Crackdown 3 has a lot of baggage. It's predecessor, the smash-hit Crackdown 2, came out nine years ago. Normally those kinds of development gaps are reserved for auteur projects like Kingdom Hearts 3 or anything by Kojima. Crackdown,
as a franchise, puts out a fast-food vibe. It's fun, it's simple and it
shouldn't be taken too seriously. But a lot can happen in nine years,
and the gaming landscape has undergone tectonic changes since 2010. A
near-future cyberpunkish open world shooter may have been novel and
gimmicky back then, but tastes and standards have changed. And while Crackdown 3
offers a lot of fun, it assumes this recipe is still fresh. It isn't.
Pair that with a prolonged development with more than a few false starts
and a lot of fans aren't sure what to expect. I know I wasn't.
Xbox Game Studios
What I found inthe Crackdown 3 campaign was a game that, in many respects, is a welcome departure from the "why so serious?" vibe of modern shooters. Crackdown 3
offers the same aim assist mechanics familiar to those who play
Rockstar titles, but the frenetic action and meta edgelord humor never
let you take things too seriously. It also scales up rather nicely
thanks to the series' trademark "kill for skill" progression system.
Collecting colorful glowing XP orbs that tie directly to your actions is
immensely satisfying and well-balanced. Shoot an enemy a few times and
finish him with a punch and you'll get a mix of blue shooting XP and red
melee XP.
Nowhere is this more evident than with Agility. You
don't earn Agility in combat, but you gather these green orbs in
hard-to-reach locations all over the map. Each map section offers a few
dozen Agility orbs to find, and scouting for the green beacons from
rooftops and pathfinding a route gave me serious Assassin's Creed
style feels. Even better, traversal is directly impacted by your
experience. You unlock things like double-jumps and dashes as your
Agility skill increases. These are put to the test by way of immense
propaganda towers, which you must scale and deactivate. The shifting
platforms and fall away floors add a verticality challenge not found
often in open world shooters. I had as much fun climbing as I did
shooting. And shooting was a lot of fun. Crackdown 3 is
at it's best when it gets ludicrous. The gameplay loop is standard
shooter fare. Go to Waypoint X, shoot a lot of things, sometimes a tough
thing shows up that needs extra shootings. But in Crackdown 3
the sheer volume of things to shoot can get insane. You'll have dozens
of enemies on screen blasting away as you dodge and aim and blast. It
manages to be tense and exciting without feeling overwhelming and
unfair. An ever-increasing arsenal of stronger and more bombastic
weapons adds to the fun. And when those bosses do show up they're never
tedious bullet sponges. The encounters take a bit longer, but there's no
grind here. A lot of variety in the enemy types helps, too.
Xbox Game Studios
What Crackdown 3 is missing is the level beyond
solid shooting mechanics and the occasional chuckle. The writing has
more misses than hits, and every genuinely funny moment (Terry Crews
yelling "Fuck gravity!" while climbing is my fave) drowns in a sea of
Mountain Dew-drenched gamer edginess. The story follows a trope-y
dystopian oligarchy where corporations run everything until SOMEONE
INSPIRES THE PEOPLE TO RISE UP! Guess who that is? That there is never
any collateral reputation damage to your wanton and careless destruction
(I started the game by killing civilians for a solid 10 minutes and
nothing happened) is the early indication of a shallowness that
undermines solid action fundamentals. Crackdown 3 never
elevates itself beyond the level of "fine." While the gunplay and
traversal are satisfying, they take place in an open world that is both
busy and lifeless. Civilians have no character, no personality. There
are virtually no interior spaces, no stores or distractions to visit. Crackdown 2 didn't exist in a world that knows The Witcher 3 and GTA V. Crackdown 3 does, and suffers for it.
Xbox Game Studios
Also the driving is terrible. Vehicles handle like cold
butter on stale bread. There is no sense of velocity or balance, and the
game throws so many challenges and checkpoints and enemies at you the
faster you move the more you feel you're missing. I had a lot more fun
walking around from mayhem to mayhem than trying to drive anywhere,
especially given how comically weak vehicles are compared to your OP
hero.
Is Crackdown 3 a bad game? No, it's not. It offers
a nice contrast in a space full of games that take themselves too
seriously. The humor falls flat, and the story sags, but if you want to
run, gun and smash stuff then you'll have a good time. But the extended
development time, and the utter lack of AAA-exclusives on Xbox, had me
hoping for much more. What could've been a brilliant piece of satire or a
hilarious over-the-top shooting spree fails at both. Add to that an
open world that feels dreadfully dated and you're left with a game that
is almost as good as it should've been.
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