Crackdown review

Do you play games in God mode? Are the designers’ attempts at real world rules and physics mere annoyances to you? Would you rather be able to run as fast as you want, jump as high as you want, hit people as far as you want… in other words, do whatever the hell you want?

Then Crackdown is for you.

You don’t even need cheat codes to play it, because your action hero - a vigilante cop protecting the futuristic metropolis of Pacific City - is super powered from the get-go. Want to rocket through the streets, on foot, at inhuman speeds? Check. How about kick a flailing thug across the block into the dead center of a billboard? Check. Effortlessly leap five stories into the air, pirouette 180° to snag a nearby ledge, pull yourself onto the roof of a towering skyscraper, grab another criminal lowlife, toss him over the edge and then plug him full of bullets as he plummets to the pavement below? Check, check, check... oh, you get the idea.

All of these amazing feats are not only possible in Crackdown, they're the norm. We cannot emphasize enough just how liberating this feels, to be able to influence and move through the game's environment however you see fit. The entire world is your steroid-fueled playground.