Crackdown 3 Guide

Blasting willy nilly into the compound the gun was wonderfully satisfying to use and led to a domino effect of destruction where every generator in the compound shorted leading to the mother of all explosions. The fallout damage that followed my attack on the enemy base also revealed a small insight into Crackdown’s cause and effect system. After catching one of the city’s highrise monorails in the blast and sending it flying straight down a busy street, the authorities and transport company apparently took notice and exception to my actions. Before I could fully soak in the gloriousness of my handiwork a team of laser turrets and automatic city defences had descended on me, eager to ensure I didn’t mount a repeat performance. Cue the credits and a cliffhanger to my brief excursion into the world of Crackdown 3. Level up your super-Agent skills to jump over skyscrapers, hurl trucks at your enemies and fight like a boss.Lure vindictive crime lords out of their strongholds by roughing up their street soldiers, attacking criminal operations and taking out high value gang captains.Join with up to 10 agents online to tear the city apart piece by piece in a 100% destructible multiplayer arena, available with your purchase of Crackdown 3.Spying a group of enemies below, I hit the Melee button mid-fall and performed one of Crackdown’s iconic ground pound attacks. As well as sending the enemies flying in all directions, the attack caused a pleasing amount of collateral damage to the surrounding city and sent more than a couple of cars skywards.

Let’s start with the fundamentals. Crackdown follows the same formula as previous entries into the series, putting you in the role of a futuristic super policeman with a suit of powered armour and futuristic weapons that make you more powerful than most superheroes. As a supercop you’re then expected to run around the open-world city, picking up missions and dealing with the various undesirable elements plaguing the city’s residents. The basic format is a little old school and appears to follow the same “area” system as older games like Homefront the Revolution and Mafia 3, albeit with a less serious tone. Each of the colour coded gangs controls specific areas of the city that are marked on your map. To clear the gang you have to go in with guns blazing and eliminate every enemy in each of their bases or hangouts. Starting as I mean tto continue by leaping off the top of a tall skyscraper, the action began before I hit the ground. Spying a group of enemies below, I hit the Melee button mid fall and performed one of Crackdown’s iconic ground pound attacks. As well as sending the enemies flying in all directions, the attack caused a pleasing amount of collateral damage to the surrounding city and sent more than a couple of cars skywards. Hijacking a car I then made a beeline to heavily fortified enemy base. Running in guns blazing with my starting shotgun/assault rifle combo I was quickly blasted to pieces and forced to perform a tactical retreat to the top of a skyscraper and rethink my strategy. With precious minutes left the rep tapped me on the shoulder and pointed me in the direction of a shiny marker in the distance marking the location of a super weapon. After securing the weapon, but remaining unsure what it actually was, I then returned to a rooftop on the outskirts of the base and prepared to mount my second assault. Shooting the mystery gun I was pleased to see I had stumbled upon what I can only describe as a black hole launcher, that fired giant black orbs that sucked and disintegrated all nearby objects. Blasting willy nilly into the compound the gun was wonderfully satisfying to use and led to a domino effect of destruction where every generator in the compound shorted leading to the mother of all explosions. The fallout damage that followed my attack on the enemy base also revealed a small insight into Crackdown’s cause and effect system.

In the Crackdown games, you play as a powerful member of the Agency, a crime enforcement bureau with super-powered agents who can leap over buildings, toss cars across rivers, and hit enemies with hyper-powered marksmanship. The demo I played highlighted the absurdity that arises when you give a player the infinite ability to kick ass. While the goal was to take down a series of crime bosses and their lieutenants, I had ten minutes to do whatever I wanted. I started with what any respecting agent would do: collect orbs. Throughout the city, there are shiny orbs to pick up that will boost your abilities. By collecting these orbs or using specific skills, you can power up your skills to the next level. I spent a fair portion of the demo collecting agility orbs, climbing massive buildings and making daring leaps. This was made easier by excellent movement controls that gave me close control over my character; I could stop on a dime and even had a double jump and forward boost in the air, something the series hasn’t had until now. The quick pitch: Crackdown's a third-person sandbox like Grand Theft Auto, but instead of playing as a modern-day carjacker, you're an Agent of law enforcement in a near-future metropolis. It's got more in common with a superhero game than a crime drama, given how your cel-shaded Agent can bound up and over buildings or kick cars like they were soccer balls. And unlike Superman, ethics aren't a huge priority: when you're determined to take down a perp, you've got the freedom to unleash a barrage of bullets, grenades, and rockets into crowded areas without a care in the world.

When you're not taking out gang leaders through whatever anarchic methods you deem appropriate, you can cruise around in a transforming car or enhance your supernatural strength by collecting brightly colored orbs sprinkled around the city rooftops. Crackdown 3's being developed by many of the same team members who made the original, including series creator Dave Jones, which should make this sequel feel closer to the first game than Crackdown 2, which was given to a different studio with a shorter deadline. For whatever reason, your employers at the Agency are perfectly content to send you into a crime-filled city all by your lonesome, turning you into a police force of one against an underworld of thousands. Each of the colour coded gangs controls specific areas of the city that are marked on your map. To clear the gang you have to go in with guns blazing and eliminate every enemy in each of their bases or hangouts. Starting as I mean tto continue by leaping off the top of a tall skyscraper, the action began before I hit the ground. Spying a group of enemies below, I hit the Melee button mid fall and performed one of Crackdown’s iconic ground pound attacks. As well as sending the enemies flying in all directions, the attack caused a pleasing amount of collateral damage to the surrounding city and sent more than a couple of cars skywards. Hijacking a car I then made a beeline to heavily fortified enemy base.

There's no word yet on whether or not Crackdown 3 takes place in the series mainstay of Pacific City, but wherever you end up fighting an army of felons, you'll have to factor in a new, frankly named mechanic: the Hate System. Your primary targets are the many Crime Lords who are orchestrating all the misdemeanors going down at street-level, but you can't simply kick down a door and shoot them dead. They'll only show themselves once you've gotten their attention after building up a Hate Meter by systematically eliminating their network of hired goons and reclaiming their territory for the side of the law. All the while, those Crime Lords will be taunting and/or threatening you via giant holograms throughout the city, a la Batman: Arkham Knight. Accrue enough of their Hate, and they'll personally try to take you down in all-or-nothing boss fights.The other design feature that really piqued our interest is how truly open gameplay will be in the campaign mode. “There’s no ‘mission failed’ screen,” Wilson told us. “

The missions are open from the very start, and you can do whatever the hell you want.” Your goal is to take down the city’s Kingpin by defeating their captains and lieutenants to whittle away their support. The order in which you eliminate them is completely up to you. Like in Breath of the Wild, skilled (or foolhardy) players can skip all that and head right for the Kingpin as soon as they land. If you take the sensible course and opt to take down the Kingpin’s support first, they will eventually take notice. “As you start damaging a particular area of the city, the gang leaders get pissed off at you and start retaliating, but those retaliations can happen anywhere in the city,” Wilson told us. “If you take out enough of the captains and lieutenants, eventually the Kingpin will be like ‘Fuck you, then,’ and she’ll send in a load of guys after you.” While many ostensibly open world games actually hold your hand quite a bit in the mission structure, Crackdown 3 is ok with letting you skip through content as you please. Wilson said he would rather encourage people to play through repeatedly and find new things, instead of ensuring that every player goes through all of the content in one go. “I want people to replay the game plenty of times,” he explained, “so you can take your level five agent back into a new game, and we’re going to have cool challenges and leader board, around things like how quickly can you take out all of the guys in one go.”Crackdown 3 tosses players into a world of delightful chaos, superhero strength, and guns that shoot black holes. I got some hands on time with a ten minute demo of the game and it’s pretty fun. If you’re looking for cool explosions, Crackdown 3 has you covered. The rest of the experience was less impressive, as both driving and melee combat felt stiff. Driving itself felt superfluous in a game world where I could leap from rooftop to rooftop, and the animations for punching and kicking were hard to parse, making it difficult to actually hit what I wanted to. Gunplay was easier to manage, with a lock on that snapped quickly to targets but standard weapons lacked any kind of weight.