That last sentence might be the source of the disconnect in this hobby.
Reviewers are still working from the assumption that gamers are plopping down the full purchase price for each title. Game Pass has changed that dramatically. I think Sea of Thieves and State of Decay 2 were equally suppressed and marked down which makes more sense if you think of them as $60 titles. They are amazing experiences for the Game Pass paradigm though and new users can try them for a month for $1. It’s hard to compare Spider Man with Crackdown in an apples-to-apples metric when Crackdown can be played for $1 and comes with 100+ other titles (from a consumer’s perspective at least).
I think Game Pass will be a strong disrupting force in gaming.
I was always going to play Crackdown 3, that’s just a given. But if Game Pass didn’t exist, I probably would have held off until it was a $20 title or something. But if it’s going to show up for me day one, and I just download and play? Hell yeah, give me more of that!
I wonder if I’ll be able to go back into the world and finish off driving challenges etc. There’s still a weapon I haven’t found yet either… and about 160 hidden orbs.
One of the Lt’s was much harder for me than the end boss. I’ve been triggering City Lockdowns all day though because I loove action. Time to zone out and go orb hunting and get the rest of my skills to 6 from 5.
This would be a solid title at $30. Does a good job at its core gameplay but doesn’t have the extra that a Spiderman, Odyssey level game brings to justify the $60 AAA price. MS should have released this at the lower price point like they did with State of Decay 2.
A couple of reviews commented on the fact it felt like a rush job port kind of a game, a “Netflix Originals” game specifically for GamePass which is contrary to its years-long, troubled development history.
I played this on an XBONE X and it’s much better than the reviews suggest, although admittedly not a full price AAA title. I also picked it up as a download from GamePass, so maybe that mitigated my expectations.
I don’t get a “rush job” impression with any part of the game, really. What’s there is extremely polished and nice looking, right down to the menus. It’s just a very “simple” game, like the first Crackdown, in terms of gameplay.
I love the monorail laser that you unlock by liberating a few monorail stations, but the thing is almost too efficient, stoke a few kills from me.
One thing that seems to be a slight adjustment from the first two games, at least from where I am in the game, is that the Agency seems to be the good guys unambiguously. Not seeing a lot of the fascist undertones this time around, at least not yet.
I will take a shot at the MP though. Yea the destruction is nice but not that impressed otherwise. There’s just two basic modes so not much variety. Also I have constant network problems. It always says my connection is “poor” but other games work fine. Also have gotten disconnected many times when as match is being setup with the generic “network error”. Think I’ll just stick with single player.
People scream and cry when you simply walk past them. Killing them just gets you a stern warning but nothing worse. Killing the armed militia members will actually turn them against you for a time.
All in all, if you listen to the orders being given by Neimand (the endboss), you’ll notice they sound pretty much the same as the orders you’re given. And she even gives directives to her people to protect citizens (even if only so they still have human cattle to play with, but still).
Also, Agency goes out of his way to dehumanize every opponent you face, going so far as calling certain bosses stuff like “A human piece of shit.” And he emphasizes rumors, like other bosses being outright prison cannibals.
The majority of the enemies you kill in certain zones are blue collar workers just going about their day, and Agency even refers to certain faction grunts as rough necks.
You’re all about liberty, if it fits within Agency’s vision for the city, but most of the time you’re an eco-terrorist with a body count in the thousands.
When you say “the Agency” referring to the people or the bosses or your enemies a certain way, you’re talking about the Voice of the agency, Goodwin right? Because Jaxon is all about truth, justice and the American way, as long as it’s applied through ass kicking. And the other voice in your ear, whose name I forget, but the Indian sounding woman who revives your charred corpse at the beginning of the game - she seems to think you’re an instrument delivered to help give power back to the masses. Which so far, I’ve been doing exactly that. Again, I’m not all that far in, done maybe the first four or five territories working clockwise out from the starting position. Things may change.
I’ve never understood a single line of Jaxon’s dialogue because they buried his voice too far into the audio mix. All I know is he does the Angency’s bidding and is never shown to balk at killing anyone or anything.
And the woman isn’t part of the agency, she’s a third party only involved because she reanimated your dead corpse. (Although, after finishing the campaign, maybe her future status will change in DLC or a sequel).
As of right now, the entirety of the Agency is basically a reanimated army of undead, plus the guy that talks in your ear (and only credited as “Agency” on IMDB. I didn’t remember his in-game name).
I recall getting a warning about killing civilians (I’m a huge explosives fan) because it would be hard to win “hearts and minds”. I think I heard it just once, even though I have been basically spraying grenades every which way without care. I’m pretty sure that I kill less civilians than bad guys though (for now).
I’m replaying the campaign and am about half way through it. Goes so, so fast when I already know what to do.
I noticed that when I was taking over a transit station, I could hear the enemy Lt for the area giving orders and saying something to the effect of “We need to protect these stations because they help us supply slaves to the quarries.” Two seconds later I’ve taken over the station and I’m at a quarry next door, where the workers are being ordered (by their own LT) that they will be killed if work is disrupted and they don’t take me out. And what is Goodwin saying while I’m annihilating the people stuck in these forced labor camps? He’s raving like a maniac, “Burn! BURN!! BURN IT ALLL, HA, BWA HA HAW!”
Once I’m in the main office in the center of the map, the Lt there (Varga, I think), is screaming that she’s going to kill everybody and make them suffer if they don’t do their best to kill me.
I mean, sure, I gotta defend myself while blowing up work sites and installations, but most of the goons seem to be slave labor defending themselves under penalty of death.
Goodwin takes a distinct pleasure in everything I destroy and everybody I kill, and only reminds me to tone it down a little when I’m just blowing up random cars on the freeway.
It’s so great to have this new big playground to explore. This is something that just never felt right in Crackdown 2. It felt like a combination of a place I’d already explored and a place I didn’t want to hang out in. But in the new sequel, it’s like the original Crackdown again: a whole new place where I’m jumping toward the camera to avoid the ledge above me and then going back away from the camera to grab the ledge. Yay! Got it!
I have taken over 3 monorail stations now. One of the first trucks I drove was one of those vehicles with a huge ramp on the back. So I’ve been trotting that one out a few times now so that I can use it to jump the ramp and get through those huge hoops in the sky. It always bothered me in the original Crackdown that I never got those. Having access to that ramp truck from the beginning has been great.
I also really love the look of the game. In the bright sunlight I love the sun-backed look of the city, and at night, I love the lighting and the details. The city really shines at night. The graphics look way better than the original Crackdown, and yet, they still preserve the feel of the original look.
