Crackdown takes place in the future and in a fictitious place called Pacific City. You play the role of a super cop who works for The Agency – a police force whose goal is to rid the city of several gangs. Starting out, your super cop character isn’t very “super”. But as you progress through the missions assigned to you, you’ll find you can gain powers in several categories – namely driving, agility, strength, and detonation. Beat down gang members with your bare hands, and you’ll gain in strength. Complete the various driving challenges throughout the city, and you’ll increase your driving ability. You get the idea.

The fun part is watching your character physically develop as you increase your skills. He will grow physically larger and be able to lift objects such as dumpsters, cars, and even semis. He will run faster and jump higher. You’ll have more control over the vehicles you drive, and some will even change their appearance when you get inside based on your driving skills. There are also hundreds of green orbs scattered around the city – primarily on rooftops. Collect these orbs to advance your skills even further.

Starting out, I was a bit discouraged with the game play. It felt like I was getting beat down all the time. But the game’s addiction kicked in when my character started gaining in skill, and I was able to do things and get into places with ease. As you progress through the game, you’ll also get access to better weaponry such as the always fun rocket launcher.

Your missions are simple as your goal is simply to eradicate the various gangs in Pacific City. They are the Los Muertos, the Volk, and the Shai-Gen. Each gang has multiple bosses throughout their area of the city who you must “discover” as you make your way around. The Agency will give you video dossiers on each boss they want you to go after. The game has a decent map available on the HUD that will show you the location of the bosses and other resources in the game. You know you’re near a boss when a barrage of gang members show up in a particular area and attempt to take you out.

I love co-op online play so I was most excited about the fact that Crackdown can be played on Xbox Live with a friend. The two of you can team up and play the campaign, and believe me – two is better than one. Also, once you beat the game, you can replay it and retain all of the skills you previously had acquired. Teaming up with a friend also helps you to get some of the achievements much easier.

Crackdown is a high flying action game that is just pure fun to play. The visuals aren’t necessarily the best as they seem a bit cartoony at times, but that actually adds to the allure of the game. And nothing beats jumping from a 60 story building and watching the concrete crack under your feet while you move on to attack the next group of gangsters you can find.

Overall this game is not a must-own but is definitely worth the dough if you’re into action games that provide a lot of pure entertainment killing bad guys.