Up on the rooooooof...

Have you ever wanted to leap across rooftops, assault rifle in hand, stalking criminal gangs and making them pay for their ill-gotten gains through a combination of stealth, acrobatic derring-do and extreme violence? I know I have. Unfortunately, more often than not, I find myself stuck in the queue at Sainsbury's self check-out instead. Bah. If only I had the physical dexterity of Crackdown's central character such trivialities would be a trifle to deal with.

Realtime Worlds' Crackdown was one of the early arrivals on Microsoft's Xbox 360, and while it's getting on a bit now in terms of visuals (that "first wave" look is soooo 2006) it still has a fair amount to teach us about game design. And blowing shit up. It pits you as a genetically enhaced law enforcer in the employ of the suitably ill-defined "Agency"; a coalition of the world's police forces tasked with wiping out organised crime for good. Your arena of combat will be a grouping of three islands, each under the control of a different gang and each with it's own unique characteristics. A fourth, smaller central island houses the Agency Tower, a humongous skyscraper from where you begin your mission.

You're free to approach each island at any time, taking on the assorted ranks of gang members, sub-bosses and overlords in any order you see fit. Each island presents a different level of difficulty, but Crackdown refuses to be constrained by structure, and if you want to go straight for the boss of the most dangerous gang the minute you pop into the game then that's very much up to you. Chances are you'll be wasted within moments, but you're free to try. Your chances of reaching and eliminating the head honcho of each outift increase of you take out sub-bosses first, each of whom is responsible for a different facet of a gang's operation. For example, take out their weapon's specialist and any grunts you encounter are likely to be less well armed. Take out the guy in charge of the oil refinery and you're unlikely to meet much oposition on the road as your enemies' cars will have ground to a halt without fuel.

It's actually a lot less impressive and impactful than it sounds, but it shows that Realtime Worlds are thinking outside of their sandbox, and as each iteration of Grand Theft Auto seems content to overhaul it's mission structure and throw in a new soundtrack, games like Crackdown are coming closer to title contention.

It may not be able to come close to GTA in terms of mission variety (sniping from a distance and moving in closer with the assault rifle to mop up each gang faction soon becomes routine), and it's use of vehicles is far from practical, but Crackdown does have an ace up it's sleeve. By far the best way of commuting throughout the city is by scaling buildings and leaping across rooftops. Using only a single button, Crackdown manages to knock Assassin's Creed into a cocked hat with it's free-running antics, and it's this mode of transport which proves most fun and, crucially, most practical, as scaling a tall building and attacking from above will always be more tactically sound than rushing in on the ground.

By repeated use of hand to hand combat, weapons and vehicles the player can increase his or her skill in these areas, leading to increased accuracy, driving ability and strength (fancy picking up that car full of crims and lobbing it off a bridge? Be my guest...), but by far and away the most rewarding pursuit is the collection of the green orbs that increase agility, leading to higher and longer jumps. Before long the streets become an alien environment and any accidental drop to earth becomes a frantic scrabble for sanctuary back on top of the nearest rooftop. It's testimony to the game's design that it inverts convention and produces that kind of a reaction in a player, and the feeling of elation as you eye up a particularly daring arc from one church spire to another and then realise that you've actually made it is reward in itself.

Ultimately Crackdown is too short, too monotonous and too limited in function to be considered a true great, but it is an immense ammount of fun in and of itself, and that's surely what gaming should be all about. With a decent narrative and a greater variety of mission types to compliment it's fun online cooperative mode, any sequel to Crackdown could well become the next gaming milestone in a time when the term "sandbox" is being used all too freely in a way that cheapens it's premise.

I imagine a world where Crackdown meets GTA and I cry. I cry with joy. Maybe that day will never come, but I live in hope. You see Crackdown is everything GTA is not, and vice versa. The former has a fantastically open structure that suggests a plan of attack but doesn't hold you to it, married with a free-running environment built for scaling, leaping and haring across rooftops that makes moving about even more fun than the missions themselves. The latter has a more clearly defined sense of mission structure and narrative, but for all it's weapons and infinitely more rewarding vehicle implementation it isn't half as open-ended as it'd like to have you believe. For all GTA's big budget razzle-dazzle, if you keep in mind the price at which you can pick it up these days Crackdown is easily better value for money, and if it were to be married to a decent campaign structure then it would certainly become a force to be reckoned with. And it doesn't phone you on your mobile while the cops are chasing you either.

It can be had for ten quid now. It should be had for ten quid. Stop being naughty.