Crackdown Preview

If only I'd been born with super powers. I could work at super speed for five minutes each day, then lounge around on the sofa and relax until bed. Cleaning the house would be a tiny blip on the day and I'd always be first to get hold of the TV remote. To say the powers would be wasted on me would be an understatement. The agent you play in Microsoft and Real Time Worlds' Crackdown actually happens to be blessed with the abilities of a man born very lucky or on so many illegal steroids that it can't be long until his heart gives up, but unlike me he's putting them to good use.

Set in the fictional free-roaming Pacific City, you play as an agent who's been specially engineered to fight crime in the city. Gangs are on in the increase and, in a RoboCop-esque move, these super agents have been created to return the city to its former glory. As I mentioned, you've got what are essentially super powers, and while you can't fly, you can leap huge distances, pick up and throw heavy objects, target and shoot down enemies form long range and generally walk around like a badass.

For the good of the game, your super agent isn't all that super from the start and needs to earn more advanced abilities. By shooting people, beating people up, driving around, collecting agility orbs and taking part in on-foot and vehicle races, you increase your stats in each key area, and eventually become what could be described as the Incredible Hulk with guns and cars - minus the green dye.

Based on a good few hours play with the single-player game (there's co-op over Xbox Live too) Crackdown is shaping up very well indeed. There's just something immensely fun and satisfying about leaping from skyscraper to skyscraper, pounding into the ground on landing, and then charging off again to perform another giant leap. The city gymnastics are so much fun that at times the main campaign will simply fall to the wayside, as you continue your quest to find every last agility orb.

When you do come back down to earth the combat fairs well too, with a neat lock-on system, plenty of weapons and a lot of gang members to kill. The goal, early on at least, is to take down key gang members, before getting a shot at the head honcho. If I'm being picky, and I am, there are a few too many moments when nothing seems to be happening. There's often a race challenge to take part in, but actual missions often take a while to pop-up, with 'intel' only being delivered seemingly when the game sees fit.

This is of course still a work in progress, so it's too soon to be overly critical on something that may well not be an issue when the game hits retail. Hopefully there'll be a wider range of missions too, as endlessly taking out nameless goons, the odd gang leader and boss isn't going to make for a thrilling experience six or seven hours in. With your agent's powers likely to be through the roof towards the end of the game, it seems likely that enemies will have to step up their game if they want to put up any kind of a fight.

Something that needs to be highlighted for all the right reasons is the game's incredible visual style. If you're bored of gritty urban environments, Crackdown's cel-shaded graphics should be a breath of fresh air. It still has a rather dirty appearance (this isn't a Disney cartoon), but the visuals stand out as something that's really rather unique. Technically it's impressive too, with buildings that tower high into the sky, a phenomenal draw distance and a ton of on-screen characters, vehicles and the like. The fact that the whole game can be played in co-op over Xbox Live, without any restrictions to the size of the city, is an incredible achievement.

Despite spending a fair while with Crackdown it still only feels like I've brushed the surface of what it has to offer. A demo will be released on Xbox Live Marketplace very soon, so you'll be able to sample it yourself, and we'll have a full review around the time of the game's release on February 23. If early impressions are anything to go by though, Crackdown should be far more than "the game you get free with the Halo 3 beta".