On the same token, it's likely that players will spend hours on end leaping around Pacific City in search of agility orbs, which allow for dramatic upgrades to jump abilities. Agility is one of the cornerstones of the Crackdown experience, and getting the orbs starts off quite easy, but becomes more and more difficult, we've noticed. The attribute is part of what lends Crackdown its cross-genre qualities. Because players can leap tall buildings in single bounds, and there's always a sense of daring, the game not only takes on the role of action RPG, but also the most adult platformer we've played.

It's not totally glowing and sunny, however. We've noticed some issues with the game, and at this stage in production, we're not so sure that they're going to be fixed in the final product. The targeting system can be a bit haywire at times; when there's a crowd of enemies, it can be tough to single one out. Also, there's no auto-center for the camera, which can be a bit annoying as well. Again, considering that the game ships in three weeks, we don't anticipate this changing much in that time. From what we know, just as in the demo, Crackdown will feature two-player co-op modes. We haven't tried any of it out at this point, but hopefully, the final product will run smoothly. If so, it could take Gears of War out of more than one 360 owners' disc trays.


All in all, we've been enjoying our time with Crackdown. Real Time Worlds isn't out to reinvent the wheel, nor are they trying to put new rims on it. It seems like they're more interested in fattening the tires to make them bouncier and giving them a degree of durability. It looks like it's got a couple of flaws that might end up in the final product, such as camera and targeting issues, but when has that been a surprise for a sandbox game? Still, gamers who've checked out the demo can expect to see the pace stretched a bit, but suffice it to say, this title is shaping up to be a solid purchase, Halo 3 beta invite or not.