Crackdown 3

These developers missed the fact that Crackdown’s genius wasn’t in providing an almost endless number of arcane things to find, but in the reward for finding them – namely, wonder-giving abilities. The plague of collectibles has, in recent years, had a wearying effect: never have video games felt more like work.

One of the great open-world templates fails to come into focus in this well-meaning, if embattled, sequel.

We’ve ended up with 12 to 15 hours of uncomplicated fun that recaptures the good stuff about the first two Crackdown games, without offering much of an evolution. It’s like the last 10 years just didn’t happen.

Crackdown 3 is basically a can of Pringles in video game form: rapidly consumed, only vaguely satisfying, and completely forgotten within minutes.

Crackdown 3 is a playpen of combat and destruction that sets itself up as a liberating journey into a barbarous fantasy of wanton mayhem. But its central proposition — the freedom to do as I please — is undermined by frustrating design compromises.

Crackdown 3 is too much of everything, but that's why it's fun.

I regret to inform you that Crackdown 3 is, well, sh*t really. It's not fun to say, but it is what it is. Crackdown 3 is an uninspired, lazy retread of the original Crackdown which they might have gotten away with if this was 2007, but it's not 2007. So this game just looks and feels like something that's over 10 years old. Feels like a budget title at best, and not a good budget title either.

At this point, though, I’m just relieved and a little surprised that Microsoft and Sumo managed to ship another competent Crackdown game. Like most of what you’ll find on Netflix, it won’t blow your mind — but it’ll go out of its way to make you feel at home.