I do not want to defend this game. And that is because I want MS to fully understand why (the majority of) people are complaining. I do not think it is 100% directed at this game in particular, but with
Xbox Game Studios ~
formerly Microsoft Studios, Microsoft Game Studios, and Microsoft Games. Very Shakespearean, because my opinions of this company has yet to change with their name~.
This game is mindless fun. There is value in that. I believe a lot of people will like this game. If you enjoyed
Sea of Thieves, and if you enjoyed
State of Decay 2, then you will probably enjoy this game. Having said that ~
you can tell where I am going with this~ if that is all you are releasing, then you are going to have a problem. MS will continue to receive unanimously bad review scores. It not enough to publish AA games like these. There needs to be AAA filler somewhere in between.
~
Right now is when Xbox users will bring up FH4. I am sorry, but annual franchise-fatigue and public perception on racing and sports games are not going to swing MS's negative zeitgeist in a positive direction. I do not make up the rules, as unfair as it sounds, but the public does not care. Anyway...~
I think that is why people are ultimately disappointed in MS's recent output. In the same year Xbox fans got
Sea of Thieves and
State of Decay 2, PlayStation fans got two GOTY nominees in
Marvel's Spider-Man and
God of War. Those are two AAA-tier games. People are starving for those types of experiences on this platform, but all they are getting is AA at best. There is nothing inherently wrong with AA, but as much as I like dessert, I will become ill if I eat too much of it. Excuses for Xbox cannot change what has happened for the past 3 years. It is really bad. And this has become the boiling point with the public's frustration.
~
Also, I feel like we all need to sit down with MS and tell them to just stop with marketing AA games as AAA, and then un-apologetically rebrand your AAA games to AAAA. There's no such thing as 4A. JUST STOP. You are embarrassing yourself.~
For Crackdown 3, I would like to share my experience with it so far.
----------
I have already summed this up as being mindless fun, and I stand by that. There is a lot
Sumo Digital has done right. There is a lot it has done okay. And there is very little that it has done bad. Ultimately, I hope MS does not abandon this franchise. I would like to see more in this universe.
Movement: It is really, really good. It is true when people say this is as much of a platformer as it is an shooter. The developers understood that about this franchise, and they have done a commendable job making it work. Sure, there is limited variation in a character's animation, but it does not interfere with your movement. You can predict the exact outcomes of your actions. If you want to jump, then you know with 100% certainty how high you can jump and for how far. Every single time. If you cannot get to a certain platform, it is because you are not good enough, not because you are fighting with the controls. It all feels good. Nothing about the platforming is automatic. It is not supposed to feel easy like Spider-Man. You need to jump and climb your way to get anywhere. Now, about the animations in general, some have commented on the floatiness to the jumping. I know looks awkward when watching a video, but it feels natural when you actually play it. I would not have it any other way. Regardless, everything feels intentional. This is how Crackdown should feel and I appreciate Phil Spencer for making sure the developers got this right at least.
Score: B+
EXPERT TIP: Roll into the Launch Pad and you will slingshot for 4-5 blocks. You can reach anywhere with this technique. Do this as often as generated.
Combat: Lock-on is necessary. There is no other way to play this game ~
at least for the console. Maybe the developers should have given mouse and keyboard users a free aiming option, but even so I do not think it is necessary~. Everything is fluid, and aiming and shooting can be done very quickly. It pairs well with the platforming. I can jump, air dash, aim, shoot, throw a grenade, air dash again, switch weapons, shoot another target 180 degrees above and behind me, double jump, shoot a random car for extra mayhem, perform a triple jump, and then ground pound into a group of enemies. You cannot do this without lock-on if you are playing with a controller. Overall, it reminds me of the latest
DOOM. There is a rhythm to the madness. You feel like a super hero at all times and nothing seems impossible.
I have some complaints about combat in general. First, I do not think the developers should have limited us to just 3 weapons. I think we should have all weapons available to us at all times. In doing so, we are not limited to what kind of destruction we can create. The weapons I like to use are not ideal for every scenario, which forces me to carry a weapon that is, the
Pulse Beam. There are cooler weapons I would like to carry, but I cannot justify wasting a weapon slot on it. The
Graviton Tether or
Oblivion for example. A weapon wheel that slows down time when using it would be a good compromise. This would work, but only if they fix my second complaint.
There is just too many weapons. Also, there are some weapons that suck. Just get rid of them. Additionally, more enemies should be resistant (or better resistant) to certain weapon types. This will force us to switch our weapons from time to time to avoid the inevitable monotony of shooting. That is just my preference, but I think it is something to consider.
Lastly, and more importantly, I do not care for aiming at certain body parts. And I say that because I would rather have the ability to switch to another enemy while we are shooting. And the only way to do that is freeing up the right stick, which is being used by this unnecessary body part aiming skill. It is a relic of the original Crackdown, which is probably the only reason why it is still in this sequel. But it either useless or at worst not utilized properly when designing fire fights or enemy types. Like I said, I would rather be able to switch to another enemy more practically than to stop aiming and shooting, center the desired enemy I want to kill, and then proceed to aim and shoot again. It takes too long and goes against the fluidity and quickness that makes this combat great.
What brings the score down for me are the boss encounters. I think the developers could have spent more time creating better arenas in which to fight these bosses. Half this game is about platforming and it is not implemented at all when fighting these bosses. There is platforming between boss stages, or to just get to the boss, but I wanted more. The highlight for me would be
Liv Soreensen in the air craft. It can follow you through the city, so you are able to traverse through, around, or over buildings to take her out. That was fun.
Score:
C
The World: This is the more underappreciated part of the game. When people say this looks like a last-gen game, they are being disingenuous. This game is beautiful and I think
Digital Foundry sums it up best:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lks6E81EWE. It is not as if Sumo Digital forgot what normal mapping or tesselation are. It is aware of these modern techniques. But I believe this boxy-like world is a deliberate design choice above anything else. I think the developers want you to see the world at a glance and know exactly what you can jump to and what you can climb on. You can plan out your approach without much thought. It becomes second nature, as if you are a high-level
Tetris player. I do not think the developers get enough credit to this part of the game. Above all else, this game does everything it can to not impede your forward momentum. That ideology is there in the combat, it is there in the movement, and it is there in the world design.
I am sure there are constraints to number of polygons they can use. If you think about it, they have to get this running on the original Xbox One. And that just is made up of two AA batteries taped together to an old Tamogotchi. I am sure they could have spent more time on creating more believable citizens. But that is superfluous to the core aspects of the game. A living, believable world does not change what makes Crackdown unique and I think we are putting too much emphasis on what it does poorly over what it does well. At the end of the day, they created a video game world that can be rendered up to 4K at a stable 30 fps. The things it has implemented however, like AA, SSR, AF, LOD, HDR, etc., are all top-notch. I know that does not sound like much, but I think it is.
~
To be honest, I think we are part of the problem. We keep asking for more and more, and this is how we end up with games like Just Cause 3 - an unstable mess that is not taking into account the hardware, for which it is being developed. There are not many open world games with this scope in size, so I am glad Crackdown 3 made the right compromises to realize its vision. Other games, like Grand Theft Auto, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Marvel's Spider-Man have to make compromises, and they are all wildly different approaches. I do not think Crackdown 3 would have been better if it were to copy one of these.~
Score:
B-
Driving: This is the worst aspect of the game. I do not understand how a company that has experience in making cart racers can make such a extremely frustrating experience. I will try to describe this as positively as I can. If you want to know what Hell will be like, just try to get a gold in one of these timed races. Every car feels like it is floating 4 inches off the ground, only until you are coming out of a turn, where, like clockwork, your car's tires gain traction for the first time and then decide it wants to drive 90 degrees the opposite direction where you want to go. That is without obstacles in your way. That is your best-case scenario. But there are obstacles, and they are everywhere. It does not matter if it is a blade of grass, the curb of a sidewalk, the side-view mirror of a parked car. Whatever you touch will pinball you every direction possible but straight. And no matter what you do, no matter where you are, you will end up in a pool of water. I do not know how that is possible, but every car I drive inevitably ends up in the sinking grave it has earned. And let's not forget that enemies still spawn on you as you are trying to complete these racing trials. So, the more often you drive and fail, the harder the course gets. This part of the game is such an afterthought it makes me wonder why they have it in here in the first place. If you are not going to put in the effort then just do not do it ~
which I will talk about more later on~. And whoever thought having ROLL, PITCH, and YAW all on the same stick should be shot dead in the street.
Score:
F^(F*F)
Overall (Next-Gen) Polish: This is what everyone is hung up on, so I would like to comment on it ~
this won't be about my feelings towards modern video games in general and how control is slowly being taken away from us as gamers. Clearly I am in the minority. Anyway...~. Most AAA games nowadays succeed in rewarding the player for doing mundane actions. Let's face it, all video games are repetitive. What is important is if the game can mask the repetition or make the repetition enjoyable. Crackdown does nothing in this regard. When I look back at Spider-Man, I am reminded that you are constantly being rewarded with Peter Parker doing cool, acrobatic stunts in high-quality video. This happens at regular intervals. It occurs between missions, during missions, and even between phases of a boss battle. This helps mask the fact that when you do control Spider-Man, you are limited in what can be done ~
seriously, look no further than the stunt "skill" you can unlock while swinging. That is the biggest waste of a skill point ever. Sorry I'm derailing my own review. Anyway...~. It is a sign of AAA quality and polish. This is what is lacking in Crackdown 3. Nothing in this game shows you that your character can be more than what you are capable of doing.
Never mind the lack of cut-scenes. Seriously, the beginning cut-scene looked amazing, and you never see something like this again during your time playing the game. What should have been more excuses to watch the beautiful Terry Crews in 4K video, turned into art work stills that looked like they were pulled from a story board meeting. For the vast majority of players, whether knowingly or subconsciously, they see it as laziness.
Most importantly is story. It matters so much this generation. And you knew MS did not understand this from the start of development. Just look back at all the interview and promotional materials on this game. Whenever an interviewer asked them why people should play this game, MS always mimicked the same line, "It's about fun!" Sorry, MS, that is not how you market games anymore.
The only thing that should come out of your mouth when marketing is an emphasis on story. This is what you should be saying for every game you release from here on out: "Why are we making this game? Why should gamers play it? Because we have a great story to tell. With exceptional character development that will resonate with our fans." A truly fun game can market itself. There is no need to do this. So, this part of the development is unacceptable, especially if MS wants to spout this as a AAA game. If you want to call something AAA, then you need to put in the effort into making it one, and they failed. Otherwise, you have to do a better job at tempering expectations. Sort of how Obsidian is doing with The Outer Worlds. There's no shame in calling a game AA. Although, my advice would be to just budget
all of your games for mo-cap equipment, quality actors, expert cinematographers, and professional writers.
Ultimately, I feel bad for MS. Apparently, no one has told them these types of games will not achieve massive success like they have in the past. It is not that the industry has moved on, they are just providing gamers with better quality on top of solid gameplay. So, I am here to let the company know, "Hey MS, the industry has
matured improved and you need to improve with it." Let's hope this has become the last learning experience for them.
Score:
D
