I was in an awkward situation today. There I am standing on a crowded bus, and this large, middle-aged bloke suddeny yelled into my face if I wanted to "ave a beer this even'n".
I responded that I had a prior engagment, politely turning him down, only for him to give me a threatening look. He followed this up with an, even louder, "Are you bein' funny?!"
It was at this stage that I realised he was yelling into those headsets that people use, connected to their modile phones, and then sureptitiously tucked into their collars. I was, of course relived, and slightly embarassed. This embarassment was made worse by the fact that I was stuck less than a foot away from him the next half hour.
So, in an attempt to make this game related... hmmmm... I don't even see if that is possable...
Oh! yes!
In GTA IV we are all going to be given mobile phones to runa round with. We had one in San Andreas I believe, but these will be more important, being used for much more that just recieving calls. Is this a good thing? Who can tell...
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Jsnuk’s weird philosophy- English edition
Javaguy is great.
Man is an animal but has raised itself above those instincts.
We tend to fall back to war if we can't achieve things peacefully [reverting back to animal instincts]
Bible quotes maek me loock clevars
The day when we stop developing new techs is the day when we all nuke each other. Er, sure.
Why were we made? Dunno.
Lets fix global warming kids!
Lets make a SUPER NATION OF +2 SUPERNESS
Lets go to space and be in star trek. I like star trek.
We're all doomed so we should give up. (on what?)
Lets kill god coz he's nature and is MEEN TO US. (!!!!)
So lets kill nature too. (As if nature was anything other than abstract, snukky)
I'm going to put a score here for the lols.
The Javaguy Philosophy:
Javaguy is great.
We're all animals with those basic instincts. Always will be. War will always exist, but never mind.
Technology and war are independent of each other. The pursuit of tech doesn't distract us from war, our higher instincts do.
World is fine as it is.
Nature is always here, always will be too. It is infinitely more powerful than us, it's up to us, as animals, to adapt to it.
I give this article 34%
CoD4 review, Sith
Call of Duty 4.
This is the fourth episode of the pretty highly-acclaimed Call of Duty series. Well, it's not the fourth REALLY, but it's called 4 so let's just run with it. You play as either an operative in the S.A.S, or the USMC (US Marine Corps, I believe.), called Soap McTavish (Wut?) or Paul Jackson respectively.
The single player consists of the tried, and tested formula of “Go somewhere, shoot baddies, finish mission.” Don't get me wrong, it's a good formula. As you may have noticed from the subtitle “Modern Warfare,” this isn't set in the usual World War 2 theme of previous Call of Duties. Instead, it's set in the modern world. Of course, nukes are involved in the plot, but I won't give away more than that.
The missions take place mainly in Russia, and an unnamed country in “THE MIDDLE EAST,” the S.A.S, and USMC taking missions in each respectively, though both team up for the last few missions. I really, truly, loved the graphics in Call of Duty 4. The game looked beautiful, though little better than CoD 2 (That was pretty too, so no real loss.). Some of the missions generated tension, the sniper one in particular. I won't spoil it, but it's certainly something you've probably not done anywhere else.
The game play in general is fun, with the new additions of more secondary grenades (CSS fans rejoice, flash and stun grenades have arrived.), and the new bullet penetration mechanics. Popping someone when he thinks he's safe behind cover is satisfying.
A little note, perhaps of little use and interest, is that the old “Hit in face with gun,” melee system has gone away. Now you get a shiny, new, combat knife. That was just filler, really, but who the hell cares?
Onward, then. The game was pretty damn short, I finished it within the first few days of possession, took probably less than 8 hours in total, so it's a good time sink. You've got your mandatory pick up hidden items unlockables, including an arcade mode and slow-motion.
The game ends very abruptly, in the middle of a heated gunfight, which may catch some by surprise. The real gem here, though, is the multi player. I'll come to that in a second, but I've got to finish my three-lines-minimum paragraphs. Right, done.
OK, multi player. You probably already know this, but Call of Duty is renown for its MP. This is no different. There are your bog-standard death match, and team death match game modes, involving shooting people in the face, mainly, and your CSS-stolen (Sorry, borrowed), bomb planting missions. And some bollocks called headquarters, but I haven't tried that yet.
All of the game modes can further be modified by adding “Hardcore mode.” Hardcore mode basically makes stuff... Hardcore, really. You lose your cross hairs, HUD, and map (Other than when there's a UAV on-line for your team. I'll get back to UAVs in a moment.
MP is very populated, thousands of servers on-line at a time, though not all with people on. Most of the mechanics from single player are still in MP (Actually, all of them might be.), so there's no missing out here. Also, you can throw back grenades both in MP and SP. Just thought you'd like to know.
CoD4 has taken a leaf from Battlefield 2, and introduced a ranks, and unlocks system. There are 55 ranks to rise through, and at least a dozen guns to unlock, each with some add-ons as well. Including a Desert Eagle. Yay. Anyway, there are also perks to unlock. These perks are basically bonuses for your character.
Say, for example, I want a high-health assault character, with lots of grenades and the ability to shoot more accurately. I just pick the “More frag grenades,” perk, the “Juggernaut” (More health) perk, and the accuracy perk. Then, nab an assault rifle (May I recommend the M4, once you unlock it?), and a side arm in the create a class screen on the main menu. Job done.
The ranks are pretty easy to rise through, and you have the help of challenges. Challenges are like achievements in Team Fortress 2. You do certain things like, for example, kill 25 people with your AK 47, and you get experience towards your next rank-up, and maybe a new weapon attachment. These range from grips for shotguns, to silencers and scopes for assault rifles. Funnily, you can't have a silencer and a scope at once, but that's a little thing really.
Finally, the support powers. There are three support powers, gained by getting kill streaks. The UAV, which reveals all of the enemy troops on the map without the UAV jammer perk, as red dots on your map is earned for killing 3 people in one life. Air strikes, which are self-explanatory, are earned from downing 5 in one life.
Finally, the big daddy, helicopter support. You get helicopter support from 7 kills in one life, and it is really rather good. Helicopters can shred any infantry unlucky enough to be caught in its fire into small ribbons of meat, though it's vulnerable to heavy machine guns (Like the SAW), and RPG s. The bastard RPG s are hard to aim though, so you'd be better with a gun.
So, that's that then I suppose. I'd give CoD4 a 9/10 in total. It plays well, looks good, lots of shooting, lots of explosions, good multi player, good single player. If you like first person shooters, you will really love this.
Sith
NIGHTHOOD WRITES A REVIEW!
This is posted by me, but is all Nighthood's work:
Once, I decided I would make a film. It was a re-enactment of Ben-Hur, but all I had were 3 friends and a cheese sandwich. I gave up, but later discovered that if I had persevered, I could become a cult hero with an unhealthy obsession for Fats Waller. Ok, so this story is fictional, but so is “Be kind, Rewind”, a sweet movie about a couple of guys put into a bad position. Mos Def plays Mike, who is tasked with tending to Mr Fletcher’s (Danny Glover) video store, “Be kind, Rewind”. Mike is given special orders not to allow Jerry (Jack Black), Mike’s friend, and an absolute conspiracy nut, into the shop. Of course, this law is breached, and after getting his whole body magnetised, Jerry proceeds to wipe every single film in the shop. Struck with the dilemma of how they are going to get “Ghostbusters” to a customer, they decide to re-enact the whole film in a scrap yard and library, leaving out special effects in favour of good, old fashioned camera cutting. This continues when a customer wants “Rush Hour 2” by the end of the day. This results in an absolutely hilarious remake of the iconic(ish) bamboo scaffolding scene, as Jerry sends small children flying from a climbing frame. At this point, the 2 guys are a little worried of quite what the people will think of the film, and, without going too much into the plot of the movie, the consensus is good, and eventually ends with a small film studio. However, due to some interesting copyright laws, all the tapes have to be destroyed. Well, that’s about as much as I can be bothered to write, so now all I need to do is get myself allowed onto the blog. Tsk.
Rundown -
Shooting: Not with this budget!
Characterization: 7
Soundtrack: 5
Plot: 9
Effects: Do tinfoil, tinsel and caps count as effects?
Variable field dependent on context and genre - Bear wrestling: 9
Overall J-score: 8.5/10. As likeable as a film about 2 men with absolutely no sex life and a video camera can be...
J-filosophy - 'an exclusive look at the nature of humanity, life and everything'
I had an epiphany today, and it was a realization that I don't like anything, I hate everyone apart from Java and the whole nature of the universe infuriates me, to the degree of near suicide and as i write this, I would like you to realize this post may not be joke filled as my usual.
humans are designed by nature and evolution to exploit everything, to exploit food sources, to exploit land and to exploit energy, we are also made to hate everything that is not us, we are designed to be wary of other cultures and their influences and be wary of change, but this sort of extreme fear mixed with out intelligence gives us our dominance, we strive to destroy everything but ourselves, we desire for wealth greater than ourselves and we wish not for peace, but for whatever situation will benefit us as the individual the most.
You see we are made to break the rules of nature - which is rather ironic - and thus our primitive instincts have developed throughout history, as our technology and understanding has greatened so has our capacity to override instinct and ascend out of our animalistic ways, so, great you are thinking, yes, wonderful, but what happened if this trend ends? What happens when we stagnate? Wars, lots of wars, wars over nothing wars which destroy everything we know and love. Truly that is our nature.
“Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none.” Says the bible, and that is right, on small fronts and on a global scale; you see if humans do not have a greater agenda, if they do not have wealth to obtain through peaceful means and if they do not have technological hopes, then we fall to war, an end to peace in all forms and the apocalypse, now, this may not happen, it is not certainty, but as we continue to face obstacles in our economic and intellectual expansion, and the population becomes ignorant and they produce babies of evil, the probability of this end to our species rises, as global warming threatens our security, wars in the middle east over oil and the Americans seek to enforce the rapture, we become conceited imperialistic and racist.
Now, this is nothing new, for eternity empires have struggled for dominance, but never before with such power and with such at stake, nuclear arms capable of eradicating the planet, sit passively in myriad silos waiting for the button to be pressed which shall single the end of everything we know and allot we don't. As technology develops, so does destruction, thus, if we stop developing new technologies we signal the end to everything and if we do we signal the end to everything, but, there is a way out...
“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. (Psalms 30:5)” The end is never really the end, despite what I have said, humanity matters not on a universal scale, but its brief existence raises some questions. Why did nature develop its destruction? why did our planet Seal it's doom? Why did evolution see fit to make us, when simpler creatures could create a worthy ecosystem independently? and Why, does anything exist anyway?! I know none of the answers to any of these questions, and only speculation exists, but that drive keeps us motivated and moving along as an intelligent civilization, there is a small gap in the mesh of Life, we can beat nature, we can beat the universe, we are God's.
First of all, we need to defeat global warming, then we need to form one massive global country with shared wealth and capitalistic ideals, then we need to perfect renewable energy, and finally we need to develop deep space travel. Just watch the original series of Star Trek, such a perfect society, such a hippy show, but thats what we need to achieve, and more. You see the planet we live on and nature will keep trying to destroy us, with ice ages, global warming, resources shortages and our own crude nature; to survive we must seize our nature and bend it into an unrecognizable but wonderful state, we need to destroy instinct, we need to spread our culture and people so far that the death of a whole galaxy would not even phase us. however the basic form of humanity will alter greatly, with different forms of human adapting in different ways across the the universe, we will cease to be one species and will ascend to become something greater, something unimaginable, something great. In short we need to force ourselves to evolve in a way that defies nature, we need to cease to be human.
“I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11)” The Lord is nature and nature is the Lord, they wish to destroy us for they have created their doom, of course they are fictional, they do not exist other than in the very forces of the universe, maybe our creation was an inevitable accident spun in the insecurities of the very laws of the universe, we could except our fate as martyrs, or we could struggle on in spite of everything and spit in the face of the universe, our nature is to exploit, so let us bring an end to the exploitation of each other and exploit the universe, to live, to ascend , to realize our potential we need to kill God.
“Everything is possible for him who believes.” Mark 9:23 - Take heart from the words of God my friends for ironically we shall need them to destroy him, for the only way to live is to change and the only way to change is to destroy nature and become our own force, and until that day, which shall probably never happen, I will continue to hate everything and everyone, but Java for “He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defense; I shall not be moved.”
Rundown (of the Universe, God, Nature and Evolution) -
Shooting: 0
Characterization: 10
Soundtrack: 0
Plot: 0
Effects: 10
Variable field dependent on context and genre - Common sense: 0
Overall J-score: 1/10
“Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down”
humans are designed by nature and evolution to exploit everything, to exploit food sources, to exploit land and to exploit energy, we are also made to hate everything that is not us, we are designed to be wary of other cultures and their influences and be wary of change, but this sort of extreme fear mixed with out intelligence gives us our dominance, we strive to destroy everything but ourselves, we desire for wealth greater than ourselves and we wish not for peace, but for whatever situation will benefit us as the individual the most.
You see we are made to break the rules of nature - which is rather ironic - and thus our primitive instincts have developed throughout history, as our technology and understanding has greatened so has our capacity to override instinct and ascend out of our animalistic ways, so, great you are thinking, yes, wonderful, but what happened if this trend ends? What happens when we stagnate? Wars, lots of wars, wars over nothing wars which destroy everything we know and love. Truly that is our nature.
“Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none.” Says the bible, and that is right, on small fronts and on a global scale; you see if humans do not have a greater agenda, if they do not have wealth to obtain through peaceful means and if they do not have technological hopes, then we fall to war, an end to peace in all forms and the apocalypse, now, this may not happen, it is not certainty, but as we continue to face obstacles in our economic and intellectual expansion, and the population becomes ignorant and they produce babies of evil, the probability of this end to our species rises, as global warming threatens our security, wars in the middle east over oil and the Americans seek to enforce the rapture, we become conceited imperialistic and racist.
Now, this is nothing new, for eternity empires have struggled for dominance, but never before with such power and with such at stake, nuclear arms capable of eradicating the planet, sit passively in myriad silos waiting for the button to be pressed which shall single the end of everything we know and allot we don't. As technology develops, so does destruction, thus, if we stop developing new technologies we signal the end to everything and if we do we signal the end to everything, but, there is a way out...
“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. (Psalms 30:5)” The end is never really the end, despite what I have said, humanity matters not on a universal scale, but its brief existence raises some questions. Why did nature develop its destruction? why did our planet Seal it's doom? Why did evolution see fit to make us, when simpler creatures could create a worthy ecosystem independently? and Why, does anything exist anyway?! I know none of the answers to any of these questions, and only speculation exists, but that drive keeps us motivated and moving along as an intelligent civilization, there is a small gap in the mesh of Life, we can beat nature, we can beat the universe, we are God's.
First of all, we need to defeat global warming, then we need to form one massive global country with shared wealth and capitalistic ideals, then we need to perfect renewable energy, and finally we need to develop deep space travel. Just watch the original series of Star Trek, such a perfect society, such a hippy show, but thats what we need to achieve, and more. You see the planet we live on and nature will keep trying to destroy us, with ice ages, global warming, resources shortages and our own crude nature; to survive we must seize our nature and bend it into an unrecognizable but wonderful state, we need to destroy instinct, we need to spread our culture and people so far that the death of a whole galaxy would not even phase us. however the basic form of humanity will alter greatly, with different forms of human adapting in different ways across the the universe, we will cease to be one species and will ascend to become something greater, something unimaginable, something great. In short we need to force ourselves to evolve in a way that defies nature, we need to cease to be human.
“I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11)” The Lord is nature and nature is the Lord, they wish to destroy us for they have created their doom, of course they are fictional, they do not exist other than in the very forces of the universe, maybe our creation was an inevitable accident spun in the insecurities of the very laws of the universe, we could except our fate as martyrs, or we could struggle on in spite of everything and spit in the face of the universe, our nature is to exploit, so let us bring an end to the exploitation of each other and exploit the universe, to live, to ascend , to realize our potential we need to kill God.
“Everything is possible for him who believes.” Mark 9:23 - Take heart from the words of God my friends for ironically we shall need them to destroy him, for the only way to live is to change and the only way to change is to destroy nature and become our own force, and until that day, which shall probably never happen, I will continue to hate everything and everyone, but Java for “He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defense; I shall not be moved.”
Rundown (of the Universe, God, Nature and Evolution) -
Shooting: 0
Characterization: 10
Soundtrack: 0
Plot: 0
Effects: 10
Variable field dependent on context and genre - Common sense: 0
Overall J-score: 1/10
“Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down”
Monday, March 3, 2008
J-Film #4 - 'Semi-pro'
I am in an angry mood lately and i shall not say G'evenang to you, i shall just say "why the holy fucktarded chicken licking savage do Americans pronounce semi, Sem-I, seriously are they that broken in the head that as well as itching to nuke every oil wielding country this hemisphere, they have to spell wrong and mutilate the language in which my glorious reviews are written in!?!?!"
With that out of the way however, I can now actually review something, and that something is, namely, 'Semeeeeee-pro'. Now as my Fingers caress the keyboard with inhuman grace only developed through eons of shooting head-crabs, and i spell almost every word wrong, a question is in my head and that question my loyal simpletons is "What is the nature of a comedy? What is its purpose? and What does it need to make it effective?" and now i shall answer those three questions respectively.
The nature of a comedy is to make fun of occurrences everyday or otherwise, its purpose is to use this 'piss-taking' to make people laugh; and after all laughing is a form of entertainment. Thus a genre is born, so, i know what you are thinking, oh well any laymen who only had 15 GCSE's an A level in philosophy and a masters in ponciness from Oxford with a sandwich working in Harvard's Gay wing could work that out and you would be right. You see, the problem arises with the third question, here you have to take into account myriad genres, how they function and what aspects they use to brand them as entertainment, and ultimately art. Thus Effectively you are asking the first two questions for every possible genre and sub-genre just to work out the answer to the third question. I also know what you are thinking at this point "Oh dear, thats far too poncey for me, ill just pretend I understand"
So after several hard minutes of my Fagmosexual brain whirring and a complete second without taking the piss out of Clover field, I now have the answer, but be warned its not a short one. You see Every film needs a story, and every joke within a comedy needs a context that can be easily and quickly applied to it, in other words the bear eating the commissioner of the NBA needs to make sense. Okay, so a comedy needs a story to make it funny, what does it also need? Relativity, thats an easy one, if you cant relate to the joke and if it means nothing to you it's not funny, do i need to explain that further? Good. One more thing is essential however and is the most important thing EVER; even when A joke has a basis in story, is relative to your experiences and knowledge, it still needs to be Funny. I will not go any further on this, as I am now 519 words in and haven't discussed the film at all, but I will point out, at this point you need to work out what funny actually means, anyways on with the J-film.
Where the above ponceyness fits in with the actual film, is thats its a comedy and yes I do realize I could have told you that in one sentence but i thought i would confuse you first.
First of all this Will Ferrel comedy is not as good as 'Talledaga (fuck the spelling) nights' but is the typical light hearted comedy, with a straight forward plot consisting of Team needs to win big game, team wins big game elements, which are averagely orchestrated with an average cast of actors, excluding Will Ferrel, who I rather like.
The film is fun, full of basket balls and has a brilliant LOL moment involving a bear, but it just simply cannot compete with the 'running over the race car finish line in slow motion moment' in 'TD' there isn't much more to say really, its enjoyably funny, th acting is slightly sub par the effects are rather lovely, the story is average, 'meh' its all right. But it is fair to say, when I'm the editor to 'Art Gay Monthly' in a big pink building with 'PONCE' scribbled over the door in a supposedly artistic manner, this film will not be in my top 10. On another final note, i would also like to express the fact that if you wanted to know how good the film actually was you could skip down to the rundown, but i wasn't about to tell you that at the beginning was I?
Next time I shall be reviewing 'Diary of the Dead' (I mean if they let me into Rambo ill have no trouble with this) and that should be, how do you say? "FUCKING AWESOME YOU CUNT"
Rundown -
Shooting: 7
Characterization: 4
Soundtrack: 5
Plot: 5
Effects: 8
Variable field dependent on context and genre - Bear wrestling: 9
Overall J-score: 5.5/10 J-FILM MEH SEE
If there is anything you would like little Johnny to know or would like to subscribe to my mass mailing alert service do not hesitate to email me at Johnny.neicho@sky.com
*as you could probably tell I'm feeling in a particularly Poncarrogant (yay i invented an adjective!) mood
With that out of the way however, I can now actually review something, and that something is, namely, 'Semeeeeee-pro'. Now as my Fingers caress the keyboard with inhuman grace only developed through eons of shooting head-crabs, and i spell almost every word wrong, a question is in my head and that question my loyal simpletons is "What is the nature of a comedy? What is its purpose? and What does it need to make it effective?" and now i shall answer those three questions respectively.
The nature of a comedy is to make fun of occurrences everyday or otherwise, its purpose is to use this 'piss-taking' to make people laugh; and after all laughing is a form of entertainment. Thus a genre is born, so, i know what you are thinking, oh well any laymen who only had 15 GCSE's an A level in philosophy and a masters in ponciness from Oxford with a sandwich working in Harvard's Gay wing could work that out and you would be right. You see, the problem arises with the third question, here you have to take into account myriad genres, how they function and what aspects they use to brand them as entertainment, and ultimately art. Thus Effectively you are asking the first two questions for every possible genre and sub-genre just to work out the answer to the third question. I also know what you are thinking at this point "Oh dear, thats far too poncey for me, ill just pretend I understand"
So after several hard minutes of my Fagmosexual brain whirring and a complete second without taking the piss out of Clover field, I now have the answer, but be warned its not a short one. You see Every film needs a story, and every joke within a comedy needs a context that can be easily and quickly applied to it, in other words the bear eating the commissioner of the NBA needs to make sense. Okay, so a comedy needs a story to make it funny, what does it also need? Relativity, thats an easy one, if you cant relate to the joke and if it means nothing to you it's not funny, do i need to explain that further? Good. One more thing is essential however and is the most important thing EVER; even when A joke has a basis in story, is relative to your experiences and knowledge, it still needs to be Funny. I will not go any further on this, as I am now 519 words in and haven't discussed the film at all, but I will point out, at this point you need to work out what funny actually means, anyways on with the J-film.
Where the above ponceyness fits in with the actual film, is thats its a comedy and yes I do realize I could have told you that in one sentence but i thought i would confuse you first.
First of all this Will Ferrel comedy is not as good as 'Talledaga (fuck the spelling) nights' but is the typical light hearted comedy, with a straight forward plot consisting of Team needs to win big game, team wins big game elements, which are averagely orchestrated with an average cast of actors, excluding Will Ferrel, who I rather like.
The film is fun, full of basket balls and has a brilliant LOL moment involving a bear, but it just simply cannot compete with the 'running over the race car finish line in slow motion moment' in 'TD' there isn't much more to say really, its enjoyably funny, th acting is slightly sub par the effects are rather lovely, the story is average, 'meh' its all right. But it is fair to say, when I'm the editor to 'Art Gay Monthly' in a big pink building with 'PONCE' scribbled over the door in a supposedly artistic manner, this film will not be in my top 10. On another final note, i would also like to express the fact that if you wanted to know how good the film actually was you could skip down to the rundown, but i wasn't about to tell you that at the beginning was I?
Next time I shall be reviewing 'Diary of the Dead' (I mean if they let me into Rambo ill have no trouble with this) and that should be, how do you say? "FUCKING AWESOME YOU CUNT"
Rundown -
Shooting: 7
Characterization: 4
Soundtrack: 5
Plot: 5
Effects: 8
Variable field dependent on context and genre - Bear wrestling: 9
Overall J-score: 5.5/10 J-FILM MEH SEE
If there is anything you would like little Johnny to know or would like to subscribe to my mass mailing alert service do not hesitate to email me at Johnny.neicho@sky.com
*as you could probably tell I'm feeling in a particularly Poncarrogant (yay i invented an adjective!) mood
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Crackdown Review (X360)
For years the love that gamers have for Rocket Launchers has rested uneasily with the love that I have for being the good guy. For some reason, whatever it is, the good guys never have the really cool guns. It's always the terrorists with the RPGs and really big machine guns, never the police.
Fortunately Crackdown sees things differently. You play a genetically enhanced super cop wearing something very much like a Nanosuit tasked with cleaning up the streets. The key feature of the game is that you are essentially a superhero, by the end of the game capable of causing biblical amounts of damage.
This certainly seems like a fun premise for a game, and usually in a review I would now go on to say how this links in with the story. The main problem with crackdown is there isn't one. You're simply chucked out into the city with 10 gang bosses per area to take down and once you've done that the game is pretty much over. The city has no crime, your skills will all be full and you will quickly become very, very bored. It's a pity that the game is so insubstantial in this way but it is, in part, offset by the skill advancement mechanics, which replace the story as the main hook of the game.
You start the game with your core abilities (strength, agility, explosives, firearms and driving) at 0. This means that your lock on aim is slow, your explosives do little damage, your jumping is unimpressive and cars handle quite badly. To improve each of your skills (apart from agility which I'll get to later) you kill gang members using the skill, for example running gang members over increases driving, shooting gang members increases firearms etc. As your skills increase you become more powerful, able to lock on faster, drive better and cause more damage with explosives. It's surprisingly compelling and I've wasted many a happy hour grinding to improve my skills. Well, I say grinding; it's a lot more amusing than killing endless goblins on WoW due to the alarming speed with which fights build up, especially in the later stages of the game. You'll soon find yourself surrounded by armies of hit squads trying to take you down and the thrill of seeing 20 of them flying up into the air thanks to a well placed grenade is amazing.
As I mentioned before the exception to the skill mechanic is agility. Rather than increasing that through combat you pick up agility orbs scattered in hard to reach places around the city. They're graded according to difficulty and, as with the rest of the skill system, very fun to try and seek out/get to. There are also hidden orbs which increase all of your skills around the city and finding them takes some doing. If all of this "finding things" in tedious then fear not, as the city is so chock full of pickups it's impossible not to find them, at least at first.
Ah, that city. Crackdown is set in Pacific City, the usual anonymous American fare we're used to seeing in games such as GTA except for one key difference: it's vertical. Most buildings can be scaled even at a low agility level and the rooftops of all the buildings are very intricately put together. You'll spend quite a lot of time at roof level and it really does feel like a whole different game once you're up there, watching the traffic snaking by below. The attention to detail throughout the city is just amazing and gets better with every new district you go to. Apparently the city is divided into individually modeled "blocks" and it shows. I've yet to find a building that isn't interesting in some way, be it the rubber duck hidden on the rooftop or the challenging climb to an agility orb.
For all the fun it is, there are a fair few problems that do spoil Crackdown slightly, aside from the lack of a story. For a start you get punished for killing civilians by losing skill points. I don't mind this system particularly but later in the game when your grenades have a hit radius akin to a nuke it's impossible not to end up killing innocents along with gang members and being punished for this can sometimes be very irritating. If they'd altered the system so it ignored the death of innocents when gang members were also killed it would be much better, as constantly losing skill points makes upgrading that extra bit harder. Another minor irritation is the commentator for the game, a disembodied voice who gives you guidance as you go along. At first he seems awesome, giving you tips as you progress like a tutorial. After a while, however, you realise that he goes on giving you the same tips constantly thoughout the game, whether you're a raw recruit or a seasoned player. It's quite annoying being told in the middle of a firefight that the bar in the top left shows your health, when you've known that for the past 5 hours. He's also quite often wrong, telling me I'm about to die when I've actually got full health.
Still, these few problems are nothing more than minor irritations which you soon forget as you 'splode gang members with grenades, kick them far into the air with super strength and then leap away over a tall building, cackling with glee. It's also of note that the game features online co-op, allowing it to be played all the way through with a friend- a nice side effect of having no story. In conclusion then this is simply one of the most joyous experiences on the X360 right now and it's great whether you want a casual 10 minute laugh or a proper 2 hour playing session.
I give the game 83%
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