Crackdown Walkthrough Demo

Greetings all, my name is Mr. Freeman and I’ll be guiding you through the Crackdown demo that you have surely downloaded by now. There’s a lot of ground to cover in this demo and we don’t have all day so sit down and take note. Yes, there will be a test at the end.

Crackdown is a big game with an absurd amount of area to roam around in and bring hard justice to the streets. Fortunately for us, though me in particular, the demo confines us to just one portion of the overall landmass. The southern island of a pair run by the Central American gang, Los Muertos, and the small island on which the Agency headquarters rests. I will try my best to be as thorough and definitive as possible here, but the overall size of the game means it’s entirely possible that I will miss something. If you notice something that I fail to mention here you should probably keep it to yourself, because there is no greater shame to a guide writer than having his mistakes pointed out to him. Or, you can discreetly send me an email and I can see about getting this document updated.

Though really, the game comes out in like a week anyway so in the long run I suppose none of this really matters.

Minute by Minute Review

Getting Started

After hitting the start button and selecting an agent to play as the screen fades open to reveal you standing in the Agency garage. You’re going to want to walk forward towards the purple marker where you can select one of the three Agency vehicles at your disposal, because walking down the long tunnel that leads into the Los Muertos-controlled island is pretty boring and takes a while if you’re not driving something.

p_dean You have three vehicles to choose from in the Agency garage, each with different attributes that you can level up during play. The Super Car hugs the road and goes under most other vehicles that gets in its way. It is also pretty fast and sleek, and is for the more lady savvy Agent, because we all know chicks dig guys with fast cars. The SUV is top heavy, like that woman on the Food Network that cooks with a lot of sugar and butter, and it can drive over pretty much anything. The Truck Cab is for those pining for GTA because it drives straight through most vehicles at top speed, but it’s pretty ugly so I don’t use it much myself.

You can also take any vehicle you come across in the street if the three Agency vehicles don’t suit you, but they don’t level up and are only as cool and as fast as they look. Since this isn’t Grand Theft Auto it isn’t called car-jacking in this game because you’re on the side of the law. Here it’s called vehicle commandeering and it’s totally legal, as long as you don’t accidentally kill the person you’re boosting, I mean, commandeering the vehicle from.

With all that in mind, pick a car from the garage and drive straight. You’ll head into a tunnel immediately. It’s okay to ramp up your speed if you want as the tunnel is pretty straightforward, but watch out for the dossier update from HQ that pops up. That’s how you get the story fed to you in Crackdown, automatic updates that pause the action and pop up, filling you in on what you need to know to get the job done. It’s pretty non-invasive and I kind of like it that way, you can cancel out of them without listening to them, even on the first time, so you’re only as far from the action as you want to be. If you want long cutscenes with a lot of plot development sandwiched into your sandbox game I suggest you go replay San Andreas instead. And yes, before you hit “Send” on that email form, I am aware that the creative force behind Crackdown, David Jones, is also the creator of Grand Theft Auto. Just one more reason in my mind for any 360-capable GTA fan to check this new game out. We now return to our scheduled guide.

After driving through the tunnel you’ll pop out the other end and right into the thick of a heated battle between some gang members and the regular vanilla police force, called the Peacekeepers. Jump out of the car and use the left trigger to lock-on to individual gangsters and make quick work of them with the right trigger, which fires your weapon. If the weeny pistol you start off with doesn’t float your boat, tap the X button to switch to the more satisfying machine gun, or hold X over a downed gang member to pick up and use their weapon.

There are a number of different ways you can kill the bad guys, too. You can move in close and press the B button to do a simple punch/kick combo, as well as press and hold B to pick up a heavy object (or a dead body!) and hurl it at them. You can drive over them in your vehicle. You can press the right bumper to throw a grenade. You can even jump from the top of a building and land on top of them! Go ahead and be creative in your killing, because that’s what this game is all about.

After all the freedom haters are good and dead you are now free to do whatever you want. Be it taking down the four bosses in the demo, working on maxing out your skills, or just exploring the city, the world is your oyster!

Orbs, orbs, everywhere!

Orbs rule the day in Crackdown. They’re literally all over the place. Green agility orbs, blue hidden orbs, hell, every time you successfully take down an enemy of the state they explode in a colorful array of magical orbs that automatically seek you out and make the number for a particular skill go up. Who doesn’t like seeing that kind of visual feedback in a videogame? Most of the time you level up any of your five basic skills, be it Driving, Shooting, Agility, Strength, or Explosives, by finding the appropriate orb. Sure, it’s a bit arbitrary and doesn’t make much sense when you think about it, but hearing the narrator say “Good job, Agent!” when you find a hidden orb just makes you feel so good inside.

On the one hand, the orbs serve as an important visual indicator for letting you know just when you’ve killed a bad guy, if the little red health bar that appears above their head when you’re locked-on to them isn’t enough the magical orbs that burst out of them when they die will let you know when you’ve done your job as a law enforcement officer. In fact, it’s almost as if the orbs couldn’t wait for you to liberate them from their mortal coils. On the other hand, the orbs serve as just as important a mechanism for giving you something to keep your eye out for while you explore the city. There are literally hundreds of blue hidden orbs scattered about in various places that give each of your skills a little boost when you get them.

In the starting area you might have looked up and noticed a green orb floating on the ledge of a nearby building. That’s an agility orb and collecting a bunch of those will increase your Agility skill, which allows you to jump higher and run faster. The higher up and harder to reach green orbs pack more punch so you know they’re worth the extra effort it takes to get to them. Go ahead and grab it if you want, though you’ll need to stand on top of a car to be able to reach the ledge. Your agent will automatically grab onto any ledge that protrudes out more than a few inches, so jumping and climbing around is pretty simple. It’s all about making your way up to the orbs.

You might have also noticed the purple ring floating in the air above the road. If you had gotten your speed up in the tunnel earlier like I suggested you might have been able to launch your vehicle through it, which would net you some purple orbs for your Driving skill. Don’t despair though if you missed it, you can get purple orbs by driving over gang members, doing tricks like ramping off of things at high speed, and completing the driving races in record time. The SUV is really the best vehicle for hitting these stunt rings though, as it doesn’t stay glued to the ground like the Super Car and it isn’t as heavy as the Truck Cab. It’s just light and bouncy enough to make driving around as much fun as moving through the city on foot.

If wandering around looking for magical colored orbs hidden in arbitrary places isn’t your thing though, don’t worry, as there are plenty of other ways to get those precious skill orbs without having to seek them out on your own. Shooting bad guys, for instance, will give you teeny tiny little blue orbs with cute little gun symbols on them that level up your Shooting skill, making your shots more accurate and letting you lock on to individual body parts like arms, legs, and the head. Now anyone can pull off an expert headshot and feel like a real pro! Likewise, beating bad guys to death with your bare fists like a real man will shower you with teeny tiny little yellow orbs with cute little fist symbols on them that level up your Strength skill. And your Explosives skill, well, that one’s pretty obvious. Killing bad guys with a well placed grenade will net you special teeny tiny grenade themed orbs that expand the range of your grenades.

Don’t worry too much about leveling up your abilities though since this is only a demo. Plus it times out after an hour of play and leveling up any ability to two stars will cut you down to a thirty minute time limit, whichever comes first. So you’re on a limited time budget here, which means you should just play around and have fun. Skill progression is accelerated too, so it’s quite possible to level up multiple skills as high as they’ll go in a short amount of time. My advice is to play around until you figure out which skill you like best and then focusing on exploring that more. I’m a big fan of Agility myself, as it allows me to jump really really high like the Incredible Hulk. But if you’re anything at all like me then you’ll probably be playing the demo multiple times anyway to see what it’s like with a few select skills leveled up as high as they’ll go. Few things in videogames are more satisfying than sticking a grenade onto the side of a truck, picking it up, then using it as a giant bomb.

Sandbox, more like Sandtrap amirite

By now you’re probably asking “So what do you like, do in this game, aside from collecting those fruity orbs?” Well I’m glad you asked because this is more than just an orb-collecting, vehicle-commandeering sim. It’s also a training program for the peace keeping officers of our future. And how does one go about keeping the peace in the future? That’s easy, by finding out where the bad evil-doers of the world are and systematically killing them. The thing about bad evil-doers is, once you’ve killed one you really can’t wait to kill another. It’s like crack, almost, except here your teeth won’t fall out as soon.

The demo gives us four bad evil-doers to track down and kill. These are all lieutenants for the big boss of the Los Muertos, Don Domingo Garcia. You can’t access Garcia in the demo unfortunately, so we’ll have to settle for his cronies. You can take them out in any order, but here I’ll list them in the order I took them out.

--Violetta Sanchez--

The closest lieutenant from where you start out is a woman named Violetta Sanchez. She can be found at the El Castillo Apartments which you can find easily by following the road straight, her apartment complex is on the left side of the street across the intersection. You’ll be able to tell when you’ve reached it due to all the henchmen that start shooting at you. Plus, HQ will send you another pop-up video with more information on her and even mark her location on your map. It has occurred to me just now that this game is almost guide proof, as anytime you come within range of a point of interest, be it a boss, an agency supply point, or just a race, you’ll get an automatic briefing and in the case of the bosses and supply points a handy marker on your radar. They really couldn’t spell it out for you any further.

Regardless of that though, the real fun is getting to the bosses, and Sanchez is no different. You have a few options here. Sanchez is located at the top of the apartments, and you have a whole legion of bad dudes between you and her. If you’ve done some exploring and leveled up your Agility a bit, you can just scale the building by jumping from window ledge to window ledge until you reach the top. If you haven’t, then you’re going to need to work your way around the building to the inside of the courtyard where you’ll see stairwells on either side. Work your way up those stairwells, don’t worry if you come across one that’s destroyed, just run around to the other side and continue on up. Once you make your way to the top you’ll need to do a bit of light climbing as you come around to where Violetta is located. She’ll be in the highest point possible in the complex, near a small stairwell. You’ll know when you’ve reached her because she has multiple health bars and dresses like a total ho. Take her out to receive another update from HQ informing you that you’ve just taken her out. Since Sanchez is the recruiter for Los Muertos bumping her off thin out the numbers of gang members on the streets. Pretty snazzy, eh?

--Jose Guerra--

Jose Guerra owns a nightclub. It’s even called Guerra’s Nightclub. He’s a drug runner for the gang, so it is imperative that he get taken care of as quickly as possible. If you take a right at the intersection where Sanchez is located at and head down the road long enough you’ll see the place clear as day, it’s got a big neon sign with Guerra’s name spelled out for you and everything. The music playing is a sure indication of illegal activity of some kind.

It’s locked up pretty tight, and once you set foot on the grounds they’ll know you’re there. You can blast through the gates on either side of the club, or drive a vehicle through, to access the area in back where Guerra is at. Likewise, you could forego blasting through altogether and just swim around to the back for a surprise sneak attack. Guerra will be partying at his loft at the top of the club, though good luck blasting your way through all his henchmen. I recommend using grenades for this one, because that’s what they’ll be using as well. Contrary to popular belief, in Crackdown it is indeed possible to effectively fight fire with fire. Guerra won’t go down without a real fight, and if you get killed don’t worry, just hit the A button to regenerate. It’ll spawn you back at the Keep, which is what they call Agency HQ, or you can pick any supply point you’ve retaken and spawn there.

--Juan Martinez—

After taking care of Guerra follow the main road West. It’ll curve left and eventually you’ll come across Hillside Housing, which is where Martinez stays. Martinez supplies information and finances to Los Muertos, taking care of him will cut their budget back by quite a bit. Hillside Housing is just a group of apartments, not unlike Sanchez’s location. Martinez is at the top most portion of the apartments (anyone else noticing a pattern here?). Just climb on up any which way you feel like. He has the same amount of health as the other two.

--Rodrigo Alvarez—

Alvarez is the physical trainer for Los Muertos, so taking him out equals weaker gang members for you to kill. He’s at the Sports Center in the South-West part of the island. You can’t miss it, it’s surrounded by rocks. However, Alvarez himself is located in the very back in a rock enclosure. Making a beeline for him from the entrance is close to suicide as you have to navigate your way through the Sports Center, so swimming around to the back would be a safer bet. Unless, of course, you want to work on your Shooting or Strength skills.

Taking out all four lieutenants increases your probability for success in taking down the Kingpin, Garcia, but since he isn’t accessible in the demo it doesn’t really matter. However, if you’re still aching for something to do and the demo hasn’t timed out on you yet you can focus your energies on taking back any of the four Agency Supply Points.

Getting Strapped

What good is an Agent of the law if he’s ill prepared to do his duty? Agency Supply Points keep you all strapped up and provide you another area to respawn in after death. There are four supply points in the demo that you can retake, and doing so is a simple affair of finding the orange marker, standing in it, and pressing the Y button. You can also take any captured gang weapons to any supply point, and from then on you can restock on ammo for that particular weapon by entering a supply point. How handy is that? I’d say that’s pretty handy if you ask me.

In your exploration of the city your fearless disembodied narrator voice will tell you that you need to retake a captured Agency Supplied Point, and he’ll even mark it on your map for you. The first one he marks is at Pacific City Bank, which is across the street from a place called Gusher’s Bar. It’s on the northeast side of the island. Just kill off any gang members hanging around and stand in the orange marker and press Y.

The second supply point is to the north, on top of the Royal Vista Building. You should be able to see the sign. Just follow the same procedure as with the previous supply point. The third is in Hillside Housing, directly West of the first supply point, and the fourth is to the South of the fourth at the Social Security Building.

What, You Want More?

So you’re still jonesing for a Crackdown fix, eh? I can understand that, I’m kind of wanting to play through the demo again now that I’ve been talking about it for so long. So you’ve killed all the bad evil-doers and taken back all the supply points, now you’re wondering aloud what else is there to do? Well since there are cars and vehicles in the game it wouldn’t make any sense to not have any checkpoint races, right? I’ve found four of such races so far myself, how many have you found?

The four I’ve found are:

East Coast Ferry Race: This may not be the actual title of the race, but it’s located near the starting point past an underpass with East Coast Ferry written on it. To get there you turn around after exiting the tunnel and head to the left, you’ll know you’re there because the race is marked by a big purple shaft of light. Get a vehicle and park in the shaft of light to start the race. You have to 5:20 to hit all the checkpoints.

La Murgre Alley Race: This one is located North and slightly West of the third supply point I mentioned above. Same deal here, park in the purple light to start the race. You have 1:40 to hit all the checkpoints.

Crazy Horse Race: This one is to the South and almost directly between the first and third supply points. You have 1:30 to hit all the checkpoints.

La Mugre Coast Race: This one is easy to find, it’s next to Guerra’s Nightclub. You have 1:45 to hit all the checkpoints. All of these races give you purple orbs for your Driving skill if you can complete them within the time limits.

But wait, there’s more! There are also a number of on-foot races. You need a decent Agility for some of these, as they all involve hopping around the tops and sides of buildings. These races are denoted by green shafts of light, initiate them the same way you do with the vehicle races, just stand in the light. I’ve found four of these, which give you green orbs for your Agility skill, they are:

La Mugre Skyline Race: This one is North and West of the fourth supply point. You’ve got 4:10 to hit all the checkpoints.

Los Muertos Rooftop Race: This one is far North of the third supply point, situated at the steps of an apartment building in Hillside Housing. You have 2:40 to hit all the checkpoints.

Leap of Faith Race: This one is at the Agency HQ, on the central island. You need at least a three star Agility level to even start it. You have 4:40 to hit all the checkpoints.

Around the Wheel Race: This one is located at the carnival, which is South of the starting point, at the big ferris wheel. You’ve got 1:30 to hit all the checkpoints in this one.

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