Clearly inspired by "Grand Theft Auto," "Crackdown" is a new video game for the Xbox 360 that packs just enough mayhem, action and carnage to keep things interesting.
It's an M-rated, $59.99 game with a suitably ludicrous back story where you play a genetically enhanced police officer who must shoot, jump and drive through relentless hordes of bad guys.
So what if the open-ended crime concept has been done before? "Crackdown" is still a game of cops and robbers that should keep the button-mashing, action-addicted crowd happy.
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There's certainly a lot of nonsense, but you'll probably be too busy mowing down gang members in the streets of Pacific City to notice.
Roving packs of thugs from three main crime organizations open fire on you on city streets without warning.
Meanwhile, a sea of apparently ill-informed pedestrians run around in terror, too stupid to stay inside where it's safe. Didn't anyone tell residents that they were basically living in a war zone?
The coolest parts of the game are the enhanced abilities you'll gain by collecting power-ups, completing racing circuits and beating bosses.
By the end, you'll feel like some comic-book hero turned badge-wearing officer as you leap from rooftop to rooftop and take an incredible amount of damage before your health falls to zero. The vivid cartoon art style of the characters reinforces this notion.
"Crackdown" likely won't pose much challenge for experienced gamers, however.
The default difficulty is called "hard," but "blissfully simple" is more like it.
Even on the hardest setting, called "psychotic," these gang members are incredibly dumb as they stand around, waiting to be picked off one by one.
What "Crackdown" lacks in good artificial intelligence it more than makes up for in numbers. Going near the den of a crime boss is like stepping into a bee's nest of buzzing machine gun fire and exploding grenades.
Your character can take quite a beating, but once his protective shield wears off, you'd better find a safe place to hide for a few seconds so it can regenerate.
If you don't — and trust me, it's easy to get overwhelmed — you'll be able to magically re-spawn at one of the supply points you've hopefully acquired on the way to a boss location.
These supply points, scattered across the city, act as stepping stones, each one taking you a few blocks closer to the big showdown with one of the dozens of gangsters.
While "Grand Theft Auto" somehow managed to offer a rich, engaging crime saga to go along with all the carnage, "Crackdown" clearly went with action instead of story.
"Crackdown" does score some major points for it's ability to play cooperatively with a friend on the Xbox Live network. It's probably the best way to enjoy this action-escapist's dream, where police officers are super heroes and there's never any doubt who the bad guys are.
Three stars out of four.
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