Crackdown 3 (2019)
The only thing that sums up Crackdown 3 is the word disappointed. A game announced in 2014 and came out 5 years later has no real reason for it to be so mediocre. If the developers set out to make a new Crackdown game, they did just that… a game that is exactly like the original game back in 2007
For what it’s worth Crackdown 3 isn’t a bad game, it’s just so similar to the original Crackdown that the so-called needle was never moved. It is basically exactly the same game just with updated graphics. Nothing about the story is interesting, the powers really haven’t changed, the weapons haven’t changed much from what I remember… It's just so bland and hasn’t evolved in mechanics, storytelling or even environment. I mean they did make everything much more hologramy and neon, but that’s honestly it. Side by side comparisons of this game and the uprezed original, it would be kinda hard to tell which one is 12 years older than the other.
I did enjoy the game, but the 6 hour campaign was not worth the wait for this game. Playing as Terry Crews is fun but kinda pointless, the character is just so unimportant it feels like his talents were totally wasted. Honestly I can’t really remember this game even 30 mins after I finished it, it is just not very memorable. Other than the couple of final bosses that were much harder than the rest of the entire game put together, it was a quick fun game. Orb hunting is exactly how you remember it, bouncing around rooftops, climbing towers and scanning the horizon for little glowy orbs is the most rewarding thing about this game. The gunplay and shooting the game allows you to do is also decent, but I found the most powerful gun in the entire game within 10 minutes of starting and basically stuck with that one weapon the whole time. A laser that emits burning damage and eats away at any armor within seconds of touching the enemy was a blast, but also just felt like I was somehow cheating. I know there are “more powerful” guns in the game, but every time I would swap my fire lazer out for a new weapon, the others just all felt so slow and weak compared to my lazer.
Crackdown 3 isn’t a bad game, it's just so bland and boring in comparison to everything else on the market in early 2019. Compare this to something like Metro Exodus, where the environment in Exodus is so starkly different and tough, or a game like Anthem, where the shooting has been honed over again and again to make it as tight as possible, giving amazing feedback. Crackdown 3 is a budget game, exactly what we have been missing in this industry for around a decade or so. A solid B game, that doesn’t require mass amounts of money thrown at it, a game that should be a much cheaper point of entry for consumers, and something you can pick up, play and finish without having to go back to it every day for months on end. I’d recommend this game only if it was free to play like with the Game Pass subscription service Microsoft offers, and if you have a day to kill playing a game while listening to a podcast. For a modern B game, it sets out and does exactly what it needs to, be a game that is not amazing, nor awful, just the right amount of filler in between major releases.