Crackdown in February

By Robert Purchese Published 22 December, 2006

Demo in January.

Get rid of the dirt on the streets using your own brand of Flash-cleaner, as Microsoft announces a 23rd February release date for crime-battling title Crackdown.

Xbox Live will also play host to a single-player and online cooperative demo of the game, downloadable on 18th January.

From Real Time Worlds, Crackdown elbows you onto the harsh streets of Pacific City. Three powerful gangs have assumed control of the once-great metropolis, and the police are powerless to stop them. This is where you, a genetically modified agent of justice (of course), step in to provide the citizens with a sense of hope.

"Gamers will arm themselves with high-tech weapons, transformable vehicles and incredible, gravity-defying super-skills in preparation to take back Pacific City. Crackdown pushes the action-driving hybrid genre into the next generation with the first ever truly 3-D playground," said someone. Festively.

Head over to the game's website for more information.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 5 years ago

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  • BadBoyBonner #1 6 years ago

    Really looking forward to this.

  • SBfistfun #2 6 years ago

    Crapdown more like..

  • BadBoyBonner #3 6 years ago

    Crapdown from a great height onto all other action-driving hybrid games.

  • gizmo #4 6 years ago

    Trailer looks superb! One to watch.

  • peteb #5 6 years ago

    noice!

  • jack_klugman #6 6 years ago

    What's the appeal? From the trailers I've seen it's GTA with the satirical humour and contemporary relevance substituted for futuristic cars and ludicrous burly men with rocket cannons, but with the same floaty physics and not-quite-right animations. Go team progress o_O

  • SBfistfun #7 6 years ago

    I hear you Jack.

    GTA with less crap graphics WOW..

  • gizmo #8 6 years ago

    Animations look a bit atm, granted, but it looks fun.

  • jack_klugman #9 6 years ago

    I don't mean to be too down about a game I've not even played, but the title is clearly generating a lot of interest and hype amongst the hardcore. I just couldn't see why myself.

  • BadBoyBonner #10 6 years ago

    I do think the futuristic setting allows the escapist nature of gaming to flourish in a title such as this. The futuritic setting should also deflect misguided-tabloid-alarmist-comment that unfortunately (and unfairly in my view)the GTA games seem to receive (even with their woefully basic graphics).
    Edited by BadBoyBonner at 22/12/06 @ 12:49

  • kuzanagi #11 6 years ago

    It looks fairly simplistic to me. From an interview I watched with one of the developers, there's basically no missions. You go about taking down the various gangs how you see fit. So if you take out their recruiters then they have less manpower, if you kill their buyer they have less in the way of weapons etc. This type of system worked well in Freedom Fighters where it was woven in to the story of the game, but as much as Crackdown initially appealed to me I think it's going to lack any real form of storyline and is going to just be a brainless shooter.

    Persistent stats seem like a good idea, as does the idea of being able to invite friends to come to your city and help you out in certain areas. The developer was talking about how if you lacked driving skills (not so much you personally, but your character statistically speaking) you'd be able to invite a friend in who was a skilled driver who could help you achieve things you wouldn't be able to do on your own.

    We'll have to wait and see how the demo plays out I guess.

  • Vin #12 6 years ago

    "What's the appeal? From the trailers I've seen it's GTA with the satirical humour and contemporary relevance substituted for futuristic cars and ludicrous burly men with rocket cannons, but with the same floaty physics and not-quite-right animations. Go team progress o_O"

    Not ALL of us need estrogen rushes in every game we play.

  • SBfistfun #13 6 years ago

    will it suffer the same balls framerate?

    Next Gen my arse

  • Wite_Noiz #14 6 years ago

    "Next Gen my arse"

    Now /there's/ an offer

  • tiddles #15 5 years ago

    It's looking better than previous movies, and it'll be interesting to see how it pans out... My doubt at the moment is how fun those huge jumps are going to be - unless there's some sort of auto-guidance system, it looks like it might be hard to see where you're going and where exactly you're going to land, and most of the time you'll miss your target... A lot of the jumps in the latest movie look like one in a hundred type moves which the developers spent ages perfecting for the shot on the trailer :) Anyway, it's hard to judge any of this from movies alone.

  • SomaticSense #16 5 years ago

    I just don't get it. I've been playing GTA: San Andreas again and have been loving it, so this should be right up my alley. But it just looks like a futuristic, even more arcadey, shit version of GTA, but with pretty neon graphics and ridiculously stupid super-powers.

    Looking forward to Mass Effect and Bioshock much, much more. Knowing me I'll probably still end up buying it, so will reserve final judgement until then. But at the moment I just don't get why so many people are so hyped over it.
    Probably just me though, as everyone seems to be hyped as hell for Lost Planet as well, whereas I thought the demo for that was boring as fuck. I must just have a shit taste in games all of a sudden......
    Edited by SomaticSense at 24/12/06 @ 13:18

  • captainrentboy #17 5 years ago

    I'll no doubt get this as the next few months are pretty quiet release wise,but the colour pallette in this game is bloody awful looking to me :/
    Some of the actual gameplay looks pretty darned sweet though.

  • Pastici #18 5 years ago

    Looks like The Hulk but with guns and driving....Cool.

  • AtomicBanana Verified Level Designer, Playground Games #19 5 years ago

    Went from 'meh' to pre-ordered after seeing the xboxyde vids and these:

    [link url=http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Media/Media.htm?CS_pid={7E392FEA-61F6-4DE6-A65E-DB10B35CC472}
    ]http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Media/M...[/link]

    First game like this I've ever seen where the frame rate is *solid* and the draw distance is the closest to seamless I've ever seen. The running/jumping animations still look pretty funky, but the amount of freedom it's given you looks worth it. That plus *full* co-op over the whole city? Sold.

  • NegativeZero #20 5 years ago

    Fuck Crackdown, where's my Blue Dragon, MS?