DAY 132 / GAME 132
Crackdown
Back in 2007 Realtime Worlds and Microsoft Game Studios released Crackdown. A sandbox style, open world action-platformer where you deal out justice as a member of the 'Agency'. As interesting as it all seemed though, the big draw for purchasing Crackdown was that it came with an access code for the Halo 3 multiplayer beta.
A friend of mine, Matt, the audiophile, picked this up when it first came out. He didn't subscribe to Xbox Live and wasn't interested in Halo multiplayer, so after he had played through this he passed it on to me so I could try it out. At first, I only intended to play the beta, which was pretty great, especially being the first Halo on a next-gen system. But after I had spent my time the beta I figured I'd give this a whirl.
Although I didn't really have any real interest in Crackdown at first, as soon as I started playing it took very little time to grow on me. Like Grand Theft Auto, you roam a huge city full of missions. The world is open for you to explore, but the nice part about this game is that exploration is not only a bigger part of the game it's also well rewarded. You can build your character up, leveling 4 or so different areas 5 levels each. You can upgrade your driving skill, agility, weapons, hand to hand and explosives skills; each by performing actions related to those skills. Running over gang members with your car helps level up your driving skills, throwing a car at a gang member ups your melee skills, and shooting out the tires of someone's car ups your weapons skills.
The best part is searching for the agility orbs. In order to level your agility skill, you have to locate and collect hundreds of these little orbs littered all over the city. Most are up on the rooftops of various buildings. As you start out, at level 0, you can run and jump at a pretty exceptional level. You are a cyborg after all. But as you collect more and more of these orbs you can being to run and jump higher and higher, which is necessary to get to some of these orbs. Eventually driving becomes obsolete as you can now run and vault yourself across the city faster than driving any car. The city is spectacularly vertical. Once you get to level 5, you can make your way to the tallest point in the city, the Agency headquarters and overlook the entire city. It's pretty awesome.
With your over-the-top skills, romping through the city is a blast. You can target individual limbs when shooting, or individual wheels on a car; which is great as you can send a moving car into a roll if you shoot out the right tire at speed. You can pick up all kinds of huge items to swing at people, or throw, including the car you just stepped out of. I remember having a fight with a friend online that ended up just being the two of us picking up cars and throwing them at each other for a good 10 minutes.
For a game I didn't think I was interested in I sure ended up putting a ton of time into it. It's just such a perfectly addictive build of exploration and mayhem. In fact, it's probably one of the most solid sandbox games when it comes to the ability to pretty much go anywhere in the entire game. It's pretty each to pick up dirt cheap if you're ever interested in giving it a try, it's certainly hours of fun one way or another. They also released a sequel, which I just started playing and seems to be just as much fun as the first. Except that it doesn't include cars that transform as your driving skill levels up. Which was amazing.
Crackdown
Back in 2007 Realtime Worlds and Microsoft Game Studios released Crackdown. A sandbox style, open world action-platformer where you deal out justice as a member of the 'Agency'. As interesting as it all seemed though, the big draw for purchasing Crackdown was that it came with an access code for the Halo 3 multiplayer beta. A friend of mine, Matt, the audiophile, picked this up when it first came out. He didn't subscribe to Xbox Live and wasn't interested in Halo multiplayer, so after he had played through this he passed it on to me so I could try it out. At first, I only intended to play the beta, which was pretty great, especially being the first Halo on a next-gen system. But after I had spent my time the beta I figured I'd give this a whirl.
The best part is searching for the agility orbs. In order to level your agility skill, you have to locate and collect hundreds of these little orbs littered all over the city. Most are up on the rooftops of various buildings. As you start out, at level 0, you can run and jump at a pretty exceptional level. You are a cyborg after all. But as you collect more and more of these orbs you can being to run and jump higher and higher, which is necessary to get to some of these orbs. Eventually driving becomes obsolete as you can now run and vault yourself across the city faster than driving any car. The city is spectacularly vertical. Once you get to level 5, you can make your way to the tallest point in the city, the Agency headquarters and overlook the entire city. It's pretty awesome. With your over-the-top skills, romping through the city is a blast. You can target individual limbs when shooting, or individual wheels on a car; which is great as you can send a moving car into a roll if you shoot out the right tire at speed. You can pick up all kinds of huge items to swing at people, or throw, including the car you just stepped out of. I remember having a fight with a friend online that ended up just being the two of us picking up cars and throwing them at each other for a good 10 minutes.For a game I didn't think I was interested in I sure ended up putting a ton of time into it. It's just such a perfectly addictive build of exploration and mayhem. In fact, it's probably one of the most solid sandbox games when it comes to the ability to pretty much go anywhere in the entire game. It's pretty each to pick up dirt cheap if you're ever interested in giving it a try, it's certainly hours of fun one way or another. They also released a sequel, which I just started playing and seems to be just as much fun as the first. Except that it doesn't include cars that transform as your driving skill levels up. Which was amazing.
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