Doing more ‘Crackdown’

I said I wasn’t going to do it … but I bought the downloadable content for “Crackdown” and messed with it over the weekend. It’s the best 800 points I’ve spent in a long time. I was looking for new agents and perhaps a new gang, but after killing about 2/3 of my Saturday rolling around the city and hurling buckets of rockets at criminals (in an armored car no less), I think I’m even happier that I own this game.

As far as the new content goes, I explored the “Keys to the City” options, which range from God Mode (like you need it) in this game to the ability to make vehicles appear out of thin air. I felt like a hulking, evil, gun-toting … wizard. You can’t explain that kind of silly power. However, the game tries to compensate for this the sudden godliness by eliminating the ability to save your game. I started out as the skinny agent, but then hopped in a car and used the Keys to max out all his abilities. The next time I left the vehicle, I was a buff, hell-raising war machine armed with a minigun that actually needed time to warm up before it fired. Madness.

My favorite of the new vehicles is the armored car, which comes equipped with a rotating rocket-launcher turret. It’s fast, it can slam smaller vehcles into pieces, and generally looks like something the devil would drive. All I would have needed were rims. Oh well. You also have an Agency race car, which I can’t drive to save my life because it’s so freaking fast. I’m also afraid to hit anything for fear of shattering into pieces.

I also played with some of the new weapons. I told you about the minigun, but there’s also a “harpoon” gun which manages to take out thugs in one shot, and I also screwed around with the “lobber,” a grenade-launcher hybrid that litters the air with (I think) sheets of shrapnel. I didn’t use this as much, as I ended up taking out too many innocents by accident. I am kind.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with everything that was provided, and I didn’t even get to try the “street racing” minigame yet. I’m not sure I will, since I’m really not into racing games to begin with. Plus, it’s only a couple of days before the Halo 3 beta, where I plan on being dead to the rest of the world. Hopefully, my podcast partner Canan will be able to sneak in some kills as well.