I'm sorry but for me this game reminds me of old times with friends on the playground. I can't wait to join up with a friend and go roof top racing, or see how big an explosion we can make, or what happens we we put people between 2 large semi's. I could care less about the story, I want to have fun in the playground and decide my own missions.

I give it a big fat 8.5 owt of 10!!

I think the demo was a lot of fun. I only played it once because I wanted to leave more of the city unexplored for when I got the retail version.

I think this game is a welcome change from the "thug"-like concepts of GTA and it's clones. I played a little of the GTA: Vice City on the Xbox, and I played a little of the original GTA III on PC. Those are both fun games, except I can't get over the inner-city thug mentality.

Maybe it's because I grew up in a respectable, middle to upper-class suburb, I don't know. All I know is that people in the area I grew up in don't use the F-word 3 times per sentence and they don't use indecipherable slang every other word. Where I grew up, everyone, including minorities, spoke proper English, they respected each other, and themselves.

After moving to Minneapolis proper, I realized that there are other groups of people out there, with different experiences, different language, and different cultures. The minority people I grew up with would never talk like the urban scene people of Minneapolis.

I guess it's a difference of culture and perspective. I don't think it's cool to have tattoos on your face/neck, to wear your pants down around your knees, to wear huge baggy coats with cartoony print on them, to use the F-word in every sentence, to call women "b!tches", to refer to "brothers" as the N-word, even to use the word "brother", to eat McDonald's at least once a day, to stand on the corner in groups on fridays and saturdays, to tell your children to "shut up or i'll whoop you", to have an ass the size of Texas and to show it off in painted-on looking tight ass jeans, to refer to your kids' father as "my baby's daddy" because you were never married, to be a single parent of more than two children, to use the phrase "know what i'm sayin?", and so on....

I think these GTA-style games represent minorities in stereotypical ways. I mean, everyone has the opportunity to make something of themselves, but in these games, they're always thug-like people.

You don't see the characters in GTA doing good, they lure people to pet food factories where they're ground up into pet chow, you plant bombs in their cars, you assassinate whoever, you bring cars to the junkyard to be compacted to destroy evidence, you kill drug lords but only to make the faction you work for stronger, and whatever....

The thing I like about Crackdown is that you play a "good" guy. You bust criminals, not assist them. You have super-human abilities which you increase by finding orbs, you turn an urban wasteland into something respectable. It's like being a super-hero that can jump 50ft into the air, who can pick up vehicles and throw them, who can have super speed as they run through the city...

Anyway, after more than a few beers, those are my thoughts on Crackdown. I believe it's a sign of good things to come. A new series where the object isn't causing mischief or contributing to crime. An IP where you are the "good guy", busting crime and doing respectable acts.

Sure you can play GTA: IV, (I know I will) and respect it as an amazing sandbox game, (as they call them these days) with a variety of character development and potential... But in the end, I think it'll all come down to helping criminals and causing mayhem.

I'm not opposed to such games, I just think it would be awesome if developers would allow the player to pursue more "righteous" paths. To have a "minority" main character do right, instead of wrong... To have them maybe be a double agent, working with the criminals and then reporting back to police.

I just think that having minority characters representing negative personaes (look at Rainbow Six: Las Vegas, it's Latin people who are the enemy taking over Las Vegas and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, not to mention GRAW 2) leads to stereotypes. People who grow up in inner-city neighborhoods have enough issues. They shouldn't be the focus of games where you commit crimes and assist criminal bosses.

Yeah, it might be fun to be a trash talking, gangster-thug in a game, but is it the way "inner-city urban" people want to be portrayed?

Just a thought.......

opinion 1000%!!!!!
This whole hip hop meets poverty mentality is slowly decaying our society,while trickling into all avenues of our culture
(even vid games).
Possibly an unfixable BUMMER.

Agreed.