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Use of Crackdown is habit forming. Play at your own risk.

Ever wanted to leap tall buildings in a single bound, toss cars like an angry Hulk, and use high-tech weaponry to viciously dismantle powerful criminal organizations with impunity? Crackdown, the first free-roaming action title from Realtime Worlds and Microsoft Game Studios, lets you do all of that and so much more. While the core game clocks in at a measly 10 hours, you'll be tearing up Pacific City chasing after elusive Achievements long after you've neutralized the gangs and brought peace to town. In short, if you're a fan of open-ended games like Grand Theft Auto but have longed to play the part of the iron fist of justice, Crackdown is your game.



Crackdown, the brainchild of David Jones, creator of the Grand Theft Auto series and Lemmings, puts you on the beat of a genetically altered super agent tasked with reclaiming the streets of fictitious Pacific City. Each island of the sprawling metropolis is ruled by seven gang leaders, six of whom are underbosses that report to a ringleader and are tasked with various roles in the criminal organization.

You can take out the bosses in any order you want, but if you go straight to the top without first thinning the ranks you'll face greater numbers of aggressive enemies equipped with superior weaponry guarding the kingpin. By starting at the bottom and working your way up, you'll see the ripple effect of your actions both on the street and inside each enemy stronghold. Neutralize the gang's recruiting officer and you'll see a dip in the number of foot soldiers patrolling the neighborhood. Assassinate the arms buyer and you'll be dodging a few less rockets when you infiltrate your next target's lair. It's a subtle mechanic that will be lost on the inattentive, but it adds a welcome element of strategy to a game that's mostly about using brute force to solve a problem head-on.



As a silent-but-deadly super agent, you have a variety of skills and tools at your disposal. For starters, you have five abilities that, at the start of the game, are markedly more powerful than your average bodybuilder. Climbing to new heights and collecting agility orbs will increase your agility attribute, which in turn makes you run faster and jump higher. Punching, kicking, and throwing enemies to their demise will boost your strength until you're flipping cars like a Gizmondo exec. Sniping enemies from afar will increase your firearms aptitude, while chucking grenades and launching rockets at clusters of goons will boost the destructive power of your explosives. Pulling off wild stunts and mowing down bad guys while behind the wheel will up your driving skill, which affects not only the handling of vehicles but also transforms agency cars into super powered killing machines.



Like in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, to increase an attribute you simply perform an action successfully over and over until your player "levels up." To help speed up the process, there are several hundred "hidden orbs" placed throughout the city in some less-than-obvious places. By gathering these glowing spheres, you'll not only work your way toward unlocking some Achievement points, but you'll also add bonus points to multiple attributes in one fell swoop.