Best review I have seen about this game, finally something that felt fair with Crackdown 3. The game is not perfect, but it has too much personality and gameplay variety to be labeled as just “generic garbage”
I always love your unpopular opinions (Serious Sam 2, Mafia 3, Wolfenstein Youngblood, Crackdown 3). Now I feel like checking this out since this game has always been on Game Pass.
I've played a good portion of it and love it as much as 1, and it has more refined gameplay with more features. The world looks a little more empty than 1, but that's really the only thing I can think of to criticize in my opinion. That doesn't make it a bad game like most people make it out to be though.
@@ryanwilliams6602 Mostly agree. I also love it as much as 1, but my only complaint is the vehicles. They were much more fun to drive in 1, and they are basically unnecessary in 3, and the race missions are by far the worst part of the game.
I started playing Crackdown 3 after watching your review. To be honest this game gave me bad first impression so at first I doubted what you said in your video. That was because the open world was very “last gen” and early weapons and skills were not as fun as I expected them to be. However after 1 to 2 hours, holy sh*t! You were right! There were constant action and lots of toys to play with. I am having a blast right now. Hope it goes that way through the end. edit : Finished the game. It took 20 hours to earn gold in 90% of side activities and beat the final boss. I think the core gameplay loop is addictive as hell despite obvious rough edges(that terrible car physics!). If you like mindless 2D GTA style violence and ready to embrace some janks, Crackdown 3 is your jam. Maybe not worth buying but worth trying on game pass.
Call me crazy but I really like this games. I mean, to me, this game has more wild sandbox than Fortnite! It crazy how futuristic setting makes the gameplay more enjoyable at least!
Your review actually makes me excited to trying out this game, however once you´ve seen the crowbcat comparison video, it always left a bitter taste at what Crackdown 3 could of have been.
Eh. The only part of that video that made me sort of disappointed with 3 was the car physics. Outside of that it is like the other games.... Which is great. Controls are the best in the series, and the traversal across the city has litey never been better. The only change I would make regarding the graphics is to push the comic book aesthetic a bit harder.
Crowbcat is primarily a sensationalist. I wouldn't take it to heart that much, though there's still a good point there, it could've been a lot better if the game hadn't gone through such a rocky dev cycle.
Great review as always, interesting to finally hear from someone who enjoyed this game. If you wanted to take a break from shooters to review something a lot different I'd recommend Cook, Serve, Delicious! for the PC.
I am glad I decided to buy a copy of this game. Never grew up with this series, but it quickly became one of my favorites after finishing all 3 of them. I kind of want to complete them all too!
When they took the destruction out, I checked out. That said, I love your reviews and this one makes me want to give this game another chance. Great content!
I have only ever played crackdown 2, and it was one of the most fun games I played on the Xbox, next to gears of War and halo 3. What I love about the crackdown 2 is the enemy variety of mutants that I don't see in 3 or 1. But I think I might give this one a try one day.
From what I remember a lot of the negative reaction this one got was because of bugs and the hyped multiplayer wasn't good but it looks pretty cool. I think reviews should get updated after 6 months or a year to see if the problems got patched.
I played this on gamepass during the pandemic and had a pretty decent time with it, better than what reviews would have me believe. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I didn't pay full price for it but it was a fun distraction while the world imploded. My recollection of the reviews is they expected it to evolve beyond what Crackdown was on the 360. I think as the games industry moved forward throughout the 2010s, anything that wasn't high art, oscar-bait style storytelling and/or an open-world with a bland ubisoft approach was sort of looked down on a for a while and that's unfortunately when Crackdown 3 released. Thankfully, I think we're getting out of that prestige storytelling phase (unless you're Sony, in which case its all you can produce over and over again i.e. 3rd person action-adventure open world with "mature" story) and game writers and developers can climb out of their own asses again.
I think the thing that gets me the most about this game is that, as far as I could tell, the Agency is portrayed as unambiguously the good guys. I mean... In the second game if you pay even momentarily attention to the story it's clear you are a bad guy, an agent for an authoritarian hellhole state slaughtering freedom fighters that in any other game you'd be playing as. And the first games biggest twist is that the whole time the agency set up the whole gang crisis in the first place so they could take power. The director literally does an evil laugh as he explains what went down and then it ends. I'm honestly surprised in neither of your previous reviews you didn't mention these details. Especially in the first game, as that's one of the things people talked about and remembered the most. What story there was ended up being completely subverted in a really stunning way. But anyway, back to the point... I can't believe that ALL of that is absent in this game. It's like it's in an alternate universe.
Nah, there was definitely a creative vision for this at least initially. But it's a game that should have come like 6 years earlier. The open world genre has evolved so much since then.
@@xXMalakianXVII I don't see how they are "useless details". You don't have fun blowing up cars in Crackdown? I can tell you blowing up stuff is infinitely more fun in the original Crackdown and that's due to the care that was put into the physics of that game. All the little details add up
By the time that Game came out, they could of have definitely the power to make a complete destruction system for the city, at least in singleplayer. I know, it´s hard to pull off something like this, especially in multiplayer and that´s why it was scrapped for that mode, but in singleplayer it would have been manageable at this point.
It'd have been possible, technically, but there's a few issues that probably caused it to be impossible later on. They started the game's development relying on a company and technology of which both became unavailable with time, and due to the way they likely organized the game's code as well as how they went about developing it, it probably made it difficult to retroactively do the same without the thing they were relying on. TL;DR: They relied too much on a piece of technology to a point where, once it was gone, they had no way of going back properly. Similar to what happened in Jurassic Park Trespasser's development, but not as massively destructive as what happened there.
Twisted metal 4 and mafia 3 definitely was some of my favorites people give games bad reception but not every one has the same opinion as others someones most hated game could be someone's favorite
I was excited about C3 for the sole reason of promising destructible enviroment on a mass scale and some other of those types of features. As I understand, those have been dropped off from the game's graphics/physics capabilities.
I really didn't get this game. I mean, if Red Faction can have fully destructible buildings and that came out two generations ago, why couldn't crackdown 3?
I played when it came out with alot of excitement since the first 2 were some of my favourites as a kid and I was waiting for 3 since it was first announced, but 3 just felt boring to me. After a week I stopped playing it, and had a negative outlook on it since. Maybe I just had different tastes when I was younger, cause even replaying 1 and 2 felt underwhelming. May try 3 again, cause looking at this is does seem nice, plus in wouldn't mind playing a cyberpunk style game that doesn't have such a depressing tone which is also an eyesore to look at.
I hate the look of the agents in this installment, they look so generic for some reason imo and they don't develop their helmet when leveling up skills. The agents in the first two looked fucking badass, they all looked unique and cool which I miss in 3.
The inability to freely aim made this game a nonstarter for me. With the advanced control enabled by mouse and keyboard, I think this was a huge missed opportunity. Felt like the game was playing itself.
I liked the game but as a fan of crackdown, and someone who followed this game through every step of its development I was really disappointed with this game. I really think they shouldn’t have done away with the fully destructible environments and I hated the agents design (I think CD2 had the best agent design) but it was a fun game for a few hours but I’ve replayed CD1 and 2 more since this game came out
It's not just about "what people expect?". If you compare Crackdown 3 to the original game, then you would see 3 is a huge downgrade in tons of aspects, with a ton of completely removed details First game is superrior in every single way.
I believe it depends on context. If this game had been released shortly after the last one with the core gameplay loop still being fun, those details would've been easily dismissed. However, Crackdown 3 was in 9 years of development including several delays. Even though the game was enjoyable as usual and small improvements were added here and there, people looked into it under scrutiny to justify their waiting.
I can't get over the fact that Crackdown changed so drastically. I couldn't care less about how Crackdown 3 runs or if the guns and gameplay may somehow be better than Crackdown 1 or 2 but it looks like they got inspired by fortnite. It does not look good, the bright colors are not easy on the eyes. The world looks like shit, and it just looks too stupid. Like why did they go off of an aesthetic of a game that looks like a hyper futuristic cartoonish tron matrix VR experience? Just looks too crazy, it looks too childish and people hated crackdown 2 for how different it was...THIS is not even the same game at this point. The map is entirely different, I cannot pin point a single location that looks similar to its predecessor and it has no reference to the older games, it just exists in its own world. I would've been fine if they labeled this as a different game, I would've been fine if they continued the plot of Crackdown 2 where instead of a chunk of the population forming Cell to pressure the Agency instead it is the entire city now against the Agency with the lies and chaos they made and the Agency calls for an agent to maintain order in the population and it gets harder as you go. That would've made sense to me, but robots and these weird events? I just don't get it. Crackdown 2 at least continued the basic ass story Crackdown 1 had and expanded it ten fold, it also had reference points everywhere just everything looked more apocalyptic and ruined. So how does Crackdown 3 really compare to 1 & 2? It doesn't, Crackdown 1 is far better in the fun aspect, Crackdown 2 is far better in the storyline and skill accessibility. What does Crackdown 3 have to offer? Not much at all. It may give you the option to use Terry Cruz and give you better graphics...wow. So amazing that I can use a celebrity in this weird environment that is foreign to a veteran and a goofy looking game. Again this is why this game is so hated, besides it taking literally almost a decade to come out, it failed at expectations.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cel-shaded_video_games www.engadget.com/2017-06-11-crackdown-3.html "Crackdown 3, like previous games, utilizes cel-shaded visuals..." www.windowscentral.com/latest-crackdown-3-terry-crews-screenshot-showcases-cinematic-detail "The cel-shaded look that Crackdown 3 retains from the last two games" heavy.com/games/2019/02/crackdown-3-review/
You're correct and you did not get schooled. Don't let the people attacking you discourage you. The definition, along with an example, are at the top of the wiki article Gaming Pastime linked. Seems like he didn't look at it himself.
@@Gamingpastime64 Don’t take it personally, but you seemed to enjoy and even recommend games many people hate like Kane and Lynch 2, Rogue Warrior, Army of Two Devil's Cartel, Mafia 3, Twisted Metal 4, among others.
"Let's release this expensive-to-produce game, but not put it on the store 95% of purchases are made from. Aaaaaaahhh no one is buying our game that means no one wants this sort of game!" -publishers
Crackdown 3 was exactly what I expected and took me back to when I first played through Crackdown 1.
Best review I have seen about this game, finally something that felt fair with Crackdown 3. The game is not perfect, but it has too much personality and gameplay variety to be labeled as just “generic garbage”
I always love your unpopular opinions (Serious Sam 2, Mafia 3, Wolfenstein Youngblood, Crackdown 3). Now I feel like checking this out since this game has always been on Game Pass.
Its the best in the series, the missions are whatever but if you enjoy fun arcade action its very very good.
I've played a good portion of it and love it as much as 1, and it has more refined gameplay with more features. The world looks a little more empty than 1, but that's really the only thing I can think of to criticize in my opinion. That doesn't make it a bad game like most people make it out to be though.
@@ryanwilliams6602 Mostly agree. I also love it as much as 1, but my only complaint is the vehicles. They were much more fun to drive in 1, and they are basically unnecessary in 3, and the race missions are by far the worst part of the game.
@@Eric01b yea I think the driving in the first game held more weight and had more energy
WOW, a non hater Crackdown 3 review, it made me want to try it on Game Pass.
Thanks, man.
Man I loved Crackdown 1, I was hesitant to download because of all the bad reviews but you cleared it up. This is such a great review!
I started playing Crackdown 3 after watching your review. To be honest this game gave me bad first impression so at first I doubted what you said in your video. That was because the open world was very “last gen” and early weapons and skills were not as fun as I expected them to be. However after 1 to 2 hours, holy sh*t! You were right! There were constant action and lots of toys to play with. I am having a blast right now. Hope it goes that way through the end.
edit : Finished the game. It took 20 hours to earn gold in 90% of side activities and beat the final boss. I think the core gameplay loop is addictive as hell despite obvious rough edges(that terrible car physics!). If you like mindless 2D GTA style violence and ready to embrace some janks, Crackdown 3 is your jam. Maybe not worth buying but worth trying on game pass.
Wow. Respect! I’m gonna give it another chance. It can be had for $5 lol so win - win
Call me crazy but I really like this games. I mean, to me, this game has more wild sandbox than Fortnite! It crazy how futuristic setting makes the gameplay more enjoyable at least!
@@edgaryzen4925 It's like a theme park with laser guns and a super hero suit.
Your review actually makes me excited to trying out this game, however once you´ve seen the crowbcat comparison video, it always left a bitter taste at what Crackdown 3 could of have been.
Eh. The only part of that video that made me sort of disappointed with 3 was the car physics. Outside of that it is like the other games.... Which is great. Controls are the best in the series, and the traversal across the city has litey never been better.
The only change I would make regarding the graphics is to push the comic book aesthetic a bit harder.
Crowbcat is primarily a sensationalist. I wouldn't take it to heart that much, though there's still a good point there, it could've been a lot better if the game hadn't gone through such a rocky dev cycle.
Great review as always, interesting to finally hear from someone who enjoyed this game.
If you wanted to take a break from shooters to review something a lot different I'd recommend Cook, Serve, Delicious! for the PC.
Love positive reviews on games like this. Glad I subscribed.
I am glad I decided to buy a copy of this game. Never grew up with this series, but it quickly became one of my favorites after finishing all 3 of them.
I kind of want to complete them all too!
When they took the destruction out, I checked out.
That said, I love your reviews and this one makes me want to give this game another chance.
Great content!
I never understood why people wanted destruction in a game about climbing things
I really enjoy your channel and reviews, hope you keep making videos👍👍
Well, now that I heard a review from a guy I trust, I might finally check this game out.
Wow a positive review of C3 finally
Game is highly underrated
I have only ever played crackdown 2, and it was one of the most fun games I played on the Xbox, next to gears of War and halo 3. What I love about the crackdown 2 is the enemy variety of mutants that I don't see in 3 or 1. But I think I might give this one a try one day.
From what I remember a lot of the negative reaction this one got was because of bugs and the hyped multiplayer wasn't good but it looks pretty cool. I think reviews should get updated after 6 months or a year to see if the problems got patched.
Went back and played this on Pc recently
Really enjoyed it.
This game looks awesome!
speaking of underrated open-world games. you should review Prototype
I played this on gamepass during the pandemic and had a pretty decent time with it, better than what reviews would have me believe. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I didn't pay full price for it but it was a fun distraction while the world imploded. My recollection of the reviews is they expected it to evolve beyond what Crackdown was on the 360. I think as the games industry moved forward throughout the 2010s, anything that wasn't high art, oscar-bait style storytelling and/or an open-world with a bland ubisoft approach was sort of looked down on a for a while and that's unfortunately when Crackdown 3 released. Thankfully, I think we're getting out of that prestige storytelling phase (unless you're Sony, in which case its all you can produce over and over again i.e. 3rd person action-adventure open world with "mature" story) and game writers and developers can climb out of their own asses again.
love your reviews man. any chance you'd take a look at The Saboteur?
great review!
and this looks perfect for steam deck
I think the thing that gets me the most about this game is that, as far as I could tell, the Agency is portrayed as unambiguously the good guys.
I mean... In the second game if you pay even momentarily attention to the story it's clear you are a bad guy, an agent for an authoritarian hellhole state slaughtering freedom fighters that in any other game you'd be playing as.
And the first games biggest twist is that the whole time the agency set up the whole gang crisis in the first place so they could take power. The director literally does an evil laugh as he explains what went down and then it ends.
I'm honestly surprised in neither of your previous reviews you didn't mention these details. Especially in the first game, as that's one of the things people talked about and remembered the most. What story there was ended up being completely subverted in a really stunning way.
But anyway, back to the point... I can't believe that ALL of that is absent in this game. It's like it's in an alternate universe.
People didn't like bc even the first game looks almost the same and has MORE details every aspect of the game
This game, just like Dead Rising 4, is a soulless cashgrab
Nah, there was definitely a creative vision for this at least initially. But it's a game that should have come like 6 years earlier. The open world genre has evolved so much since then.
@@STRING3R Just watch crowbcat's video on Crackdown 3. The first game is better in almost every way possible imo
@@TotalMeltdown2 Yeah man, useless details and nitpicking! That's why I play video games!
@@xXMalakianXVII I don't see how they are "useless details". You don't have fun blowing up cars in Crackdown? I can tell you blowing up stuff is infinitely more fun in the original Crackdown and that's due to the care that was put into the physics of that game. All the little details add up
By the time that Game came out, they could of have definitely the power to make a complete destruction system for the city, at least in singleplayer. I know, it´s hard to pull off something like this, especially in multiplayer and that´s why it was scrapped for that mode, but in singleplayer it would have been manageable at this point.
It'd have been possible, technically, but there's a few issues that probably caused it to be impossible later on.
They started the game's development relying on a company and technology of which both became unavailable with time, and due to the way they likely organized the game's code as well as how they went about developing it, it probably made it difficult to retroactively do the same without the thing they were relying on.
TL;DR: They relied too much on a piece of technology to a point where, once it was gone, they had no way of going back properly. Similar to what happened in Jurassic Park Trespasser's development, but not as massively destructive as what happened there.
One of my biggest issues with Crackdown 3 is that the framerate is locked to 30fps if you're playing co-op... even on PC. It's baffling.
Have you guys thought about revewing the mass effect games?
Yes. All in time.
Twisted metal 4 and mafia 3 definitely was some of my favorites people give games bad reception but not every one has the same opinion as others someones most hated game could be someone's favorite
well there is a reason mafia 3 was not liked compared to the first 2 mafia games
One man's trash is another man's treasure
I loved Crackdown 3...until the ending...The Agency is good now? WTF? Other than that its a great game...way closer to Crackdown 1 than 2 was...
Have You done Agents of Mayhem Yet?
This game only exists because of Terry Crews, the Old Spice guy.
Is multiplayer active again now
I was hoping you'd review crack down 3 lol
I was excited about C3 for the sole reason of promising destructible enviroment on a mass scale and some other of those types of features. As I understand, those have been dropped off from the game's graphics/physics capabilities.
I really didn't get this game. I mean, if Red Faction can have fully destructible buildings and that came out two generations ago, why couldn't crackdown 3?
While a lot of fun, it's a shame it went through such development hell. I wonder what it could've been, had they been able to do what they wanted.
I played when it came out with alot of excitement since the first 2 were some of my favourites as a kid and I was waiting for 3 since it was first announced, but 3 just felt boring to me. After a week I stopped playing it, and had a negative outlook on it since. Maybe I just had different tastes when I was younger, cause even replaying 1 and 2 felt underwhelming. May try 3 again, cause looking at this is does seem nice, plus in wouldn't mind playing a cyberpunk style game that doesn't have such a depressing tone which is also an eyesore to look at.
maybe you're just outgrowing your toys (vid games).
it happens.
I hate the look of the agents in this installment, they look so generic for some reason imo and they don't develop their helmet when leveling up skills. The agents in the first two looked fucking badass, they all looked unique and cool which I miss in 3.
The inability to freely aim made this game a nonstarter for me. With the advanced control enabled by mouse and keyboard, I think this was a huge missed opportunity. Felt like the game was playing itself.
Terry Crews simulator lol
I liked the game but as a fan of crackdown, and someone who followed this game through every step of its development I was really disappointed with this game. I really think they shouldn’t have done away with the fully destructible environments and I hated the agents design (I think CD2 had the best agent design) but it was a fun game for a few hours but I’ve replayed CD1 and 2 more since this game came out
The aesthetic of this game really reminds me of Saints Row: The Third.
Agents of Mayhem is a better sequel to Crackdown than a Crackdown 3
It's not just about "what people expect?". If you compare Crackdown 3 to the original game, then you would see 3 is a huge downgrade in tons of aspects, with a ton of completely removed details First game is superrior in every single way.
I believe it depends on context. If this game had been released shortly after the last one with the core gameplay loop still being fun, those details would've been easily dismissed. However, Crackdown 3 was in 9 years of development including several delays. Even though the game was enjoyable as usual and small improvements were added here and there, people looked into it under scrutiny to justify their waiting.
@@hjk9934 all i do is look at da price tag and da title
I agree. Crowbcat has a great video showcasing all the wonderful "improvements" that Crackdown 3 has to offer
still mad after 3 years... get over it bro
@@SCORP1ONF1RE heeell nah bruh getta hell up outta here
this game is fun if you maintain ur expectation at first... its better than Crackdown 2, off course
Skinny Terry Crews?? Blasphemy!!
I bought it on second hand market for Xbox one. I really not enjoy this at all. Compare to the first one. I already drop it.
Liked the game hut didn't love it was just missing something.
I can't get over the fact that Crackdown changed so drastically. I couldn't care less about how Crackdown 3 runs or if the guns and gameplay may somehow be better than Crackdown 1 or 2 but it looks like they got inspired by fortnite. It does not look good, the bright colors are not easy on the eyes. The world looks like shit, and it just looks too stupid. Like why did they go off of an aesthetic of a game that looks like a hyper futuristic cartoonish tron matrix VR experience? Just looks too crazy, it looks too childish and people hated crackdown 2 for how different it was...THIS is not even the same game at this point. The map is entirely different, I cannot pin point a single location that looks similar to its predecessor and it has no reference to the older games, it just exists in its own world. I would've been fine if they labeled this as a different game, I would've been fine if they continued the plot of Crackdown 2 where instead of a chunk of the population forming Cell to pressure the Agency instead it is the entire city now against the Agency with the lies and chaos they made and the Agency calls for an agent to maintain order in the population and it gets harder as you go. That would've made sense to me, but robots and these weird events? I just don't get it. Crackdown 2 at least continued the basic ass story Crackdown 1 had and expanded it ten fold, it also had reference points everywhere just everything looked more apocalyptic and ruined. So how does Crackdown 3 really compare to 1 & 2? It doesn't, Crackdown 1 is far better in the fun aspect, Crackdown 2 is far better in the storyline and skill accessibility. What does Crackdown 3 have to offer? Not much at all. It may give you the option to use Terry Cruz and give you better graphics...wow. So amazing that I can use a celebrity in this weird environment that is foreign to a veteran and a goofy looking game. Again this is why this game is so hated, besides it taking literally almost a decade to come out, it failed at expectations.
I think it was badly reviewed because many games did that kind of gameplay and open world better
Crackdown 3 is an embarrassment
Cel Shaded?
Cartoon outlines are not what cel shading means.
This game has no cel shading
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cel-shaded_video_games
www.engadget.com/2017-06-11-crackdown-3.html
"Crackdown 3, like previous games, utilizes cel-shaded visuals..."
www.windowscentral.com/latest-crackdown-3-terry-crews-screenshot-showcases-cinematic-detail
"The cel-shaded look that Crackdown 3 retains from the last two games"
heavy.com/games/2019/02/crackdown-3-review/
Ya got schooled
Then what is cell shading?
You're correct and you did not get schooled. Don't let the people attacking you discourage you. The definition, along with an example, are at the top of the wiki article Gaming Pastime linked. Seems like he didn't look at it himself.
You didn't noticed the negative reception this game had?
What about it?
@@Gamingpastime64 Don’t take it personally, but you seemed to enjoy and even recommend games many people hate like Kane and Lynch 2, Rogue Warrior, Army of Two Devil's Cartel, Mafia 3, Twisted Metal 4, among others.
This is because we feel those games are not as bad as some make them out to be.
Negative reception was overblown and the campaign was pretty great
@@RacerC45 it's crazy to see a reviewer with his own opinions these days I know its hard to understand
"Let's release this expensive-to-produce game, but not put it on the store 95% of purchases are made from. Aaaaaaahhh no one is buying our game that means no one wants this sort of game!" -publishers