2006-12-21 21:12:10 Crackdown Demo Mid Jan... Hits retail in US in Feb.

Via teamxbox.com
On Jan. 18, gamers will get the chance to battle their way through the roads and rooftops of "Crackdown(tm)" as the Xbox 360(tm) title's explosive demo lands on Xbox Live(r) Marketplace. And for the ultimate payback, they will combine forces in online co-op play for twice the thrills and double the retribution.*

Gamers will arm themselves with high-tech weapons, transformable vehicles and incredible, gravity-defying superskills in preparation to take back Pacific City when "Crackdown" storms North American store shelves Feb. 20


Full Article:
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/12477/Microsoft-Anno...

2006-12-21 21:27:42

Awesome. I'll be buying it anyway I think but the demo should get a few people interested that weren't before.

2006-12-21 21:33:09

http://xboxyde.com/news_3905_en.html

Xboxyde is reporting this as well ;) Lots of new pictures, as well as coop.

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Optimusv2 said: "Gun for the 360 has better graphics than both Halo 3 and Gears of War"

2006-12-21 22:01:44

Hehe came over here to make the thread.......

CRACKDOWN HANDS ON IMPRESSIONS

Righty, I've been lucky enough to play a bit of this the last week or so. It's difficult to talk about much that is new, but I shall give it a go.

First things first, the art style. It's definitely an aquired taste as you will see from the screens. I don't have a problem with it personally and a colleague of mine loved it. From up high, the city below you looks impressive. The lighting it's more difficult to say because of the cel-shaded style but there were times when it did look purdy.

Frame rate rock solid in this build I hasten to add. I see a lot of stuff when it's not done and usually stuff that isn't optimised totally. This felt really good to be noteworthy, and I'll imagine they will have had a few more weeks to tweak before RTM.

Gameplay is more difficult to assess as I was going through with cheats and a bumped up character. I quite like the way your abilities are improved by "doing things" . Win races, driving abilites go up, shoot and kick people, your weapon and combat skills level up accordingly. There aren't a huge number of levels, like an RPG but when you do reach the next one, there is a very noticeable difference in what you can do.

One thing the game does really well is emphasise the vertical paradigm. The world extends upwards even more than it does along the ground. Some of the buildings are VERY high so there is tons to explore. Your ability attributes are increased by discovering "Agility Orbs" and there are a LOT of these. You will need to find at least some, because missions can get very difficult if you are unable to make the right jumps. Jumping around the city is very much like the Incredible Hulk game, only done better, in my opinion.

Speaking of the city, it's very much alive. Lots of people and cars milling about the place. To think they actually had to reduce the traffic!

As for the mission structure, it's quite nicely laid out. Everything is available to you at the start of the game, you could head straight for the higher ups in the gang but I imagine it will be balanced to make it hideously difficult to cut corners. I couldn't explore much in this area during my time.

You do get a briefing for each "Mission" or target which gives you some background and intelligence on the location so you can plan one of several ways to approach the target.

Unfortunately I couldn't play co-op either, but I think that will be the DE FACTO way to play this game, or even just to mess about. With two people, you could really create some crazy stuff in the world.

Other nice touches, being able to focus on limbs/heads was quite cool, you could do the same for cars (i.e. aim at the petrol tanks!) . Explosions look great, as you can see :)

The achievements look dead fun, but I can't reveal what they are :P

Anyway, apologies that was a bit of a ramble. If there are questions I will try and answer them but I won't be giving anything quantative that isn't public knowledge. Opinion and public domain stuff only :D

2006-12-21 22:09:12 In reply to deftangel (2006-12-21 22:01:44)

How did you find the difficulty, a bit easy?
Edit: see you was cheating so scrap that one.
And what was the furthest you threw a Pro? ;)

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Take one 360, add some chopped PS3, stir in some Wii, a sprinkling of DS Lite. Enjoy :)

Merry Xmas and happy New Year to you all :)

2006-12-21 22:32:53

Whats a Pro? :)

2006-12-21 22:34:23 In reply to deftangel (2006-12-21 22:32:53)

Same thing as a corpse in Ipswich.

2006-12-21 22:37:02 In reply to deftangel (2006-12-21 22:32:53)

Prostitute! (I don't know, such a sheltered life you live deftangel) ;)

tut, tut Slabs :0 true though.

That's a point, the press in the UK will probably jump all over this one at the mo.

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Take one 360, add some chopped PS3, stir in some Wii, a sprinkling of DS Lite. Enjoy :)

Merry Xmas and happy New Year to you all :)

2006-12-21 22:45:19

Anything on the story of this game, is there any at all..?

I get the impression it's basicly just doing a bunch of "side-missions" across the city without any real plot in it...

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Bush is an idiot...

2006-12-21 22:47:48

LOL I see :P I'm not so sheltered, you haven't seen the office I work in! I also did a presentation earlier this year and used Saint's Row for some footage. My goal for the clip was to have as many hookers running around on fire as possible :D

Anyhow, Crackdown will never escape the GTA comparisons but in terms of the gameplay, you are definitely more encouraged to kill the bad guys, rather than target the civillians directly. The cops turn against you pretty quickly (though with the god mode on I merely laughed in their face).

So basically, I don't remember seeing a "Pro" whilst playing. For sure, I wasn't really looking, and a lot of the time I was favouring the buildings over the streets :D but that doesn't mean they aren't there. One of the gang characters could easily be a pimp for example.

You could certainly throw people about pretty far...some of the achievements seemed to hint about throwing "things" , that's all I can say! :D

2006-12-21 22:53:56 In reply to Jato (2006-12-21 22:45:19)

The storyline is as freeform as the game, you take down the gangs as you see fit. I would imagine you get information from the agency about possible hideouts and operations that are going on but I don't think there will be the typical "enter the glowing circle" missions.

2006-12-21 22:53:58 In reply to deftangel (2006-12-21 22:47:48)

Secondpost by none other then slabs, and you'll see what I mean :D.

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Take one 360, add some chopped PS3, stir in some Wii, a sprinkling of DS Lite. Enjoy :)

Merry Xmas and happy New Year to you all :)

2006-12-21 22:55:41 In reply to roxwell (2006-12-21 22:53:58)

Hahaha! that's an awesome screen! I'm not at work, but if I get a chance I shall investigate! :D

2006-12-21 22:57:01 In reply to Slabs (2006-12-21 22:53:56)

Hmmm, that would suck imo.

Ah well, maybe the demo can convince me a bit more about this game, but so far I'm not all that excited...

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Bush is an idiot...

2006-12-21 22:58:22

Now they just need to sign Bird's custard up for sponsorship!

2006-12-21 22:59:40 In reply to Slabs (2006-12-21 22:53:56)

That's pretty much it. You get a briefing on each character that talks about them for a bit but there didn't seem to be a story thread that linked characters in the gang together. Remember, you can tackle these missions in ANY order so that would be difficult to do.

One thing, you have to find the targets first, only then are they highlighted on the map. (You get intel, it's not as bad as that sounds!)

I didn't see anything in terms of character development of the player character either but again I should stress, I wasn't playing this in the "proper" fashion. Just messing around, though not enough to answer Roxwell's question properly ;-)

I would definitely say try the demo. The gameplay is a lot of fun.

2006-12-21 23:05:01

Very much like Mercenaries then? In structure at least. You didn't have to grab every target but it was beneficial to you if you did.

2006-12-21 23:26:47 In reply to Slabs (2006-12-21 23:05:01)

Yup. You could go after the leader of Gang A straight away, or you could take out his henchmen first. If you took out his weapon runner(s), you would find they have less guns when you get to the head guy. And so on from there.

2006-12-22 01:08:46

Great preview deft, I'll keep an eye out for the demo.

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http://www.lebato.blogspot.com--UPDATE: Blog Failed.....

2006-12-22 04:10:58

Looking forward to this game, thanks for the hands on preview deft.

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New rule: If you don't have an HDTV then you cannot comment on the graphics of X-Box 360 games.

2006-12-22 05:34:08

Yea I'm looking forward to this too, a demo will definitly be nice..but I'm gonna be renting this one either way. Thanks for the impressions deft, keep up the good works :P

2006-12-23 14:34:30

Great News. This game is now on my wishlist after i saw the latest videos. Looks like a lot of fun is coming... :)