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After a week’s delay, the single player/co-op demo for Crackdown is up on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Realtime Worlds has done a great job by not only creating an excellent action-packed 3rd person sandbox title, but they’ve also succeeded in creating a unique and memorable world to destroy. After running through the demo multiple times in single player and co-op, here’s my take.

Some Demo This Is…

First off, as far as content, the Crackdown demo is up there with Saints Row’s. In fact, while playing through it, it’s impossible to tell it’s a demo at all. The game will allow you to reach a level two in a skill and then start a thirty minute timer. Once that timer runs out your gamplay is over. It’s more than enough time to get a feel of the title.

There isn’t much of an intro to speak of in the demo. Most of your gameplay is guided by a superhero-esque voice that gives advice and mission updates to your HUD. The game’s sci-fi feel definitely allows this to be acceptable and I think having to go speak with someone to start a mission would get in the way of the action.

Punch, Kick, Shoot, Leap, Toss Vehicle, Leap…

Ah the action, which is definitely fun stuff but it’s far from easy. You can quickly wander too close to a cluster of enemies and be forced to retreat. If you stumble towards a well fortified enemy base you might get a warning in your HUD that the, “probability for success is extremely low,” or something to that effect. Of course, I attacked them anyway.

The framerate in the single player is top notch and when your explosive skills increase so does the carnage. It’s refreshing to see that if you kill too many civilians, the local authorities will then be authorized to take you out. That’s easier said than done but they definitely put up a good fight.

I didn’t see the cops let up on me, so I’m not sure if it runs down some type of counter before they give me a second chance, if at all. All too often these GTA clones will glorify the killing of civilians, Crackdown will make you think twice and it does improve the gameplay.

A few side notes are that it doesn’t seem to allow you to fire when inside a vehicle, so a drive-by is impossible (and wouldn’t really fit the theme of the title anyway, but I should mention it.). You can, however, fire and free-aim/lock-on while in mid-air. I’m also quite pleased that they allow you to either free-aim or lock-on at any given time. If you’re wondering, the benefit of free aim is that it grants you the ability to target a limb or the head, whereas lock-on is 100% center mass. Locking on is as easy as holding the left trigger but the action gets so frenetic, you will find yourself going free-aim fairly often.

Vehicles also seem to have zones of damage, which are broken down in your super-agent HUD. Firing at a vehicle will display where the damage is being incurred and it’s overall level of strength. Human targets have a similar grid of damage as well, although you normally only see it for a brief second while they’re alive.

And picking up bodies and using them as projectiles. Yeah, that’s fun.

Say Hello To My Little Friend

The two co-op matches I played through run a million times smoother than anything I’ve ever experienced with Saints Row. While Saints Row doesn’t offer a lick of co-op, Crackdown is going to be only co-op and will feature mid-game joining mastered by another co-op champion, Gears of War. So in the full game, if you’re playing Crackdown pop open your friends list and send a game invite to a buddy. He’ll seamlessly drop right into your session. This wasn’t available in the demo, so you had to start at the beginning for every co-op match.

There were two isolated moments of slowdown in the co-op gameplay but I think it was directly related to my random teammate’s bandwidth. Aside of that, there’s nothing like screaming through the streets with a buddy, then watching him leap out of your car towards a point of interest. You run a side mission, he runs a side mission then you swing by and pick him back up a few minutes later. It’s definitely fun as hell in co-op, even with a stranger.

Final Thoughts

I could see myself dropping the dough on this when it arrives but I said the same thing after playing the demo of Saints Row. The killer for Saints Row for me, however, was it’s horribly laggy online play and the unnecessary vulgarity of the script, neither of which seem to be the case at all here. Crackdown really just carves out some of the tediousness (and depth) of GTA and throws in a dash of rooftop jumping, truck chucking, super agent goodness. I’m more impressed than I thought I would be and if my friends plan on picking this sucker up, I’ll definitely join them.

Be sure to tell everyone what you think in the comments section.

Also see:
1up says Crackdown Repetitive But Fun
Crackdown is Gold, Demo Hitting Tuesday