There are many, many games with male leading characters that display toxic traits, so this isn’t a knock on them, but I recently played Crackdown again and realized how much testosterone and anti-political correctness was packed into this game. Crackdown was created by David Jones, who also created Grand Theft Auto, so it’s no wonder this game is still so much fun and holds up to this day. While not able to satisfy my toxic desire to clean up my nearest city, cleaning up Pacific City will have to do!
It’s time to fight toxic masculinity by consuming more toxic masculinity by playing Crackdown!
Plot
“It’s all gone to s***, and it just keeps rising. Now it’s about to hit the fan”
Those are the words that greet you as you begin Crackdown from the awesome game voiceover voiced by Michael McConnohie, but more on him later. With the world falling into disorder, global law enforcement agencies combined to form the Agency, but even their combined forces were not enough.
Crackdown is set in Pacific City, where the Agency has set up their last stand in a place called the Keep. Pacific City is a broken-down, crime and drug-ridden city run by various gangs who have divided the capital into various zones. So basically, your typical blue city.
Using a controversial human modification program, the Agency creates agents of justice who become stronger, faster, and can scale the tall buildings in the city with ease. The Agency unleashes these agent killing machines into the city to take down the gangs of Los Muertos, The Volk and the Shai-Gen Corporation. This was before game developers became scared to make minorities villains in a game. If made today, cultists on X would shriek at the apparent racism even though the Volk are Russian.
After you choose an agent, the Agency gives you training on the various vehicles, firearms, and abilities the agents possess. Then you get an Agency rundown on the Los Muertos hierarchy as they are the gang that controls the area outside the Keep.
Once the agent is released, you are tasked with systematically eliminating the gang leadership that simultaneously hurts their organization. For example, killing their arms dealer will make the surviving gang members shoot less to conserve bullets. But this also makes it tougher to get the leader as the gangs adapts and hunker down to take you out.
As an enhanced human agent, you gain abilities like crack shooting, super-human strength, and agility by the kills you make. This means if you kill some gang members by hand, you get stronger. If you shoot them, your aim improves and throwing them from tall heights gains you agility experience.
Plus there are experience orbs peppered throughout the city usually meaning you have to scale tall buildings to reach them. I usually hate platforming games, but the agility ability is arguably the best aspect of Crackdown as you feel nearly invincible while you dole out justice!
Voice of the Agency
What makes Crackdown truly toxic is the Voice of the Agency. This voice in your ear encourages the agent to create all kinds of mayhem as he guides you throughout the city to the next leader. He will call the enemy’s filth and scum, and will gives the agent instructions on how to use their weapons more effectively or use the environment to make additional kills.
The voice is witty, enjoys seeing the gang scum get killed, and also admonishes the agent if they have to run away to survive or take stupid risks, or if you happen to kill peacekeepers in the heat of battle. If the agent stands too long the Voice will shout ‘What, are you scared?” If a gang leader is in sight and the agent hesitates too long, the voice will angrily shout “Take the shot!” Once the Voice sees one of the gang leaders, his voice will grow sinister as he blurts out curse words while he prods you to kill them.
But The Voice of the Agency is not all mayhem, as he gives the agent praise for completing a mission or leveling up their abilities. As you take out the gang hierarchy, the voice will give you intelligence on what the gang’s response was to your actions and the positive impact that loss had on the city. As your only friend in the game, you actually feel a sense of accomplishment when you get that pat on the back from him.
Why You Should Play
Crackdown came along during the golden age of videogames but was still highly regarded. Although open world games were normalized by 2007, Crackdowns jumping ability gave you that sense of freedom akin to the more recent Spiderman games as you traverse the city.
Crackdown goads you into the mayhem, giving you multiple options on how you want to dispense justice to the scum that has poisoned the city. You may find yourself prolonging battles just to see how much destruction you can cause before killing the target.
I think as we enter into the Summer of Love 2.0, then 3.0, then 4.0 gamers will want that feeling of cleaning up a corrupted city and can’t go wrong with Crackdown, which is available for free on X-Box here.
Check out my Rumble Channel where I deep dive further into the greatness of Crackdown. Just click on the image below to get there!
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I caved! For the first time, my debut novel, Fiasco of Adventures, is available digitally! You can order the e-book on Amazon here or from my Linktree! And check out my website, TheMegacosm.com, for the latest news involving this universe. I’m also starting Rumble and Youtube channels. Give them a sub so I can start getting paid!
English (US) · 