

After some upgrades however, I was dashing from building to building, eliminating the need for me to steel a car to reach the next objective. In the beginning of the game, you are underpowered and looking at the design of the city. I missed Spider-Man’s ability to simply swing from one structure to the next. Speaking of traversing, the lay of the land is such that you can jump, double jump and then dash in the air which is good enough to cover a lot of ground. These broadcast hacks are my favourite part of the game as they involve a lot of careful traversing to get to the top of the tower. There are also broadcast stations that you can hack to change the broadcasting message from the evil Terranova Corporation to the Agency. Some side missions about rescuing civilians who will join your cause in saving the city are also there in the game. These include the main missions, which usually involve destroying something to lure out the boss so you can empty clip after clip on him. Having said that, Crackdown 3 has a decent sized map with enough icons littered all over the place for you to tackle. I’d have preferred to earn orbs and spend them on moves as this would enable me to play how I liked without worrying about character progression. You want more melle moves, then use more melee combat. You want to unlock all the guns, then pick them up when an enemy drops them. You want to unlock more cars, then steal more cars.
Crackdown 3 story upgrade#
There is no specific method to upgrade your character other than perform the specific task which is my biggest problem with the game. You have a set of skills that you can upgrade - traversal, gunplay, melee combat, driving and agility. Shallow but fun is the best way to describe the gameplay of Crackdown 3. It's a simple journey of climbing the ladder of bad guys to save the day. The story of the game has no twisted plot turns or big revelations. You are also accompanied by your old Director, Charles Goodwin and these 2 provide the story, background, mission objectives and wise one liners in the game. At the beginning of the game, the agency is destroyed and you are recovered by a rogue hacker named Echo who ‘rebuilds’ you and brings you to life. You don the role of an Agent from the ‘Agency’ and with Terry Crews at the centre of the marketing of the game, I’d be surprised if you picked any other character from the available roster. I’m ok with that as the core of the game lies in the action. They lack any form of depth whatsoever and their motivations are as straightforward as those of villains in a 90’s action movie. The story may be simple but it is the characters that are tongue and cheek in their dialogue. Apart from the opening and a few cinematic cut scenes, the rest of the story is told through these comic strips. The presentation of the story is very comic bookish, with colourful neon lit images representing the characters and voice over in the background.


You are an agent, there is a city overrun by an evil corporation and it is up to you to save the day. The story of Crackdown 3 is as old school as saving a princess from a castle. I jumped into the game and the next thing I know, a few hours had passed and I wanted to jump back into the game for more shooting and traversing. Those are the two aspects of the game that will keep you coming back. Remember Duke Nukem: Forever? Jumping into Crackdown 3 I thought I’d put the controller down in a matter of minutes, struggling to finish it for this review. Crackdown 3 has been in development for nearly half a decade and when a game changes developer hands, there is cause for worry.
