All Grand Theft Auto, all the gol-durned time! Join Mags, Nadine and D for this GTA-themed show, in which we reminisce about hookers we have loved and shot, and so forth.

Things we mention in the show: Dan Houser interview. The work on mastery vs. exploration I was thinking of may have been from Only a Game, but I’m unable now to find a specific article. However, there are many great articles on that site on that topic (not necessarily using those terms, however). This may be an interesting starting point.

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Well… this week I was feeling particularly cranky, so I decided to make Eyeless Max so very wrong in so many ways. Any problems with that? Well… shaddup…

So I unburied Crackdown this week in order to play it with D…

We discovered a few wonderful things you can do with co-op mode:

A) Car Surfing: Evidently wind plays no factor in the Crackdown world because while your partner drives you can easily surf atop a vehicle like you are wearing magnetic boots… You can also target the gas tanks of passing cars and, if your firearms skill in high enough, explode cars with a single shot. This is REALLY handy for dealing with cars full of gang members without having to get out and get shot up.

B) Orb Collecting: This isn’t really anymore useful in two player mode, but the extra set of eyes never hurts… you both collected your own orbs so they can’t be stolen from you, which is also pretty neat.

c) Random Road Races: Well, it doesn’t really help progress you in the game… in fact, if anything the pedestrians you will in no doubt slaughter on the way will only HURT your skill…. but it’s so damn FUN!!!

That’s not alot…
but I’m sure D has a few to add…
D?

Nadine and I both wanted to talk about Crackdown in the context of “game of the year”. So we both are; in classic back-and-forth style, we’ll hammer the Crack ball around a touch.

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Says developer Real Time Worlds. That sucks, although this smacks of an ongoing contract negotiation.

Wow. I just went and bought a used Godfather (there’s an image for ya) to keep me busy gaming-wise, and now not only is Double Dragon on the Live Arcade, but Crackdown gets a hefty downloadable update. Never mind that the Halo 3 beta starts next week. So much for extorting the merchants of Little Italy.

The list of added features for Crackdown is pretty remarkable. Some of it costs “points”, but considering what you get – and in comparison, say, to the GRAW 2 map pack which was four repurposed multiplayer maps for the same price – I’d say it’s worth it.

That I have written three separate posts about this game bears witness to the inadequacy of my previous “rent, don’t buy” commendation. Turns out there are still things to do after your agility is maxed.

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This game is like a gangbanging Super Mario Bros. It’s more or less a platformer – substitute orbs for coins, and violent cliched thugs for the little turtles. That said, the explosive skill does come into play more as you move to the harder gangs, who like to hang in groups, often near exploding barrels. Strength can be useful, too, but much less so. Once you get to two stars, I think, you can kill a man with one kick, which is a nice shotgun replacement. But it’s less rewarding than the other skills since your only real melee move is the one Norris-style roundhouse kick. Jump kicks don’t really work, and you can’t uppercut people to cartoonish altitudes. Lifting cars looks good, but it takes too long to be a good option when you’re being attacked by more than one thug.

By the time you get to four stars in agility, you’re really wishing there was more to the game. It’s quite likely it was rushed out, maybe because of the Halo 3 beta. It’s a shame, because it could have been really incredible. As I mentioned there are no interiors at all, the missions are not varied or even really that hard. In fact the game encourages you to speed through them: since many of the thugs regenerate, there’s no point in trying to be a completist and taking them all out. You’re better off bouncing right into the boss room. You could probably beat the game in an hour if you were really blazin’. Also, while I love the general idea of these cranked-out magic superagents, the game is just crying out for some enemy agents of similar skill to challenge you. Beatin’ on multiple hapless goons gets stale. Let’s hope the sequel steals a lot more from GTA, and keeps the sweet co-op mode.

I thought maybe I had a problem. In Oblivion I crafted a sneaky, leapy tiger-character. And now in Crackdown, I am far more interested in building-to-building superjumps than I am in “taking down” cliched gang leaders. Tragic irony, given my athletic incompetence in meatspace? But I’m not the only one. Okay, that’s good.

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