Review for Crackdown 3. Game for PC and Xbox One, the video game was released on 15/02/2019
More than four years have passed since the announcement of Crackdown 3, made by Sumo Digital, which after a troubled development finally sees the light on Xbox One and PC. The innovative feature, according to the various development diaries, would seem to be the Cloud system of Microsoft products, which should allow you to have a much higher computing power in multiplayer mode "Demolition area", thus allowing to destroy every single element of the map. The complete destructibility of the environments is an aspect that has always fascinated gamers, and we were the first to look forward to putting our hands on the pad to dismantle some buildings.
In addition to the much-discussed multiplayer mode, which we will talk about later, Crackdown 3 offers one campaign mode, playable both in single player and in co-op with a friend. At startup you can choose an avatar to use as the main agent including of course Terry Crews, already protagonist of various trailers. Once you have chosen your favorite character, you will be catapulted into the world of Crackdown, where with a short cut-scene you will learn about the plot, based on an agency fighting to save the world from an organization that is destroying even the world with very advanced technologies. last city standing. Our task, as agents, is to gather as much information as possible on the various enemy generals, and then defeat them one by one, making the heart of the organization increasingly fragile.
The first question that has left us perplexed is precisely the plot, which is limited to very few insights, especially due to the practically total absence of real missions related to the main story. Our goal in Crackdown 3, in fact, is to conquer and defeat the various enemies that protect, for example, stations, extractors and prisons, so as to increase the percentage of information on a certain general (a sort of boss), which once reached 100% of information will become vulnerable. This will be repeated for each member of the organization, in a mechanism that is not at all satisfying and even repetitive.
Even the map available is not the best, in fact it seemed really small to us, going to prefer a vertical type development, which however did not fully convince us. To allow us to move through the streets of the city, as in the previous chapters we will have various vehicles available, both of the agency and civilians, with which we will be able to achieve our goals much faster. Also in this case something is not working: leaving out the mediocre driving system, the lack of evolution of the means of transport marks in our opinion a significant step back from the past. In fact, in the first chapter of Crackdown, the various agency vehicles were always available, but these improved and became more beautiful and powerful as we improved the driving level, which in Crackdown 3 does not exist. in fact, in this new chapter we will have only three agency vehicles available: the spider, the classic sports car and the tank, all of which already have preset characteristics and which do not improve with increasing level.
The character progression system instead works quite well, based on the classic experience points, always divided by agility, ammunition and so on. Among the most useful, in our opinion, there are the agility points, easily recoverable through luminous spheres scattered around the map that allow us to greatly improve our agility, unlocking new functions useful for our jet-pack. In addition, in the game world, in addition to the spheres, you can collect DNA fragments that will allow you to unlock the other available agents, as well as various collectibles scattered around the map.
From a purely practical point of view, where Crackdown 3 should flex its muscles, we note how overall the formula studied by the development team is fun: jumping between the various buildings and massacring the enemies seemed very rewarding, but unfortunately it all ends there. The shooting system, similar in some ways to that of ReCore, forces a triggering towards the enemy which is useful in some cases while in the most excited clashes it only ends up creating problems, as well as drastically reducing the level of challenge. The aiming system then forces a sort of aim bot that can be managed like the Dead Eye of Red Dead Redemption 2 or the SPAV of Fallout in broad terms, or by selecting between some parts of the body, which is actually useless since you will always tend to aim at head / body and never at arms and legs.
If the shooting system is not excellent, the variety of weapons is less, or rather, there are many weapons but only some are really useful and are the ones you will use practically throughout the campaign. You can equip up to three main weapons and a grenade, all of which will be unlocked and saved in the armory after you have collected them. Obviously, unlike what is seen in multiplayer mode, in this case we don't have the same destruction rateindeed, there will be very few things that we will be able to destroy, making everything quite flat and devoid of spectacularity. In a game like Crackdown 3, in fact, one would expect explosions, devastating weapons and a lot of chaos, a bit as seen in Just Cause 4, this unfortunately does not happen and in our opinion it is a real shame.
We continue our analysis on Crackdown 3 talking about the technical sector, again with few compliments and many criticisms. Is already known to all as the graphics sector of the game is not exceptional, both because of the poorly defined textures both for a choice of the color palette not at all in tune with the style of play, which seemed to want to take a more cartoonish turn, without fully succeeding. Resource management and optimization seemed good to us: on both the PC and Xbox One versions we did not encounter significant drops in frame rates, except for some slight triggering in the most excited situations. However, one characteristic that we cannot understand and justify is the absence of music in the background, present only in some challenges, but completely absent during the free exploration and during the various missions.
The last aspect we want to deal with is multiplayer, the real backbone of the Microsoft exclusive. Thanks to a sophisticated Cloud-based system, the developers were able to create 100% destructible maps. You will compete with bullets in 5V5 games with three fully destructible maps available, all while you can move quickly through rings similar to those already seen in Quake. Unfortunately, the system of automatic aim that sentences you to death every time you are hooked by an enemy. Another negative note, which we have not been able to confirm, is the absence of an invitation system, which essentially prevents you from inviting and playing with your friends. For this last point we believe that Microsoft and the development team will take a step back to implement this function, otherwise the success of this mode may not be so obvious.
Unfortunately we only managed to play a few games due to the very low population allowed to play in the pre-release period, but it was enough to confirm our initial impressions. As fun as the modes are, at the moment they just seem like Tech Demos, which are definitely reshaped compared to what was announced years ago. The destructibility, however fascinating it is, is still gross and controlled by bad physics, unlike the fantastic demos seen during the press conferences of the past few years.
We do not know what happened with Crackdown 3: it must have been the various postponements, or a not too high budget or other reasons that we do not know ... the fact remains that the final product does not meet our initial expectations at all and looks like a poor title and not at all equal to a giant like Microsoft. All these years must have been invested exclusively in the development of the mode with Cloud system integration, given that the campaign mode does not have a solid story base and the various missions are relatively simple and repetitive. We don't feel like completely condemning the game, which is really fun after all and could be perfect for the Game Pass solution, but perhaps far too disproportionate in the full price sale as a triple A game.
► Crackdown 3 is a Shooter type game developed by Sumo Digital and published by Microsoft Studios for PC and Xbox One, the video game was released on 15/02/2019
