I want to say right at the beginning of this that this game is very fun and does not deserve the harsh reviews it has been getting. If you like the previous Crackdown games then you will, more than likely, like this one. And yes, Crackdown 2 is getting acknowledgment here and the jokes about completely forgetting it weren't funny the moment someone made it. Ok, now let's talk about this game and how it is.
I remember getting the first game just to play the Halo 3 beta but once I played it I fell in love with it. It was a very simple game but it was just so damn fun to jump around everywhere and collect orbs. And yeas, I thought the second game was fun as well. I didn't like it as much as the first one but it was just as fun to jump around the city. The core of what these games are is giving you targets to take out and you tackle them in any order you want. It's no more complicated than that and the third game follows that formula as well.
I can understand that some wanted this game fleshed out with a fresh take on the series but it's been nine years in between games so I agree with them taking the safe route and keeping it basic. Because this could be someone's first game in the series and it's not just a good throwback for people like me but it's a good starting out point as well. You don't need to play the other games to get what's happening since the story is kinda stow away anyway. I'm not saying that it's a bad story but it's so in the background that you can just take it as it comes and it's not serious. It's basically a group of agents arriving to a new city to discover what has been happening with blackouts and you get shot down and remade by some rebels. Your objective is to take down the leader of an evil corporation...and that's the story. It's not meant to be something rich with lore and it treats it as such. Each leader does have a cool animated cutscene attached to them though.
Let's talk about the gameplay some. The point of this game is to jump around the city collecting orbs and shoot anything that gets in your way and it does that very well. You level up all your abilities by just playing the game so by the end you will be jumping up buildings like it's nothing and blowing up stuff in damn near one shot. I like games like this where you can just turn your brain off and shoot everything and the only time you need to think is how to climb up some of the tallest buildings. The guns in the game all feel pretty good and they get crazy by the end. You get one called the oblivion and it's a black hole that sucks everything into it and explodes, it's awesome! Once you get to level 5 agility then you will have a triple jump and two thrusts and you can literally fly between buildings and not touch the ground. It would've been cool to see a new skill or add on to one but they chose to keep it safe there. Now as far as what you are doing in the game there around chemical factories you need to clear out, prisoners to rescue, huge turrets to take out, vehicle stashes to explode and a few other things. It's honestly pretty basic stuff but it's all fun to do and I never got frustrated by any of it.
Let's touch on Terry Crews and the character for a bit. You can play as him or one of the other six starting agents. You can find other agents scattered across the map from the crashed ship from the beginning of the game. The reason you will want to change up who you are playing is that they all have different exp stats so you can level up different stats faster. Terry Crews is honestly great at anything he does and he fits into this world perfectly. Outside of the opening you really don't see him a ton unless you play as him and that's kind of a bummer. He does appear at the top of propaganda towers when you clear them though. The boss fights are pretty standard and so are the enemies. I get the fights themselves aren't amazing but they're fine!
I want to talk about how the game looks for a bit. I played on an Xbox One X and this game looks great in 4K HDR. It's so clean and has some amazing colors going on. There's so much bright neon and I'm a sucker for stuff like that. The big joke going around is that this game looks like a PS2 game but...come on, not even close! There's a lot going on in this game visually and the city looks gorgeous! I will admit the characters don't look amazing but they look fine. The map is pretty small for an open world game in 2019 but how high up the buildings go is unlike many games I've ever played. It can seriously take more than 10 minutes to get to the top of one!
Now that I've talked about all the good I like I want to touch on some of the stuff I wasn't hot on. It's a very very short game. I don't mind games being short but just doing the main missions in the game you could beat it in like 4 hours. I went for all the side missions and some of the races around the city so it took me over 10 hours but I took my time. So I think that asking full price for this might be a bit much. It is on Xbox Game Pass and it's amazing for that cause you can play it and move on, I'd probably wait for a price drop to actually buy it. The driving in this game is not great to me. The cars feel super loose and they are so damn hard to control, so doing some of the races can be infuriating! Another thing that I was let down with is the multiplayer. It's so odd because it's a separate app and has different achievements than the campaign. There are two modes and they are fun to play but this game does the biggest mistake in a multiplayer game to me and that's having no progression. It would be cool to have different skins or weapons to unlock but there's nothing. The destruction is cool and the cloud stuff they were talking about is in full effect here and it's impressive. I wish the destruction would've been in the single player but meh.
So I overall really enjoyed my time with Crackdown 3 and if you have Game Pass then I highly recommend you checking it out for yourself. If you're in the mood for a big dumb shooter then this is the game for you! Plus, there are some easy achievements in this game...if you're into those kinda things like I am!
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