Crackdown As You've Never Seen It Before

By Richard Leadbetter Published 29 May, 2009

A technical retrospective with HD video.

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In the first of our technical retrospectives, Digital Foundry takes a look at Crackdown on Xbox 360. Two years on from its release, it remains an intriguing game: still state-of-the-art in some respects, but superseded by competitors in several others. It's also fair to say that from a gameplay perspective, it remains one of the single most wonderful games you can play on Xbox 360. A brand new copy can be bought for a pittance now, so if you're a newcomer to the Microsoft console, it's a must-buy.

Going behind the scenes of the game is a relatively straightforward procedure. We know much about how the game works since there's an entire chapter dedicated to its rendering techniques in Wolfgang Engel's book, ShaderX7. But before dipping into Crackdown's technical elements in more depth, let's make good on our headline and proffer up some exclusive video showing the game as you've never seen it before.

In short, it's a video celebration of an open-world game that created the illusion of a densely populated cityscape a full year before the release of Grand Theft Auto IV. By positioning our Agency character across strategically chosen points in the scenery, turning off the HUD and speeding up the capture to 20x real-time, we get to see the Crackdown environments from a new, unique perspective. Crackdown has aged in many respects, but the old girl still manages to acquit itself with some style, even up against newer, more modern games.

To get the most out of this video, we really do recommend the HD option...

For example, there's none of the heavy, ultra-blatant depth of field or blur effects used in inFamous on far-away scenery - Crackdown adopts an atmospheric haze simulation that produces an arguably more pleasing effect. The night-time view of the cityscape at the end of the video exercises the full might of Crackdown's deferred rendering engine (similar techniques are found in GTAIV and Killzone 2, to name but two). In this scene, the engine is processing over 3,000 light sources. All the lights in the city, the lights from the traffic - each and every one of them has a dynamic, real-time effect on the surrounding environments. Another interesting thing to note is that if the light source itself moves off-screen, its effects still remain in the scene. Compare with Killzone 2 - should the light source move out of view, the entire effect disappears too. A similar effect is seen in the CryEngine 3 trailer released at GDC.

Lighting and shadowing are something of a mixed bag. While the actual transitions in the day/night cycle are beautifully handled, shadows cast by the environment appear to be rather static. The reflection of the city into the surrounding water is completely uniform no matter what the time of day is - even relatively unsophisticated open world games like The Godfather 2 make a decent enough fist of casting real time shadows that change as the day elapses, yet despite the huge amount of baked in ambient occlusion shadow-work, the buildings themselves cast no shadows according to the time of day. On the flipside, the cloud cover above clearly has a pleasing, subtle effect on the surrounding environments. Crackdown's artists had control over how the clouds reacted with the ambient lighting, or they could use their own colours, resulting in some of those spectacular day-night cycles. Indeed, even cloud density has an impact on the lighting too.

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Comments (65) Latest comment 3 years ago

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  • Innes #1 3 years ago

    Excellent Article.

    First.

  • Razz #2 3 years ago

    Awesomeness. Still in my top 5 games of this gen.

  • Razz #3 3 years ago

    "But we can't help for something more... "

    Missing word in the last sentence I think

  • GamerG #4 3 years ago

    Great Article and hopefully related to a soon to be announce sequel???

    I lent this to a friend and I think its high timed I got it back and played some more!

    Love the 2nd vid BTW

  • Der_tolle_Emil #5 3 years ago

    Really good article, although the HD link of the second video doesn't seem to be working for me. Since nobody else said anything so far it's probably my browser.

  • drunkymonkey #6 3 years ago

    Ooooh, it uses the RenderWare engine? I haven't heard that in a while!

  • Razz #7 3 years ago

    Yeah second vid was ingenius! Loved every second of it. What grenades did yo uuse as I don't remember being /that/ potent?!

  • DUFFKING #8 3 years ago

    Razz, I preferred the proximity mines the most :)

  • Kilters #9 3 years ago

    Excellent article.I've got to play this again after watching the second video.

  • Benno #10 3 years ago

    Article makes me want to play GTA IV funnily enough, I thought the skyline views looked great on that

  • david78 #11 3 years ago

    Is there a reason this has randomly gone up so close to E3?

  • lavalant #12 3 years ago

    Great article, loved those videos.

    Crackdown is a stunning game, the explosions are far more impressive than any other game I've played including GTA4, I completed the entire campaign on co-op and it was the most fun I've had since left4dead. In many ways it surpasses GTA4, infamous and protype due to the ability to complete the campaign with a friend and for messing around it's a bench mark for sandbox games.

    Just wish more DLC would come out.

  • Eraysor #13 3 years ago

    Much better than that terrible FFXIII article.

  • patchbox360 #14 3 years ago

    everytime i try to get to the eurogamer site this 360gamer site is here instead

    'For example, there's none of the heavy, ultra-blatant depth of field or blur effects used in inFamous on far-away scenery - Crackdown adopts an atmospheric haze simulation that produces an arguably more pleasing effect.'

  • Pepeman #15 3 years ago

    @patchbox360

    Wow, so retards like you still exists out there ?

  • Markusdragon #16 3 years ago

    An excellent article. I went back to the game a few weeks ago whilst showing a friend what games I had, and I was surprised just how well the engine and graphics have held their own, and the sheer amount of carnage that the game was capable of showing at once. Sad that the engine may need to be completely rebuilt for them to make another one, what with EA reigning in the middleware.

    @patchbox360
    Silly troll. Some rendering techniques just offer a more aesthetically pleasing outcome than others. I'm sure that had the author of the article meant to offend silly little fanboys they certainly wouldn't have pointed out that the critically lauded Killzone 2 uses the same system to great effect.

  • gallow #17 3 years ago

    So is the next version going to multi platform as this is first time I have actually seen the game running and it looks like a lot of fun?

  • PinkSpider #18 3 years ago

    Loved Crackdown. For the simple fact you could just run around jumping and collecting, then shoot things. Hours of fun.

    I got GTAIV after tiring of crackdown and played it for around two hours, not being able to scale buildings and collect stuff put me off :/

    More like Crackdown please.

  • Dr_Wadd #19 3 years ago

    I must get around to finding the last of the hidden orbs, just a few to go now.

    I've spent a lot of time playing this with the sole purpose of stacking up cars for massive explosions. Works particularly well in co-op as you can leave one player with the cars so the game engine doesn`t decide they are out of view an cull them. I`m sure at times I've pushed the frame rate down to single figures, but its worth it.

  • wankerw #20 3 years ago

    Ah yes remember juggeling cars with the homing missiles, and you gotta use the cluster grenades to really get the best explosions

    Can't wait for the sequel, it's gonna happen man

  • kendoji #21 3 years ago

    Started playing this again from the start a few days ago. Great stuff.

  • Slipstream #22 3 years ago

    Love this game and it's nice to see it getting some love. Good Article, just goes to show that this game was much more than a house for your precious Halo 3 demo.

  • Spekingur #23 3 years ago

    @patchbox360:
    Seriously, is that all you could come up with?

    Crackdown is lots of fun. I have been wanting more of the same for a while now.

  • bratmandu #24 3 years ago

    Best article on this site I've seen since I joined. Was pleasantly surprised to see so many comments recognising that fact.

    More articles like this please!

    Fond enough memories of Crackdown.

  • Law07 #25 3 years ago

    Is it my computer or is the EG video player PAGE plays videos really slowly?

    I'm running on a flippin Dual Core processor with 2GB ram and it still stutters like a babes!

  • Tlaloc #26 3 years ago

    "Crackdown" I wish I could take some kind of pill and forget that I had ever played it.
    Then I could go back in and play it all over again. An exceptionally good game. Easily one of the five best ever.

  • matrim83 #27 3 years ago

    Good article. Makes me want to play it again.

    2 years on and still no sequel. Why MS? It sold well, was critically acclaimed and has a very loyal fan following but still nothing. :(

  • RedSparrows #28 3 years ago

    I really like Crackdown, but srsly, 'top 5' and stuff? Nu-uh.

  • Darren #29 3 years ago

    Yes Crackdown was very pretty visually, still is, but the gameplay pales alongside newer contenders like inFamous IMO. There's no variety in the missions, every boss encounter felt the same and they got stale too early on, and there's no narrative to drive you forward through the game and connect with the world so once you're powered up there's nothing at all to keep me coming back to the game beyond collecting the orbs. As a result it got very boring, very quickly for me. Another killer for me was that the game lacked atmosphere and never felt like a real world. The vehicle handling was also awful, so much so that I seldom felt the need to even use them. Besides they tended to cause god-awful screen tearing so I preferred to run around! Crackdown was a sandbox world in search of a decent game IMO.

    Still Crackdown was a solid foundation from which a superior sequel could have been made so it's a shame that never happened.

  • patchbox360 #30 3 years ago

    crackdown graphics belong on an iphone (even for the time it was released), its horrendous lack of story is just down right insulting and its controls are hardly the tightest - it being considered some kind of special top 5 game this gen is absolutely ridiculous considering games like gta4, mgs4, gears of war, lbp, killzone 2...

  • Rodchenko #31 3 years ago

    Might get this once I finished inFamous. My 360 hasn't had much runtime lately.

  • Windypops #32 3 years ago

    Fantastic game. Micturates on other sandbox games. Nothing else has made me feel so tooled-up from the get-go; like a superhero with the city as your playground.

    The sequel doesn't sound all that promising.

  • MartinScott #33 3 years ago

    One point I think was missed - its a relatively small game world, this makes it easy to learn your way round, making it much much more enjoyable. . . open world games seem to want to get bigger and bigger I think smaller more memorable is better. Each area was distinct in Crackdown this really enhanced the immersion. You could easily tell which sector you where in and when you crossed into other sectors. BTW the climb to top of agency tower was brilliant achievement first achievement I enjoyed doing then jumped off and hit the water. Great article...... One of my top 3 xbox 360 games ever.... maybe the top played it for around 6weeks solid .... put it on again about a week ago and havent be able to put it down.....

  • Sunyavadin #34 3 years ago

    The only thing I expect to cut down the time I spend playing Crackdown will be Prototype.

  • trooperdx3117 #35 3 years ago

    Those last two lines almost broke my heart, the very idea that the next Crackdown might be an online only game pisses me off so much considering I don't have xbox live

  • EmiliasHorse #36 3 years ago

    @Patchbox360
    considering every single one of those on the list YES. Crackdown is better than every single one of them. It was as much fun as any game I have ever played and lasted as long as I wanted it to.

  • septimus #37 3 years ago

    Only ever played the demo if this, it was fun, but I wasn't sure there was much more to it. Think I'll pick it up and go through it once I have completed inFamous. Crackdown sounds from what you are all saying to have more longevity than GTA IV (still haven't completed nor the addon, it just gets dull).

  • GreyBeard #38 3 years ago

    Picked this up used from CEX for about £10 a couple of months back, and I still haven't got around to sticking it in my 360... Shame on me.

    But I think my response is kind of symptomatic of why Crackdown failed to have as much impact as it (apparently) deserves, maybe its the box-art, or the title, but I haven't felt compelled to put it at the top of my "to-play" list for some reason.

    I suspect if Ruffian are at work on some kind of a follow-up, it may not be a sequel in name, more in spirit.

  • rogueJT #39 3 years ago


    Great game, great achievements.

  • garyliddon #40 3 years ago

    Great article :D

    The only slight niggle is Renderware isn't really the rendering engine for the game. It was completely gutted and replaced with bespoke code. My understanding is that car rendering tech is mostly Renderware but just about everything else was replaced. The company I previously worked at did a lot of the core tech work under contract for Microsoft, replacing a lot of Renderware and optimisation in general.

    But apart from that awesome stuff :D
    Edited by 1 at 30/05/09 @ 18:03

  • Zappa #41 3 years ago

    This game looked pretty bad and the gameplay was mediocre.

  • maximusfarticus #42 3 years ago

    Fuck me.
    So the day after InFamous is released, Eurogamer publish an article about how amazing a two year old Xbox game that is similar in theme to InFamous is, and said article even has a sly dig at Killzone 2 in it. Fine. But please don't whine when you're called out for being 360 fanboys, it's so blatant it's embarrassing. Especially as it's written by the same spotty turd that publishes the fan baiting face-off articles. Richard Leadbetter, you are a microsoft loving, talentless hack. It must be nice for cunts like you to look back to 2007, at least the shit60 had some games coming out for it then. Honestly, why don't you all just fuck off.
    Edited by 1 at 30/05/09 @ 23:05

  • Dezm0nd #43 3 years ago

    get ya ps3 out with it's no games.

  • maximusfarticus #44 3 years ago

    ^^

    And here we have the typical 360 owner. I would argue with it, but it can't even type a coherent sentence so whats the point? I mean, seriously, does anyone know what the fuck it's saying?

  • macmurphy #45 3 years ago

    Funny - I saw the best five games thread and chucked this in. Uncanny how many other people agreed. Along with Mario Galaxy this was one of the most popular choices. Not sure what to say as this was one of the first next gen games I played. In the long run I think things like Halo 3 are better due to multiplayer longevity; this was shortlived fun. But when i first saw the skyline in glorious HD and jumped around with wanton abandon I remember feeling that this was what I had always hoped games would end up like. It was about a week of gaming heaven, and it will always hold a place in my heart for that.

  • ChadSexington #46 3 years ago

    I could never get into Crackdown. It could have very well come down to the disinterested voice of your commander, but it just never grabbed me, which was a shame, because I felt like I should like it.

  • djhazardous #47 3 years ago

    Oh please! This is clearly a feeble attempt at coming back on inFamous harder and stronger.. Yet it fails because - it's a feeble attempt at coming back on inFamous.

    inFamous isn't really that good of a game, way to waste your time MS, cuz' SuckerPunch/Sony are already done with that genre for now.

  • El-Dev #48 3 years ago

    So, is it as good as Uncharted?

  • Windypops #49 3 years ago

    Cretin rush! Duck!

  • Wastelander #50 3 years ago

    [_]D

    This is the bitter tear cup.
    It's nearly full.
    Now cry harder you screaming little bitches.

  • bdc #51 3 years ago

    Nope there is no way 'Patchbox360' isn't biased against the 360. Not at all.

    :awesomeface:

  • patchbox360 #52 3 years ago

    i owned a 360 from near to its launch up until my 360 broke (for a second time) on my first attempt to play steet fighter 4 , yes i am bitter but not biased. fact is the 360 is a pile of shit hardware with some really decent games, but the tide is changing and with technical masterpieces like killzone2 and uncharted 2 moving gaming forward, reminising on crackdown is utterly redundant.

  • uzivatel #53 3 years ago

    Crackdown article on Eurogamer, Crackdown NXE Theme released few days ago, E3 starting tomorrow ... could it be?

  • JonFE #54 3 years ago

    @patchbox360:

    I can only assume that you didn't *actually* mind the "pile of shit hardware" while whoring that 40K gamerscore of yours :-s

  • spongebob #55 3 years ago

    Richard could go a bit deeper with his analysis. So far these articles have been just more detailed and longer versions of a visual part of a regular analysis. Just things anyone who actually has played the game and looked around could tell you. Good idea this technical retrospect thing, but the execution so far is lacking.

  • symmetry #56 3 years ago

    Crackdown really wasn't that great and I really don't know why you guys wank off about it all the time.

    It was small, it was short and it got boring really quickly. Where's the fun in that?

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #57 3 years ago

    @garyliddon
    The only slight niggle is Renderware isn't really the rendering engine for the game. It was completely gutted and replaced with bespoke code

    In terms of Crackdown's use of Renderware, it was eventually pretty much just an art export pipeline and model format. All of the lighting and shaders were written by the Crackdown team (as largely detailed in Hugh's ShaderX article), the particle system and character rendering (which could render about a thousand on screen at one time, as you can see in the first video) didn't use Renderware at all.

    A customised Renderware Studio was used for the basis of level editing, but that didn't really have any effect on the rendering.

    The slowdowns in the second video are largely to do with the amount of physics calculations (as handled by havok) at the beginning of the explosions due to large numbers of separate objects in very close proximity to one another. Without a lot of clever tweaks by Crackdown's gameplay programmers, the engine wouldn't have been able to handle massive pile-up explosions as well as it did.

  • MikeP #58 3 years ago

    Ascending the Agency tower as night falls, gazing down at the city around you and then jumping off into the water is one of my defining moments of gaming for this generation of consoles.

    I can't understand people who said it was boring. With even a hint of imagination you can keep yourself entertained for hours outside of the core elements of the game, which are great fun in and of themselves.

  • cowell #59 3 years ago

    I enjoyed Crackdown tremedously and was one of the first games I bought having upgraded to 360 fairly late. The game is alot of fun and free running across the roof tops was a fabulous time waster.

    The only thing that peeved me was coming up 2 agility orbs short of the 500.

  • smernicki #60 3 years ago

    i have much love for crackdown
    played through it twice, brilliant game IMO

    just hope that the sequel doesn't lose any quality if it's changed developer

    also looking forward to APB (perhaps something to do with this article going up?)

  • Nomgle #61 3 years ago

    N@ : I'd buy Crackdown again and give it another go but it isn't exactly cheap for an oldish game. Thought it'd be about 8 quid by now!

    Um, it is about 8 quid now - http://www.sim plygames.com/info/14700/

  • penhalion #62 3 years ago

    The sequel needs to follow the first one. Now that we know who created the gangs and set up the whole deal in the first place. Our hero should be on the war path. You'd get to face off against super cops loyal to the organisation and create some real mayhem in the city. Imagine two titans battling it out, throwing cars and shooting rockets at eachother!

    Instead it sounds like Crackdown 2 will be some stupid multiplayer rampage with zero story!
    Edited by 1 at 01/06/09 @ 13:50

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #63 3 years ago

    I wouldn't expect a sequel to Crackdown to be multiplayer-only. I believe the multiplayer-focussed rumour was started before the end of the origional RTW/Microsoft discussions, before RTW announced in 2007 that it wasn't working on the sequel.

    Now everyone is looking to Ruffian (who are comprised of maybe a third of the original Crackdown team), to do the sequel (or a non-Crackdown-franchise followup), knowing the people involved, I seriously doubt they'd be making either an MMO or 'Crackdown Tournament'.

    Edit: I don't work for RTW (any more), Ruffian, or Microsoft, by the way, nor have I heard any of this from their employees, it's all conjecture on my part. I give it 60/40 that we'll hear something about a post-Crackdown action game at this evening's press conference, though.
    Edited by 1 at 01/06/09 @ 15:05

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #64 3 years ago

    I wouldn't expect a sequel to Crackdown to be multiplayer-only

    Ok, alright, I shall eat my words.

  • WayMucho #65 3 years ago

    What a great game this was. Not everyone's cup of tea I know, but I loved just messing around on my own and in coop on this game. My best 360 chevo is still climbing to the top of the Agency tower (god that was high)
    The only bad thing for me was that it ruined GTA4 - it felt really limiting not being able to climb everything or blow it all up.