Crackdown is a game that mixes the best of the GTA series with a mix of the Matrix. In essence Crackdown is a game that puts you in the future where crime has run rampant and all police forces have joined together to combat them. You are a special agent hired by the Agency to help take back your city, you are also a bio-engineered individual that can build your skills and talents to a super human level, allowing you to throw cars, leap buildings and run at super human speeds. You level your skills by performing different acts like races either on foot or by car, killing enemies with certain weapons or your bare hands, or finding orbs that are scattered around the city.

The basic premise of the game is to defeat a main boss on each of the three islands, which is done by beating smaller under bosses that work for them to make then weaker. The first island is run by the Latinos, the second is run by the Russians and the third is run by the Asians. The third island is the most challenging with snipers and enemies with rocket launchers, which always make running around fun.

All in all the game is fun and is very open ended as far as where you can go on the map, but it is extremely short and once you are done there is nothing left to do. Once you beat the final boss there is a foreshadowing of a sequel and then you have free rain of the city. When you try to start a game again on a different difficulty like psychotic the bosses do not re-spawn so you are just running around the city trying to max out your skills.

Overall rating : 7 out of 10

Blowing things up and building your skills is a blast, but after that there just isn’t anything to do. Crackdown is a rental in my opinion, unless you want the disc for the Halo 3 Beta.

(There is also an easy way to get the best weapons - just run a coop game with a buddy that has the rocket launcher, or weapon you want. Kill him and loot his body, then run it over to a safe house and you have instant rocekts for the rest of the game.)