... Crackdown feels unfinished. It feels like the developers sat down and crafted a wonderful-looking city and carefully considered how the gameplay and abilities should work, and then they didn't have enough time to plug in enough activities to take advantage of it all."