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Crackdown 3 - Review in Progress (Patreon)

Published:
2019-02-14 13:03:00
Imported:
2026-06

Content

Most of my review has been written for Crackdown 3, and despite the embargo lifting this morning there’s more I’d like to check out before submitting a score. Microsoft provided a very brief multiplayer session that I wasn’t able to participate in, and I’m curious what those mass-destruction modes add to the game.

What I’ve already experienced of Crackdown 3 has been alarmingly sub-par. The world is boring, the humor is stale, the missions are repetitive, and the visuals are surprisingly poor on the Xbox One. After playing one amazing open-world game after another in 2018, this is not the review I wanted to kick-off 2019 with. I will be jumping online with everyone ASAP on Friday, then adding that portion to the review and finishing the edit hopefully later that day.

- Brandon

Comments

Anonymous

I'm shocked to read that. I thought this game would be the reason to buy an Xbox How can that happen after all these years? This is Duke Nukem Forever proportions.

Matthew Borg

Appreciate the update, unfortunately I'm not that surpised the game turned out average at best :/

Megan Linart

Ooof. Thanks for letting us know. Looking very forward to the review!

Liana

Oh that sucks. Thanks for the update, Brandon.

Gabriel Indriago

That’s sad, but the agony of that team doing this game is finally over

Anonymous

This game hasn't looked good from the get go.

RedVIII

Never expected anything else. Still sad for all the people who hoped for something good with this one.

John Price

“Alarmingly sub-par” - never words you want to see about a game

Steve Fiori

I have Game Pass so will still be playing it, shame to hear it's seemingly disappointing via most reviewers.

Matthew Palling

After 2 I never had much hope for this game and unexplained development dragouts never work out well. This game should of come out years ago like below. Well I have game pass but sounds like even terry cruise ain’t worth it

Tony

I can’t say I’m surprised to hear about the quality. Thank you for the update Brandon!

Matthew Palling

Can you at least still drive up buildings in the 4wd?

Adam Capone

Thanks for providing general impressions,

Alex Moscow

Such a shame. I found the first game in the bargain bucket of my local supermarket. Having heard some good things, I gave it a go and loved the hell out of it. It had its limitations but the gameplay was great and the world fun to explore. They didn't need to do much to perfect it, so not really sure how they have failed so spectacularly.

Haravikk

Yeah from what I've seen it doesn't look especially interesting; just more of the gradual collect-a-thon plus take back the map that the last two games had. What people forget about the first Crackdown is that once you peeled away what was novel about it it was really, really boring. I'd argue Saints Row IV was better overall as a super-powered sandbox, but even that seemed to ditch most of the story and characters that had made previous titles fun in favour of focusing on the "take over the city" grind, but at least traversal and powers in that were really, really fun. From what I've seen of Crackdown 3 it seems it's just a new layer of paint on top of basically the same thing yet again, and that foundation was never really all that great to begin with IMO.

Anonymous

I appreciate the tease to give us an idea how the review will go. Not surprising I guess, but disappointing this doesn’t seem to live up to the hype. I only wish Terry Crews didn’t have the misfortune of being attached to this sinking ship.

Frank Chao

I'm not surprised sadly, the game looked sub-par from the get-go and hasn't looked any better since.

Yusuf S

Do you guys have an Xbox One X?

Kelph

I’m currently watching the noclip documentary about FFXIV launch and it feels like the same happened to this game. Feels bad.

Anonymous

Oof... This ain't the one, Chief

Novus Operandi

It's disappointing to hear that Crackdown 3 may be yet another sub-par 1st party release from Microsoft. I can't help but feel that this trend may be connected to the advent of the Xbox Game Pass service; that rather than Microsoft treating this game as a proper $60 release, they're instead thinking of it as a $10 per month product.

Daniel Ribeiro

I loved Crackdown 1 and even liked Crackdown 2. I played both back in 2013, many years later and when games of the X360/PS3 generation had far more better game design and gameplay mechanics. Crackdown 1 and 2 are quite repetitive, that's nothing new in the Crackdown series, however we're not in 2007 and 2010, respectively, anymore and games have evolved a lot in all areas since then. Still, this feels like the case with Yooka-Laylee, where fans asked for the same type of game as they loved before and they got exactly what they wanted, for better or worse. So I can see both sides. I still plan on playing Crackdown 3 - most likely through Game Pass - and as long as the fun factor is the same as in Crackdown 1, I plan to finish it. For those interested, EuroGamer's Digital Foundry talks a bit about the game's core aspects: "the campaign portion of Crackdown 3 is actually an accomplished and often beautiful game, using Unreal Engine 4 innovatively to deliver a unique visual style, paired with the best HDR implementation we've seen since Gran Turismo Sport. Whether Crackdown 3 delivers as a sequel comes down to how closely wedded you are to the original's chaotic anything-goes open world and the introduction of more structure here. Opinion may be divided on this one, but the core gameplay delivers much more than I expected, and I think one of this game's strengths is just how much of an actual sequel this is, as opposed to a reboot or a 'reimagining' of one of Xbox 360's finest hours." Digital Foundry - Crackdown 3 tech analysis: a console classic reborn? <a href="https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2019-crackdown-3-xbox-one-xbox-one-x-pc-tech-analysis" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2019-crackdown-3-xbox-one-xbox-one-x-pc-tech-analysis</a> Some games aren't the best, but they're just pure fun to play. And that's better than playing a much better game technically that just bores you to tears. Like a few threads on NeoGAF, ResetEra, Reddit and other places have shown, to most people: bad games can still be fun, but with boring games there's nothing you can do, they're just not worth it. Hoping Crackdown 3 is the former rather than the latter.

Rui Fidalgo

I don't get why the visuals get so much criticism, I find the art direction beautiful and I'm glad that DF mentions it, and since they are the place to go for technical analysis I think I'm not totally crazy. Gameplay seems to be classic Crackdown... and this is Crackdown, so not a big surprise. To me it looks like a 6/10 game like the original, great fun but shallow. But that's ok too, I like diversity and not every game needs to be a melodrama. But this goes to show how much of good will MS still has to gain, when a game with such a unique visual style and technical performance gets destroyed on those same aspects.

Taubel

PC Gamer hated the multiplayer.

Anonymous

One thing I'm not seeing much consideration for is that you can co-op the game. I know you weren't a huge fan of Dying Light as well and thats another game that had co-op. There are a lot of open world games but so many of them have dropped multiplayer and I feel when it's included you have to alter the gameplay design to accommodate it. For instance Wilands was not fun for me solo. Only once I played it with someone else did I enjoy it.

Anonymous

The multiplayer doesn't have a Lobby system to play with your friends, The update is coming soon I guess.

The Warrior Within Soundtrack

I tested out the multiplayer recently and it was better than I had expected. Granted I was only able to play 2 matches, but it still felt very unfinished and the cloud destruction was pretty underwhelming.

drd7of14

I was watching Game Informer talk about this game, and the phrase that kept coming up was "reminds of an early xbox 360 game". Like, if you liked the gameplay of Crackdown 1, this will be exactly like that was...Open-World has come a long way since Crackdown 1. I'm sure there is fun to be had, but hopefully this is the last run of Microsoft's really bad lineup of Xbox One Delayed/Cancelled titles. It's a shame.

Łukasz Wizła

Thank you for the update Brandon, really appreciate it. Looking at Metacritic it appears Microsoft blew it this time, sooo many years in the making and still 6.0...

Stefan Vlemmix
>>19867182

It's not only the visuals on their own but also the world that feels very dead and empty. Nothing seems to be going on and everything looks the same. It's very, very bland.

VGJunky

With the excellent value of Xbox Game Pass you can get excellent games such as Crackdown 3 at launch!

Anonymous

So a typical Xbox One exclusive then. The streak continues. (The tone comes from a place of disappointment, not glee at their failure. I own all three consoles and just wish there was a good reason to turn on the poor thing.)

Mac

All of us are going to be cool with this, but you're missing the entire world typing in "Is crackdown 3 worth it?" Day 1. Personally I think this is a huge hit for such a critical failure of a game out of the gate. I do hope online is really fun especially if people don't have to *pay* for the game due to Games Pass.

Phil Walker

You are bonkers Jones. The game is great

Estaban

Thanks for waiting until you’ve been given the opportunity to play more multiplayer. This game, cloud gaming, Kinect, and discless gaming all belong in hell.

Rui Fidalgo

Having played it for a while, my thoughts are that seeing some reviewers scoring in the range of a Fallout 76 is close to offensive. Regarding the multiplayer... It's a cool tech demo, that shows potential, but it's just terrible.

Anonymous
>>19902309

Microsoft has been putting out good games lately, but since Sony has been on a roll pumping hit after hit on the PS4, it makes everything that Microsoft publishes look bad in comparison. Sea of Thieves is a great game, but it's not God of War. Crackdown is a cool love letter to fans of the original, but it's not Spider-Man. From what I read, it seems Crackdown fans really love the game, and I enjoyed what little I've played of it. When Forza Horizon 4 is arguably the best they have released in a while, it doesn't look good compared to Sony's output.