Crackdown: All Justice. All Lag.

Newcomers to Play With My Box might mistake it for being a Crackdown blog seeing as I can't shut up about that game. Sadly, no, I am not on Microsoft's or Realtime World's payroll.

Can we just talk a little bit more about this great game? I got my hands on the full retail release last night. The EB clerk pointedly asked me if I was one of "those people" who was buying Crackdown solely for the Halo 3 beta. I scoffed and told him, "nay". I told him how couldn't fathom why anyone would shell out the $79 CDN (tax included) just for a public beta test. It's true: before Halo, console gamers were pretty much up the creek without a paddle when it came to first-person shooters. But my god, the adoration for the Halo franchise is something I have yet to fully understand and embrace for myself.

I also got this dirty feeling while talking to the clerk, like I was justifying myself to him, you know? It reminds me of the days before mass MP3 downloading when I'd submit myself to the barely restrained condescension of the store clerks as I showed them my purchases. Oh, jaded and mighty clerk, do my selections meet your approval of hip? I'm glad those days are behind me but I got a recall of those experiences chatting with the kid working at EB. Well, what if I was buying Crackdown just for Halo? Dare you judge me, brother?

Back on topic. I hurried home from EB, whipped up an obligatory dinner and settled in for 4 to 5 hours of Crackin' good times with Heero.

Okay... maybe it wasn't Good Times from start to finish. We experienced a lot of lag as the night went on, to the point of not being able to play the game at all due to our connection repeatedly timing out. There was an obvious spike in activity on XBL, most likely due to Crackdown's launch but Microsoft should have saw that coming and prepared accordingly. I'm expecting a beefing up of their servers very soon, if they haven't already done so.

Lag issues aside, the game is quite polished compared to the very enjoyable demo. I've only managed to terminate 3 of the Los Muertos lieutenants and rank up my Agility and Firearms to 2 stars, so there is a lot more of the world to be explored.

You know me, I will be back with detailed impressions, possibly a full-fledged review within the week. For now, I have these observations to share with y'all:

• The melee attack when you stand next to any inanimate object remains and is still quite annoying.
• Ruthless difficulty is proving to be a nice balance. I've died several times already, no thanks to errant grenades and randomly placed propane tanks.
• They need to implement "jump in" co-op. Unlike the demo, you can now invite a specific friend to join your session right from the game's UI but it's a far cry from simply firing upa game and having a buddy jump in at any time he/she pleases.
• Auto-aiming feels a lot tighter, along with the feel of moving your Agent and the camera controls. No complaints here.
• This game begs for a recorder/instant-replay function. Even a low-level Agent can create quite the stir in the middle of the freeway. "OMG, you should have seen that!" just doesn't cut it after the nth monster car explosion.
• Lag. I'm hoping all the lag we experienced was just from the launch day rush. I really want to see how effective that netcode update is.