If you like super hero games and Grand Theft Auto, you'll find plenty of fun in Crackdown
The game doesn't really have much of a story, if you consider it to have a story at all. The whole game just gives you a big list of gang bosses to take down from all 3 sections of Pacific city. Unfortunately, that's all you do in the game as far as missions are concerned, just take down every gang boss in one section and move on to the next. This may seem repetitive, and it kind of is, but the later bosses can get rather challenging.
Repetitive missions aside, the main focus of this game is to just run around the city, kill gangs, blow **** up and just have fun. You have a list of agents to choose from at the beginning but all of them play the same. You have different styles to master such as agility (increases running speed, jump height, and swimming), explosives (improves the radius and power of your grenades and rockets), strength (ability to lift objects and melee damage), firearms (increases weapon damage) and driving (which increases your driving ability). You level up in these skills by simply using them in the game. In other words, killing gang members with weapons will increase your firearms, jumping from building to building and collecting orbs will increase agility, etc. You start out weak but once you master these abilities, the game really starts to become fun.
There are many weapons to collect and use at your disposal, from assault rifles and shotguns to rocket launchers and grenades. You can melee too which can become devastating to you enemies once you level up. You are allowed to take two weapons of your choice and one type of grenade. You can switch weapons at any time at many spawn locations throughout the map. Speaking of which, when you die, you simply just respawn at any point in the city and get right back into the action. The only problem with dying is you lose a ton of experience as well as killing civilians or other cops, thus slowing your progress. The games does allow driving, of course, and you are also given the choice of 3 vehicles at the Agency Tower which will improve in looks and gain extra features (such as machine guns) as your driving ability improves. The game seems to be more focused on the shooting aspect than driving as it seems more fun outside of a vehicle (not to mention you're more maneuverable and almost as fast) but driving can still be almost as fun. Lastly, you will have shields and health. Both recharge over time but health takes a lot longer. You can also increase the amount of health you have over time.
You'll also have an announcer talk to you throughout the game, who either tells you about nearby road races (race through checkpoints in a vehicle which rewards you with driving experience) or rooftop races (same thing but on foot which rewards you with agility experience) or sometimes he makes fun of you when you die or explode. Most of the time, he can just be annoying when you kill civilians or cops.
The graphics are done in a cartoony cell shaded style which looks great. The character designs look good and the city just looks fantastic. As far as cell-shaded graphics go, this may just look like one of the best.
The only multiplayer featured in Crackdown is a two player co-op, which is a ton of fun. You and a friend can go online and play in the city together, either take down the gang leaders or just blow up everything in your paths (including each other). Co-op is pretty close to the main game as far as missions are concerned, but the co-op feature is nice to have and adds more value to this package.
Spite a few flaws such as repetitive missions and an annoying announcer, Crackdown is a fun and destructive super hero game that any 360 owner should try out. The abilities make the game fun, even after you kill all the gang leaders, and it's just a blast to play in both single and co-op campaigns. If you like Grand Theft Auto or super hero games, then look no further than Crackdown.