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Crackdown

By Daniel McAloon
Posted on May 5th, 2009

When I reviewed the Crackdown demo in the XBOX360 Demo Roundup I gave it an EPIC WIN. The action was engaging, the gameplay was fun and challenging, and the game showed real promise of progression. All of this is still true...until you get the patch.

There I was, having a grand old time. Running rooftop races, killing gangsters in impressive ways, throwing exploding barrels onto the highway, stealing cars...life was fun. I turned on the XBOX to get another couple hours of Crackdown in, and they had a patch available. Not being a rebel like some of you, I went ahead and downloaded it. When the game came back up, I had some standard MS Product troubles with getting the game to start, but once I had cleared the XBOX's cache (hold A as the game loads) all was well with the world.

I went into the game, and was surprised to see that there were 6 new weapons in my inventory. When I tried to select one of them, a window popped up asking me to purchase an additional weapons pack. Minus points right there. However, they're at the end of the list, and they don't really bother me since I've been using guns I stole from the first guy I killed the entire game.

I start walking around, and I see a rooftop race marker. A "marker" is a giant pillar of light in the city. Standing (or driving a car onto) the base of one triggers a race, where you have to hit 50+ markers, in order, within a certain time limit. I run onto the race marker, face the right direction, and wait 5 seconds for the race to begin. The sound plays that indicates the start of the race, and my character surges forward...

Right into a "please buy the additional rooftop race pack" screen. Bullshit. I played for maybe 5 minutes more, finding 3 other "new" features that begged me for money, then turned it off.

Bottom line is, if you see this game in a bargain bin, pick it up, but DO NOT PATCH IT. The patch is only to ask you for money, money they already got when the game was purchased in the first place. So do you hear this, publishers? Your game went from EPIC WIN to FAIL because of your greed.

I can't recommend this game, sorry guys. Play the demo, it's pretty fun, but to get the full effect, every time the voiceover guy talks, pretend he's asking you to buy girl scout cookies.

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umm...

Submitted by Das Stu on Thu, 05/07/2009 - 20:48.

...you DO realize all that stuff is in the Keys to the City pack...which is free....

...right?

Not quite

Submitted by maniacdan on Fri, 05/08/2009 - 13:18.

Someone already suggested this, so I downloaded all available packs, including Keys to the City, and that didn't fix anything.  I still get the "give us more money" screens on the rocket tag missions, certain rooftop races, weapon selection, vehicle selection, city clearing, and weapons cache markers.  If they didn't mean to do this, then it's even worse.

That's weird.  The only

Submitted by Das Stu on Sat, 05/09/2009 - 16:20.

That's weird.  The only download I... downloaded is the Keys pack, and I have access to all that stuff.  And to the best of my knowledge, it hasn't been patched since it first came out.

That content is "premium"

Submitted by maniacdan on Tue, 05/12/2009 - 10:28.

Did you pay for the keys to the city pack?  I can't get a straight answer on what's supposed to be included in the patch.  There definitely WAS a patch, and I also downloaded all the free content that I could find on the marketplace.  Maybe it's that they conflicted.  Bottom line is, I got free content and a free patch, and now there's all sorts of shit in the game begging me for money, and that's not cool. 

The official press release for the patch says that the rocket tag missions are part of the "free" content, and the weapons and vehicles are part of the "premium" content.  Even IF rocket tag worked (which it doesn't) they're still leaving me with menu options that don't work.

Oh and the patch messed up achievement triggers.  I got the achievement for jumping off agency headquarters once while driving around in a hatchback, and got the achievement for wiping out the asian gang's leader while throwing barrels onto the highway.  In my experience, the patch broke the game.  Maybe my patch didn't go through properly, but one of the many MANY downsides to releasing post-launch content on a console is there's no way to "undo."  I can't wipe the game's memory, because I'll lose my saves.