Crackdown 3 Review Thread - MC: 60 OC: 62

[DonFerrari]

Machiavellian said:
Here s my take about Crackdown 1 that seems to be preserved in 3. Crackdown 1 was a nice simple game. You are dropped into a world where you can pretty much do whatever you want. Your job was to clean up the city and you can take out each boss in whatever order you want. No side quest, talking to NPCs, daily quest, loot boxes and all that other trappings current games do now. All those trappings are fine but after you played enough games that does it you get tired of that formula. You have a big world which you can level up your character and your ride. You have the large vertical platform to play around in where you produce your own fun. From the reviews I have read, Sumo pretty much kept that formula and didn't mess with it. As a 60 dollar game, this probably would not sell as much since people now expect all those other trappings but as a gamepass exclusive, it probably will be a game people enjoy more than reviews give it credit for.

I don't like much the lootboxes and sandbox formula either and do fine with games not having these mechanics... But I really don't think the score of this game have anything to do with not having side quest, NPC, daily quest and loot boxes. The game do bad on itself not on comparison with others.

GoOnKid said:

Scores don't matter too much. I see that many reviews point at the mindless fun factor and that's all what's really important in the end.

Nope, that isn't all that is important. Reviews aren't based solely on how mindless they are.

LudicrousSpeed said:
Been playing for a few hours, highly enjoying it. I am smirking reading some of these reviews where they whine about how its just old Crackdown with better graphics and new abilities and features... I mean that's literally all I wanted. Can't wait to unlock some of the crazier shit and really wreak havoc. Not surprised by the low scores, even State of Decay 2 scored low and it was a great $30 title. My most played game of all time has a 58 on Metacritic, so yeah...

Great that they deliver what you want. And it isn't the first time you have show to like more the low score games and say high score games were bad.

Chris Hu said:

Drakrami said:

Forza is a really small audience, the game sells like 1 millionish each year doesnt it? Everyone expects it to get 9/10 every year, it's no surprise I have personally never played it and dont think i will enjoy it. 

Any way, 1 AAA game compared to Sony and Nintendo? That's not even competition, it is massacre. 

It sells way more then that it surpassed 5 million players a while back already.  None of Nintendo's first party games really appeal to me and Sony's first party games really aren't that great either plus I like achievements better then trophies. 

We know Chris you don't need to remind us you don't like games outside of Microsoft. And certainly the GOTYs that arrived on Sony aren't great, Crackdown 3 is though, right?

CGI-Quality said:

flashfire926 said:

Uhhh.... what? This year’s forza (likely the the forza of the gen) has surpassed last year’s iteration (motorsport 7) and is on track to surpass forza 5.

Are you just here to shitpost? The Horizon series is more arcade based and brings a lot of changes with each iteration.

Wasn't image only post forbidden by rules? /joking.

Oneeee-Chan!!! said:

I remember they cancelled Scalebound.

But this bad game was ok. (PC version is meta 54)

Why ?

Because Scalebound didn't had MP or could be made into GAAS.

Chris Hu said:

flashfire926 said:

I'm pretty sure that even in 2015 they said it was merely a proof of concept tech demo and not at all indicative of the final game. 

Though yes, the game does definitely not look up to par. Infamous Second Son came out 5 years ago and still looks better.

Well Infamous Second Son and Crackdown 3 have two completely different art styles.  All the Crackdown games use the cell shaded art style and as far as I know so far there isn't a cell shaded game that looks better then Second Son.

I believe you wanted to say there is no cell shaded game that looks better than Crackdown 3. I'll leave to other graphic maniacs to give a list, but you don't need to reduce it to one art style to determine if other games look better. If a 5 years old game on similar system looks better than it there is no excuse on the art style. Gaming looking unimpressive looks unimpressive, because cell shaded can still look gorgeous when used right. I would say that even the remake of Yakuza looks better.

GoOnKid said:

I think this game delivers what it wants to deliver: it's just mindless unserious fun where you shoot stuff and things go boom. Not more, not less. If someone wants a deeper game that's fine, there are a lot of alternatives. Not every game must be cookie cut to please everyone.

You can deliver mindless unserious fun while making the game good as well. And if you aim a game to very small subset of people to like then can't complain if it sells low or score bad.

flashfire926 said:

eva01beserk said:

I was comparing horizons with previous horizons, and Motorsports with previous Motorsport. And if you saw the chart, they have been selling less with each iteration. You can say it changes with every release, but its still a simulation, theres only so much they can do to stick to what its trying to imitate.

And like I said to chris hu, being on track used to mean something, not for xbox after gamepass. First thing is that most games, specially multiplayer ones sell the most in the first few months and now with gamepass what incetive do people have to buy the game.

No, it's not a simulation (the horizon series). Simulators are games like Gran Turismo and Project Cars. Games like Forza Horizon and Need for Speed are more arcade racers. 

Heck, in one of the DLC's, you're doing loop de loops on hot wheels tracks:

For the last time, ITS. NOT. A. SIMULATION.

Also, just checked, and at this point in FH3's life it had sold about the same as Horizon 4. So it went up from FH2 to FH3, and stayed flat from FH3 to FH4.

It is much better than just arcade because it keeps some good elements of simulation. But totally agree Horizon doesn't try at all to aim at simulation. Only way I see people praising it as a simulator or saying it's better than FM or GT is because they enjoy more FH without understanding what is a simulator.

AngryLittleAlchemist said:

I keep seeing comments like "ohhh this is just this sorta game" or "da critics are just totally out of whack with this, they just don't understand". 

Critics have praised many games that do something similar to Crackdown. Many games have gotten a score when they were "just trying to achieve what Crackdown wanted to achieve". To imply that people must be looking for a deeper alternative or fundamentally don't understand the point of the game because it got a negative metacritic score is silly. You can make a game who's goal is to make things go boom boom and bang bang, and it can still be not bad. Or it can still be received positively. Shocking, I know. 

Disagreeing with critics is fine, but let's not pretend like good simple fun is just too abstract a concept for them. That's disingenuous. They may be pretentious, but they aren't that pretentious. I'm willing to admit that how "worthy" a game is of a high score is a genuine problem with many game reviews, but it's not really the case with Crackdown. It's just a game which is divisive and which many people think is either really good, really bad or really mediocre. That's all there is to say about it really. 

Also, it's funny to see the sentiment come out that "not every game is for everyone/needs to be tailor made for everyone" ...... until the 90+ meta game gets a "troll" review that states a different opinion  

Yes you don't need to made the game bad, with performance problems, graphical issues or any other defect to have fun, even mindless fun. There are plenty games that can have you feeling whatever sentiment or enjoyment they wanted without being bad seem by most. Unless of course a dev wanted to go for a very specific niche that like the product if they are exactly like that. Like cult movies or trash horror. Everyone hates that but a small group love, you really couldn't please that small group any other way.

But if you aim for that you can't complain that most don't like or rate it bad. And sure enough, anyone may love whatever they want even if everyone else says it is bad.

GoOnKid said:

AngryLittleAlchemist said:

I keep seeing comments like "ohhh this is just this sorta game" or "da critics are just totally out of whack with this, they just don't understand". 

Critics have praised many games that do something similar to Crackdown. Many games have gotten a score when they were "just trying to achieve what Crackdown wanted to achieve". To imply that people must be looking for a deeper alternative or fundamentally don't understand the point of the game because it got a negative metacritic score is silly. You can make a game who's goal is to make things go boom boom and bang bang, and it can still be not bad. Or it can still be received positively. Shocking, I know. 

Disagreeing with critics is fine, but let's not pretend like good simple fun is just too abstract a concept for them. That's disingenuous. They may be pretentious, but they aren't that pretentious. I'm willing to admit that how "worthy" a game is of a high score is a genuine problem with many game reviews, but it's not really the case with Crackdown. It's just a game which is divisive and which many people think is either really good, really bad or really mediocre. That's all there is to say about it really. 

Also, it's funny to see the sentiment come out that "not every game is for everyone/needs to be tailor made for everyone" ...... until the 90+ meta game gets a "troll" review that states a different opinion  

The point is that critics and reviews can never dictate how much I will enjoy a game. I couldn't care less about scores. I finished Devil's Third MULTIPLE times ffs.

Yes, there are similar games with higher scores, who denied that? But still a score of 60 will never be able to make me enjoy a game for just 60%.

In my opinion gamers shouldn't rely their purchase decisions based on scores alone anyway. In these times there are plenty of opportunities to make up your own mind about liking a game or not, and if someone looks for a game like this then just go on and give it a go.

What do you mean with that last paragraph? Is this a jab?

If you don't care about what critics are saying at all, why did you enter the metacritic thread of it?

Mr Puggsly said:

AngryLittleAlchemist said:

I keep seeing comments like "ohhh this is just this sorta game" or "da critics are just totally out of whack with this, they just don't understand". 

Critics have praised many games that do something similar to Crackdown. Many games have gotten a score when they were "just trying to achieve what Crackdown wanted to achieve". To imply that people must be looking for a deeper alternative or fundamentally don't understand the point of the game because it got a negative metacritic score is silly. You can make a game who's goal is to make things go boom boom and bang bang, and it can still be not bad. Or it can still be received positively. Shocking, I know. 

Disagreeing with critics is fine, but let's not pretend like good simple fun is just too abstract a concept for them. That's disingenuous. They may be pretentious, but they aren't that pretentious. I'm willing to admit that how "worthy" a game is of a high score is a genuine problem with many game reviews, but it's not really the case with Crackdown. It's just a game which is divisive and which many people think is either really good, really bad or really mediocre. That's all there is to say about it really. 

Also, it's funny to see the sentiment come out that "not every game is for everyone/needs to be tailor made for everyone" ...... until the 90+ meta game gets a "troll" review that states a different opinion  

Try watching the Digital Foundry video about this game.

That way you can see what a person that enjoys it thinks, then compare that to the critics that seem to hate every aspect of this game.

A person that hates the type of game really shouldn't review it. But the people "hating every aspect of this game" aren't doing it because they don't like this type of game, it's because the game itself is bad for majority of it and only people that really love crackdown are thinking otherwise.

iceland said:
I don’t understand how people think this reflects the current Xbox games studios output

1. This was a Don Mattrick game

2. It wasn’t done by first party studio

3. Troubled development

While I agree that MS’s output has been rather mediocre this gen I think there’s a few people that are a little too happy to see this, and are pushing a narrative. MS’s first party is just shaping up and I’m all for criticizing it if the next batch is bad, but to use crackdown as an example of its current state is silly.

I believe they are saying it reflects because most of the other games relased by MS have met similar destiny of bad review and sales.