Review: Dragon Ball Z – Ultimate Tenkaichi (PS3)

Zone of the Enders. I don’t know if any game can be compared to another as much as Crackdown can be compared to Zone of the Enders. Why would that be, you ask?

Back in 2001, Zone of the Enders was packaged with a demo for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, easily one of the most anticipated and best-selling titles of its time. Several weeks ago, Microsoft announced that copies of Crackdown (a relatively unknown title until then) would include access to the much hyped Halo 3 Beta that will be starting at the end of this March.

So, will Crackdown be able to stand on its own merits, or will it forever be relegated to Z.O.E. status?

The first thing you’ll see when the game loads the main menu is a panoramic view of Pacific City, a fictional future-town where you take the part of a genetically enhanced super-cop tasked with wiping out three gangs that have taken residence in various parts of the city. Don’t worry, there’s not a lot of story to get in the way. All 21 gang bosses are immediately available to start taking down. And as far as in-game missions are concerned, that’s pretty much it.

Being a sandbox game in the truest sense, there really is no predetermined path to cleansing the city. You don’t have to work your way up the mission totem pole, or do any of the other mundane tasks that you may have grown accustomed to while playing various iterations of GTA.

Based on that alone, one might be inclined to consign this title to the proverbial bargain bin. Not so fast… you haven’t heard what makes this game unique. David Jones (known as the creator of GTA 1 and GTA 2, as well as Lemmings) added several features that push Crackdown leaps and bounds ahead of previous offerings in the action/driving genre.

Your Crackdown operative possesses 5 key skills: Agility, Driving, Strength, Explosives, and Firearms. You begin the game with no points in each skill, and as you successfully dispatch gang members using the various skills, they become stronger. However, if you kill civilians you actually lose skill points, making driving one of the harder skills to maintain due to civilians being absolutely everywhere!

As your skills increase, the gameplay, as well as the look and feel of your agent, changes dramatically. Higher levels of Agility and Strength will cause your agent to look more muscular and filled out. Increased driving skills will cause the special agency-only vehicles to morph and when the skill is maxed out, the Agency vehicles themselves receive new abilities. Greater strength allows you to pick up larger objects and throw them farther. Firearms proficiency grants the ability to target specific parts of people and cars. For example, hit the fuel tank for massive damage!

One of the easiest ways to increase agility is by procuring one of the 500 “agility orbs” scattered throughout the game. Prime locations for these orbs are on top of buildings and other hard-to-reach areas, ensuring that scaling the difficult to climb buildings WILL reward you with a juicy orb for your trouble. There are also 300 secret orbs cleverly tucked away as well. These are generally harder to spot, but reward the effort by raising all of your agent’s skills.

At first, these orbs seem like a cheap means of encouraging exploration, but as I played the game, I discovered a very deep platforming element. And although some have criticized the graphical quality of early demos and videos, the final version of the game really does look astounding. Looking out over the city from atop the agency tower affords one a view of the entire game. And, yes, everything you see is playable, and fully loaded. It’s obvious that, like Craig Evans, product manager for Crackdown, has said, the art director was very much inspired by such sources as Blade, The Matrix, and anime, like Blood: The Last Vampire. And it shows. The cel-shading is done just right, and even my wife commented, “It looks like a comic book.” Realtime Worlds wanted to deliver a truly over-the-top experience, and the art magnifies that aspect, without getting in the way.

And just in case Action RPG, platforming, driving, and third-person shooter elements aren’t enough, Crackdown has some of the deepest and best conceived achievements I’ve seen, yet. And from within the game, many of the achievements are broken down into sub-achievements, to help keep track of your progress.

A few of these achievements consist of completing all 14 of the road races, all 12 of the “rooftop” races, or driving a car through all 39 of the various stunt markers that have been lovingly placed in extremely hard-to-reach spots. Although, apparently, if you play co-op, you can throw your buddy’s car through a marker, and your buddy will get credit for that marker.

The co-op is no afterthought, either, the game was designed from the beginning with co-op in mind. Although, sometimes that can be a detriment, as I was able to derive great entertainment from throwing my co-op partner into the river, into other police cars, or just blowing him up with a grenade. And with the join-in-progress feature, one of your friends can jump into your game at any point. (This feature is configurable within the options menu, in case your “friends” end up being too much of a nuisance.)

When asked why the co-op was limited to two players, Microsoft responded that it was mainly a question of resources. Since each co-op player can individually travel to any part of the game they want, even if those parts are on opposite sides of the city, the hardware has to work a lot harder to support those two players. This is another way in which this game truly is a “sandbox” game in every sense.

Your time spent playing Crackdown will feel rewarding. Craig Evans told us that if you “wuss it up” on the easiest difficulty setting, you can expect it to take 12-14 hours to take down all three gangs and their bosses. You should expect 25 hours on the hardest difficulty. Let me just say, that with all the fun distractions in this game, even on the “wussy” setting, I was able to spend MUCH more than 14 hours just hopping from rooftops and trying to shoot the tires out on gang-owned vehicles.

Now, there are some weak points in this game. While the camera control is usually pretty good, there were times that I got a little frustrated with it, especially when scaling difficult buildings, such as the agency base or Shai-Gen HQ. The camera’s deficiency was especially pronounced when going inside buildings to take down a gang boss. Tight corridors become very difficult to navigate in the middle of fierce firefights.

Another problem I see is a lack of content. Though the game does provide a lot to do and affords unrivaled replayability, a wider variety of missions would’ve been nice. Something besides “go kill this boss.” Though, I will say, that the races, achievements, stunt markers, and skill progression provide “missions” in and of themselves. So, it’s hard to fault the game too much for that.

I’m hard-pressed to find much more wrong with the game than that. I’ve had my copy of the game for almost 2 weeks, now, and there is still several hours worth of objectives I want to achieve. I can’t wait for more content…

And as far as downloadable content is concerned, the developers aren’t saying much beyond, “there’ll be more than just themes and gamerpics.” However, they did hint at an in-depth stats tracking package (which I would love) and it should also be noted that the game ships with only 900 achievement points, obviously leaving some room for more content add-ons that will provide achievement points.

I can’t wait.

The Good: Everything. It’s the “action-RPG-driving-platforming-sandbox-superhero” game that is worth every bit of the $60… even without the added Halo 3 Beta.
The Bad: There is so much to do, but fans of other sandbox games like GTA and Saints Row might feel like Crackdown is light on story and content.
The Ugly: Packaging the Halo 3 beta with Crackdown is a curse. People will dismiss it too easily (like I did, at first).

Final Score: 4.5 Aeropausonauts out of 5