Crackdown 3 Review-in-Progress

Crackdown 3 -in-Progress

Release: January 1, 1970
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Genre: XBox One Reviews
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It has been quite the journey for Crackdown 3, which was first announced in 2014 but was continually delayed. Now the game is going to see the light of day and we had a chance to play the games campaign early. Is it as good as we all hoped? For better or for worse, it is simply more Crackdown. Let’s dive in!

Because of all the advertising and marketing, Terry Crews seems to be the only logical choice when loading up Crackdown 3. Both the story and gameplay seemed to be built for Terry, and when I finally got into the game itself, I knew I had made the right decision.

Everything about Terry Crews is over the top, and everything about Crackdown is over the top, so it appears to be a match made in heaven. You’ll traverse the comic book world around you as a super agent, with the ability to pick up almost anything and jump incredibly high. Mix in a few high tech weapons and a destructible world, and it’s really hard to see a world where Crackdown 3 isn’t at least a little fun.

The progression in Crackdown 3 is laughably simple, which unfortunately made the game less organic and ‘surprising’ than perhaps it otherwise could be. You’ll be tasked with taking out key operatives in the company that currently hold control of the city, and do figure out where these operatives are hiding, you’ll need to take down various strongholds, vehicle lots, or monorail stations under their control. Take enough of these locations out, and you’ll reveal the existence of one of the games main villains. Take them all down to bet yourself a showdown with the boss, and complete the game.

Finding and liberating the various supply points will be key to success in Crackdown 3. They not only will allow you to swap out your weapons and vehicles, but will allow you to swap to a different agent as well, should you want to try each of the agents out in the field. These points also act as re-spawn locations, so if you plan on dying often, having options on where to respond will be very important.

The length of the campaign is ultimately as long as you make it. The more you run around looking for orbs to increase your stats – some of which are really enjoyable to hunt down! – the longer your sessions will last.  Blow through the game, however, and you’ll be in for a fairly short experience.

So it’s a put in what you want out experience, and this will dramatically change how you feel about Crackdown 3. Overall, my enjoyment of the game was incredibly high, despite a few game play mechanics that made me scratch my head. For example, to add cars and guns to your arsenal to call in from a supply point is just plain silly. Hop in a car or pick up a gun, and BAM! It is apart of your arsenal. So that also means if you find a parking garage, you’ll spend 5 rediculous minutes simply going into and out of cars so you can add them to your collection.

For some, the simple story might put them on the edge of overall disappointment, and the less than stellar graphics could be enough to push them over the edge. At times, it feels like the development team used the ‘comic book game’ feel to justify a lack of visual detail on cars, enemies, and the city itself. As other comic book inspired games have shown, you can have a detailed game that still retains a comic book feel.

Crackdown 3 is a great experience, and if this style of game appeals to you – or you absolutely loved the original Crackdown – then getting this is a no brainer, especially since you can pick up a month of Xbox Game Pass right now for only $2! We haven’t fully tested out the multiplayer features of the game – as they weren’t readily available before the time of writing – so that part of the review, and an overall score, will be pending until about Monday, February 18th. Until then, we still highly recommend playing through the Crackdown 3 campaign. It isn’t doing anything crazy, but it does a lot right to justify the time you’ll spend playing it!

Wrecking Zone Review

After a weekend spent enjoying the multiplayer aspects of Crackdown 3, it’s finally time to stamp a score on this review and send it to the presses. While there is fun to be had wreaking havoc on the world around – being able to destroy so many buildings is great fun – the enjoyment of Wrecking Zone just doesn’t last as long as I would have liked, especially since I was assuming the best fun to be had was with Crackdown’s multiplayer mode, rather than its single player campaign.

And ultimately, the online portion of this experience suffers from the same flaws as the single player campaign, and has one redeeming quality as well: it can be just pure, mindless fun.

The multiplayer modes are broken down into two different games, on that pits you against the other team in deathmatch, but you collect enemies when you defeat them; the other is a King of the Hill style game, where you are tasked with defending multiple points around the map. Both are done in 5 v 5 matches, and while there is fun to be had, the gameplay is woefully simple, and at times, archaic.

The multiplayer in Crackdown 3 can get better with time, mind you, should they implement character progressions and unlockables, perhaps making the different agents…different from each other, and bringing some of the city map to the multiplayer experience, as opposed to using neon worlds. While I’m still likely to jump into multiplayer with friends from time-to-time, it won’t be one of my go-to games, and that is disappointing because ultimately I wanted a lot more from Crackdown 3 as a whole.