Video Game / Crackdown

Skills for kills, Agent... skills for kills

"You are authorized to use whatever means you feel is necessary to remove the filth from the streets."

— The Director

An open world, third-person shooter video game for the Xbox 360, Crackdown was for a time, famous for being the game you had to buy in order to get into the Halo 3 beta.

The game takes place in the fictional metropolis of Pacific City, whose several districts and areas are divided among four islands. The city is controlled by three crime organizations: Los Muertos, of Central American origin; an Eastern European gang, the Volk; and the formerly above-the-books Shai-Gen Corporation, from East Asia. Normally, a police-like organization called the Peacekeepers kept the city under control; their forces, however, were overwhelmed by the sudden rise in crime.

The city, therefore, sought additional help from "the Agency," an organization that, in addition to outfitting and supporting Peacekeepers, has used advanced surgical and cybernetic technology to create Super Soldiers known as "Agents." The Agency is based out of a former hotel in the very center of the city. The player takes on the role of one of their Agents, and is tasked with systematically bringing down all three organized gangs, while keeping both the populace and Peacekeepers safe. The Agent's actions are continuously monitored by the Agency, and its Director (voiced by Michael McConnohie) provides continuous reports to him of his progress.

Crackdown was met with positive reviews. What was particularly liked was how your Agent improved. The Agent's five abilities, agility, firearms, strength, explosives, and driving, increase in power when you use them and unlock more cool stuff for you to use. For instance if you beat up a bunch of people you eventually get stronger and can lift heavy objects, or if you perform well in driving missions you get cooler cars. The ability people enjoyed most though was agility, which you filled up by collecting orbs on rooftops that made you faster and jump higher. So by the end of the game you go from a regular guy to a super cop who jumps effortlessly from rooftop to rooftop. And goddamn was it addictive collecting those orbs and jumping around.

The sequel was released on July 6th, 2010. Ten years have passed since the last game and the Agency faces two new problems. CELL is an anti-Agency group armed to the teeth that has taken over parts of Pacific City that attacks during the day. At night the streets are filled with hundreds of fast zombies called "Freaks" that attack everything. A new Agent has to take back the parts of the city controlled by CELL during the day, and clean out the Freak nests at night with the help of a new weapon called Project Sunburst.

Crackdown 2 was not as well liked as its predecessor. Everyone was upset that the game took place in an exact copy of Pacific City from the first game, except the city was rundown instead of bright and vibrant. And the fun Storming the Castle missions were replaced with repetitive king of the hill games. Plus, fighting members of La Résistance with legitimate complaints was just not the same as taking out gangmembers, nor was killing zombies that you could eliminate with a single punch.

Crackdown 3 was made by Sumo Digital for Xbox One and Windows, released in February 15, 2019. See that page for more details.

Not to be confused with the 1989 arcade game Crack Down by Sega.

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This game series contains examples of the following:

• Affably Evil: The Director has an action-movie announcer's voice. Crackdown 3's E3 trailer features Mothafuckin' Cole Train.
  Terry Crews: Motha[bleep]a. They killed the power around the world. We're gonna light it back up, 'cause this is far from over. In fact, it's only just begun. That's why we brought in YOU, you got the talent... now you need the tech-
  TAKE! THINGS! TOO! FAR!
  Today? You throw grenades- BOOM
  Tomorrow, you'll be throwing cars! GRAAH!
  Forget dropping bombs! You're dropping BUILDINGS!
  (Evil Laugh)
  Now it's time to get to work!
  (Moar Evil Laugh)
  Time to Step! Up! Your! BOOM!
  *Frantic explosions in random directions*
  OH! THAT'S MY CUE! IT'S GO TIME! YEAH SON!
  *inappropriate shoot-grunting*
  OH YEAH! Welcome to the Agency!
• Anti-Hero: The Agent that the player controls can fall into this. By the second game it's gone straight past Type V and on into Villain Protagonist.
• Artificial Stupidity: Enemy gangsters show no real tactics or sense of self-preservation aside from trying to run away from grenades (usually futilely). They'll use a sawn-off shotgun and sniper rifle with the exact same strategy, often resulting in gangsters taking useless potshots when the player is well out of their guns range. Their use of explosives is frequently just as dangerous to their allies as it is to the player and the player will probably laugh when a block full of gang hit squads and their cars end up getting blown sky high by one of their own errant grenades.
• Art Major Physics: The initial energy field that spreads outwards from the activation of the Tower Beacon causes every object in the cutscene not securely attached to the ground to float upwards. Cars, rocks, Freaks, everything.
  • Also, the UV Shotgun and Grenades still send moveable objects flying, even though they fire blasts of concentrated light, lethal to Freaks, but not normal humans. It sends Humans flying too, which in itself can turn out to be fatal.
• Ascended Glitch: The ability of the Agency SUV to drive up walls? That's a bug. It was kept in because it was really fun and wasn't a Game-Breaker.
• The Atoner: Some of Crackdown 2's audio logs mention a high-ranking former Agency employee who's working with Cell.
• Awesome, but Impractical: There's really nothing you can do with lifting and throwing heavy objects that you can't do more efficiently with explosives or firearms or just punching everyone.
  • The DLC Minigun in the first game has the largest ammo capacity and potential damage output of any firearm but it takes so long to reach its maximum rate of fire it's awkward and inefficient to use in typical enemy encounters.
  • The Cloaking Device introduced in DLC lets you sneak past enemies while invisible but prevents you from carrying grenades and can be risky to use due to how it drains the player's Shield bar while its in-use. Besides it's usually just simpler and easier to blow up every enemy in your path, which also makes backtracking easier since many of the enemies in a gang bosses stronghold won't respawn until you leave the area.
  • The M.S.K Lobber rocket launcher available through downloadable content can launch Homing Projectile rockets faster than any other gun and has more reserve ammo capacity than any other explosive gun. However the rockets, while they do home in on the target, fly in an unpredictable and inefficient parabolic arc that often results in them hitting some obstacle in Crackdown's urban environments before they reach the target. The Lobber rockets also do much less damage and have a smaller blast radius than other explosives.

  • The Agency Buggy introduced in Crackdown 1 downloadable content is the smallest vehicle in the game, is very lightweight, has excellent acceleration, traction, and suspension. These qualities let a player get the Buggy places other vehicles can't go, like inside gang stronghold buildings. The Buggy also has a Gatling Good machine gun turret with Bottomless Magazines. What makes the Buggy impractical is the total lack of protection it gives the driver, who is completely exposed to gunfire from every direction. What's worse the Buggy has a tendency to instantly explode when taking fire due to its relatively large and exposed gas tank. In short, the Buggy is a death-trap around enemy gunmen, who are almost everywhere in the city.
• Awesome Personnel Carrier: The A-Bus, which is the first game's tour bus with armor made from scrap metal welded to it.
  • The DLC Agency APC from the first game is very durable, has the weight and traction to push through most other vehicles, and has a Lobber explosives turret with Bottomless Magazines. However, like all vehicles in Crackdown 1 the APC can only carry two people.
• The Bad Guy Wins: The Agency is revealed to have been supplying the gangs of Pacific City with weapons and resources in order to create the very problem that the Agency would be brought in to stop. This supposedly helps the Agency generate good publicity for themselves and high public demand for their services after the player eliminates the gangs.
  Agency Director: Congratulations Agent, peace at last... You overthrew the world's most evil criminal masterminds and their dominant empires. You have returned law and order to Pacific City. You gave the people back their lives. Thank you.
  (Evil Laugh)
  It's taken years of meticulous planning and patience to reach this stage, but it was worth it. Who do you think supplied Los Muertos? Who do you think turned a blind eye to the Volk's activities? Who do you think was Shai-Gen's biggest supporter? Who do you think ran organized law-enforcement, and ran it into the ground?
  The people had to experience absolute anarchy, before they would accept unconditional control. You are the portent of a New World Order, Agent. Pacific City was only the beginning.
• Badass Normal: In addition to the Peacekeepers, in very rare cases in 1 there will be armed civilians who take on the gangs themselves. In 2, there are civilians who fight Freaks alongside the Peacekeepers.
• Big Bad: The Gang leaders in the first game and Catalina Thorne in the sequel. It's actually The Director in both.
• Big Brother Is Watching: The Agency, and especially its Director.
• Bilingual Bonus: Los Muertos and the Volk both speak their native tongues (Spanish and Russian), which results in players who speak said languages becoming aware of just how many times the Agent gets called a "fucker".
  • Also applies to the gangs names (Los Muertos = The Dead, Volk = Wolf), but the Director helpfully supplies translations in briefing videos.
• Boring, but Practical: The "UV Shotgun" is basically a really big flashlight.
  • The guns you get early on are pretty modest in stopping power, and the aiming reticule can be finicky. The easiest way to deal with low-level gang members, then, is to run straight at them and melee them to death.
• Brick Joke: Upon climbing the Agency Tower in the first game the Director will cheerfully inform the Agent, "I can see my house from up here." In the second game, the same act gets a just as cheerful quip, "I can see the charred remains of my house from up here."
• Broken Bridge: Averted in the first game. The entire city is open right from the start, but the numerous gangs that might attack you are supposed to encourage the player to go after one gang at a time.
  • The sequel, however, has quite a few literal broken bridges, having gone from Crapsaccharine to Crapsack World. Still, there's nothing stopping you from swimming to the other islands.
• Captain Obvious: In addition to his annoying Jerkass quips, the director will state "You did <insert remarkable action here>, that's worth an achievement!" while you get an achievement.
• Car Fu: The player is at times, encouraged to use vehicles as a weapon, in addition to improving their driving skills. However, the enemy AI have incredible car-dodging skills, so running them over is much harder than it should be. In addition to the standard form of vehicular homicide, when your agent becomes powerful enough, you can wait until your enemy exits their car (on the opposite side from you) and then immediately kick it into their face.
  • When your driving skills are fully maxed, the Agency cars become really killer: the Supercar gains machineguns and can drive under almost any other car, the SUV can drive over any car (and most flat surfaced buildings and terrain), and the Truck can drive through any car and, as long as you don't go off-road, can maintain a high speed in opposing traffic indefinitely.
  • In the sequel, at least, it is difficult but possible to turn the supercar or buggy into a saw, sending it in a wild spin down any given street. The result is a trail of blood and screams.
  • The sequel gives you streets positively heaving with mutants at night, so it becomes far easier to net some kills via car.
• The Cartel: Los Muertos
• Cel Shading
• Clean Up the Town: Deconstructed with a vengeance. Instead of improving the state of Pacific City, the Agent's actions instead pave the way for the rise of totalitarian state.
  • It does happen visually though with the streets becoming tidier as each gang is defeated.
• Cool Car: The three main Agency vehicles, which evolve alongside the Agent's skills. The Agency Supercar goes from a nice-looking muscle car to a Batmobile Expy with machine guns and blinding speed. The Agency SUV becomes a monster truck with improbable handling skills. As for the Agency Truck...
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Shai-Gen leader is the biggest normal example of this. After you learn the Director's true intentions at the end, he could count as this too, which is confirmed by the second game.
• Continuity Reboot: The Thrid Game in the series is set in the Future of the First game but undoes the plot of the second.
• Crapsaccharine World: What you help to set up in Crackdown. A beautiful, safe, clean totalitarian dictatorship.
• Crapsack World: In Crackdown 2, mutants overrun the streets at night, the Agency has lost all control again, the civilians are rebelling, the agent cloning program was sabotaged, and the city looks like a tornado hit it. As the director once said: "It's all gone to shit."
  • The intro to the original; the world is said to be anarchic. The Agency is allegedly a union of various police units around the world, and by the start of the game, really only maintain control over their headquarters.
• Cruel Twist Ending: You've spent the entirety of the first game tearing down the three gangs who turned Pacific City into a hellhole, brought back peace and hope, and the Director congratulates you for a job well done... Then surprise! It turns the Agency has been Evil All Along! They supplied and supported all three gangs to create the very problem they'd be needed to stop, and the Director gloats that Pacific City was just the beginning.
• Cut and Paste Environments: Totally averted. The game may have no plot, but you could definitely make a case for saying that the city itself is a character, with no two buildings or neighborhoods alike.
• Cycle of Hurting: Explosions can cause the player character to become subject of Ragdoll Physics during which he is helpless; further enemy Grenade Spam and rockets can cause the player to be juggled to death. This cycle is especially likely when facing Shai-Gen enemies with the 'Firefly' rocket launcher since its rockets are a Homing Projectile which will follow the falling player through the air.
• Darker and Edgier: The first game is bright and colorful, and it seems right up until the end that you're working for the good guys. The sequel takes place in a half-ruined, smoldering city with a perpetual grey sky and a severe zombie problem, and it becomes clear much sooner that the Agency's up to no good.
• Deadline News: In the sequel, a female reporter comments on the Freaks that are over-running the city at night. She is of course instantly pounced upon by one.
• Deadpan Snarker: Mission control guy is this at certain points.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: When the player dies, they simply regenerate at the last visited Supply Point. This does impair the player a bit if they are deep in a gang's hideout though.
• Death or Glory Attack: The ground pound can often be this - it's devastatingly powerful when used at full power and will instantly kill anyone you land on directly regardless. However, from a height to use the move at its full power, you will take fall damage, you have a short stun before you can move again and you have to plant yourself directly in the center of your foes.
• Deconstruction: The first game deconstructs the mild fascism of most action games. Then it turns out you really are a tool for fascism!
• Department of Redundancy Department: The Director often refers to Los Muertos as "The Los Muertos." Translated, that makes them "The The Dead."
• Diegetic Interface: The Director refers to columns of light and other things visible in the game as being part of a graphical interface attached to the Agent's eyes.
• The Dragon: The Agent to the Director.
• Driving Up a Wall: The fully upgraded Agency SUV can do this as an Ascended Glitch from play testing.
• Earth-Shattering Flash of Light: The final beacon.
• Early-Bird Cameo: While running through the Agency training course in the beginning of the second game, you pass through a garage, where you can see every single Agency vehicle you'll get to unlock.
• Elite Mooks: You get to play as one!
• The Ending Changes Everything: The Agency Director's speech begins as an upbeat thank you to the Agent for giving Pacific City it's hope back... then he laughs and monologues about how it was AllAccordingToPlan.
  • In 2, There is no hint of the Agency's darker intentions in the cutscenes beyond the standard third person shooter emphasis on massacring all opposition. Even Thorne's early game audiologs feel like a manifesto, with the very, very good reasons she opposes the Agency only becoming clear when you collect enough of them.
• Every Car Is a Pinto: Every vehicle features a gas tank weak point that will cause it to instantly explode when shot.
• Evil All Along: It turns out that The Agency planned everything to get total control. And you made it possible.
• Evil Laugh: The Director gets off a good one at the end of the game.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Despite the Agency orchestrating the police state-ification of Pacific City and crushing those who stand against them with extreme prejudice, the Director still does not approve when you kill innocent civilians.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness:
  • The Agency HQ Tower, the tallest building in the city, rises from the island at the middle of the map. It serves as subtle Foreshadowing, since The Angency turns out to be Evil All Along.
  • The Shai-Gen mastermind and his top lieutenant also dwell atop their own massive towers; the Agent must fight his way up from the ground floor to the penthouse (though he can use adjacent buildings to skip the entire lower half of Shai-Gen boss' tower.)
  • By Crackdown 2, the Agency has built the Hope Tower in unity heights, as tall as the Agency Tower.
• Evolving Attack:
  • To a degree, the Agent's improved jumping and melee attacks, and more so, the improved weaponry the Agent can procure both from the nearest safehouse, and off of dead enemies.
  • The three agency vehicles are also notable; their handling improves the higher the player's driving skill is. Once the player maximizes their driving skill, they gain Bond-style special abilities.
  • The game actually calls the Agent's ability to upgrade himself "evolution" and as you progress, his armor subtly transforms from something very light to a huge power suit as the man himself becomes huge and muscular. The transition is so gradual, though, you likely won't notice it until you replay the game after beating it. Alternately, you could always just flip through the various stages of armor evolution in Keys to the City mode.
• Fastball Special: You can use a variant in multiplayer. Have one Agent stand on top of a car driven by the other Agent. The latter deliberately drives into the barricades blocking a reinforced position, flinging the former into the fray.
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • It has happened that the island's geometry sometimes either fails to load or spontaneously ceases to exist, dropping the player and all objects into the ocean.
  • In Crackdown 2, some Cell soldiers have grenade launchers. Getting hit with several of these at once causes the game to lag tremendously, and if a large Freak knocks you down, the Agent has quite a bit of trouble getting back up. It can be annoying if you're guarding a beacon or trying to recapture territory.
• Generic Ethnic Crime Gang: Los Muertes are The Cartel, the Volk are The Mafiya, and Shai-Gen are the Yakuza crossbred with Evil, Inc..
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: You play the genetically-enhanced supercop running around shutting down gangs, which makes you unambiguously the good guy, right? Wrong. Turns out, the Agency covertly sponsored the three gangs, letting Pacific City get to the point of ruin, only to (ahem) crack down on them with the Agents, giving them control of the area in question. They also plan to do this in other cities until they own the world.
• Hero Antagonist: Catalina Thorne and The Cell.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The Agent throwing himself into Catalina's helicopter to stop her is a bizarre inversion of this, considering Catalina is the most outright heroic character in the series and the Agent is effectively just a superpowered mook. Since the Agent can be resurrected as necessary, however, it's questionable how much of a sacrifice his death is.
• He Who Must Not Be Seen: Played straight with the Director. He's normally The Voice, but they show him several times in the opening cinematic for Crackdown 2... but we never see his face.
• Hide Your Children: Only adults reside within Pacific City.
• I'm Cold... So Cold...: Shai-Gen Corporation cronies tend to spout this as they die. Even if they died from immolation.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The HRX Harpoon gun which... shoots harpoons. Agents are encouraged to pin whole gangs of criminals to their car, but nail them to a wall and they can work as stepping stones.
• In a Single Bound: As in many other free-roamers with superpowers, you can jump incredibly high once you get your agility levels up. It gets to the point you don't really need a car anymore.
• In-Universe Game Clock: The game can go from day to night in roughly 20 minutes of real-time in Crackdown, but it only takes around 15 minutes in Crackdown 2 due to the addition of the mutants.
• Jerkass: The Director, who is an endless font of uncaring or outright demeaning snark. For example, he makes fun of you when you catch on fire.
• Knight Templar: The Agent is made out to be one.
• Laughing Mad: Los Muertos often cackle insanely in the middle of gunfights, quite likely as a result of their gang's propensity for hard drugs. It also emphasizes the lack of professionalism among their goons, as they aren't trained soldiers like the Volk or Shai-Gen's thugs.
• La Résistance: The Cell is a pro-democracy terrorist organization that function as one of the primary antagonists of Crackdown 2. Overlaps with Hero Antagonist.
• Large Ham: Terry Crews stars in 3, and he doesn't just chew the scenery, he has it as a four course meal.
• Law of Cartographical Elegance: Pacific City is essentially one giant island, broken up into 3 parts; four if you count the tiny Agency HQ situated in the middle.
• Le Parkour: One of the defining features of this game. The Agent's Agility stat enables him to leap ludicrous distances, hang from ledges, run across rooftops, and basically make the city his own with his superhuman mobility. Very few players bother using cars as anything other than blunt weapons.
• Light 'em Up: In Crackdown 2, Freaks are nocturnal and are terribly Weakened by the Light. Your goal is to turn on as many light-generating devices as possible to wipe them all out, and in the meantime, you have a few "UV" weapons specifically designed to annihilate Freaks but spare humans.
• Lighthouse Point: The Agency's HQ serves as this (complete with rotating light), while another literal lighthouse serves as the headquarters for a Los Muertos boss.
• Lightning Bruiser: By the time the Agent's skills are fully maxed, he counts, especially in the sequel. They run fast enough to keep pace with many vehicles (and in 2 gain the ability to plow straight through oncoming traffic), can lift and throw heavy objects with ease, and are able to resist quite a lot of ordinance and rapidly heal any damage taken.
• Little Useless Gun: All the pistols have lower rate of fire, magazine size, and reserve ammo capacity than most rifles, making their usefulness questionable. However at least the Agency 'Master' and Shai-Gen 'Punisher' have scopes and are capable of landing precise hits to disarm, immobilize, or get a Critical Hit on a target. The 'Diktat' pistol carried by Los Muertos and Volk gangsters is inarguably the worst firearm in the game.
• Ludicrous Gibs: In Crackdown 2, if you ram a civilian or peacekeeper at high speed with a vehicle, or if you ground-strike them, they will explode into gallons of blood. This occurs even if said ground strike began only a foot above them and was moving no more than 5 mph.
• Macross Missile Massacre: The MSK Lobber fires up to five homing mini-rockets in close succession; it's absurd enough to allow Agents to juggle targets (people, mutants, cars) in the air for several seconds... which is exactly the point — there's even Achievements for it.
• Mad Scientist: One of the Shai Gen's priority targets is a crazy geneticist whose hideout is overrun with mutants. Additionally, the Agency used his work to create the Agents.
• Mission Control: The Director serves as this in both games. He's also the true Big Bad.
• New Era Speech: At the end of the first game, the Director gives the Agent a speech saying that you have brought about "a New World Order".
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Thanks to the player killing the above Mad Scientist, the Pacific City of the second game is menaced by virus-infected creatures let loose from his labs. Oh, and ushering in a police state was probably also not nice.
• No Name Given: You are simply "the Agent".
• No Plot? No Problem!: Crackdown has no plot. It has a premise, then kicks you into it and tells you to go nuts. There are no hard missions and no cutscenes to speak of other than briefing videos (and "this neighborhood is clean!" victory videos, which are mostly just pans over the existing city while the narrator talks more).
• Notice This: Gang members have little icons above them to make them stand out against civilians, cars shimmer for a moment when your aiming reticule points at them, and power ups (Hidden Orbs) not only glow, but also make a distinctive noise when you get close.
• Oh, Crap!: A Freak gives this expression when all the beacons are lit.
• Omniscient Morality License: Subverted to a degree. You can be as vicious as you want to the gangs, but if you start attacking civilians and/or Peacekeepers, you'll get reprimanded and lose a small amount of experience points, plus any Peacekeepers that saw it will shoot at you. If you go on a total rampage, you'll eventually get a "wanted level" and the Peacekeepers will start seriously attacking you. They're slightly less useless when trying to kill you than they are trying to help you, mainly because of unexpectedly high respawn rate, but since their weapons still suck they aren't nearly as big a threat as the gangs. Then they'll back off if you hide on a rooftop for a while.
• Police Are Useless:
  • In Crackdown the player can find the exterior of the Pacific City Police Department's abandoned station in La Mugre (Los Muertos territory) . Implying that all of the city's local law enforcement was massacred and/or exiled by the gangs when they took over.
  • The entire point of creating the Agents is that The Agency's Peacekeepers cannot stop the gangs themselves, even though they work for the world's most advanced law enforcement organization with the backing of the police forces of multiple nations.
    • Gets worse in the second game, where they only have Assault Rifles. Said Assault Rifles are the weakest ones in the game.
  • Arguably subverted in part by the revelation at the end of Crackdown that The Agency ran law enforcement to the ground on purpose, in order to create the conditions for the gangs to take over as part of a plot to justify totalitarianism.
• Police Brutality: The player can fall into this depending on how much carnage they feel like causing. This is also visible with fellow Peacekeepers when they attack the gangs alongside the player, cheering and beating down on gang members.
• Power-Up Magnet: The tiny orbs, that act as XP, are innately drawn to the player. The larger ones still have to be found normally.
• Product Placement: There are a few billboards around Pacific City featuring advertisements for Dodge trucks.
• Ragdoll Physics: The fate of those who meet the wrong end of a machine gun. You can even ragdoll while still alive, if you're hit by an explosive or car.
• Recursive Ammo: The Shai-Gen Cluster Grenade releases about half a dozen bombs that arc away from the main grenade before exploding on contact.
• Removable Turret Gun: In Crackdown 2, when the player reaches high Strength levels, turrets can be torn off and fired manually.
• Real Is Brown: Averted by the bright and colorful first game. Played somewhat straighter by the Darker and Edgier sequel.
• Respawning Enemies: Typically, gang members will respawn over time until you kill their leader, and even then there will be some remaining. An achievement is awarded when you finally take them all down.
• Roundhouse Kick: One of the standard melee attacks.
• RPG Elements: The player can collect Hidden Orbs to increase either their jumping / running ability, or everything at once in small increments. Using weapons and driving cars also contributes to an increase in skills. Crackdown 2 offers more levels of customization.
• Rule of Cool: Be honest, if you were in law enforcement, you wouldn't get to have a harpoon gun in your standard loadout. In the sequel, there's a shotgun that fires sunlight.
• Sequel Hook: Crackdown 2 ends with one. See The Stinger, below. Of course, since 3 puts the game into Canon Discontinuity, it won't be followed up on.
• Shout-Out:
  • Given its roots with Grand Theft Auto, the game gives a few winks and nudges to them, among other things.
  • One of the alternate skin in Crackdown 2 is called "Gun Metal". Though that is an actual term for color, it could be seen as a nod to the game Gun Metal, which was developed by Rage Software. A lot of Rage employee went on to form Realtime Worlds (the developers of the first Crackdown) after Rage went bankrupt.
  • Some of the pedestrians aren't even supposed to be here today.
  • One of the quotes the Director can throw at you when you fail to capture a Strategic Location in the Sequel is "The assault on this Strategic Location is aborted. Come back and try again when you grow a pair!"
  • A couple of pedestrians call the Agent Superman.
• Short-Range Shotgun: Both shotguns in Crackdown are woefully inaccurate and have small magazine sizes and low reserve ammo capacity, leaving them a waste of time past point-blank range. Considering an agent that levels up Strength can eventually kill common enemies with a single kick the shotguns have no real niche, besides maybe assassinating a boss with the help of the DLC Cloaking Device.
• Soft Water: Despite their superhuman strength and endurance, Agents can suffer severe injury from falling from great altitudes... unless they splash into the water, which is entirely harmless. This is even used for an Achievement.
• The Stinger: In the sequel, after the credits roll, one final cutscene shows that Catalina Thorne survived her crash and is cheerfully doing something with a hand from the Agent. Trying to recreate the virus? Or clone an Agent for herself?
• Stuff Blowing Up: So very much, because you are equipped with grenades at the beginning, get a rocket launcher early on, and there are Explosive Barrels everywhere.
• Super Soldiers: By the end of the game, your agent can leap tall buildings In a Single Bound, runs faster than most vehicles, and can effortlessly carry and throw cars.
• Take Your Time: The gang leaders can be eliminated at the player's casual discretion, with only the occasional reminder from the Director to let you know that, yes, the gangs need to be taken down.
  • Likewise in the sequel you can let CELL and the Freaks run wild without any trouble while you dally.
• The Big Guy:
  • The Agent even at the beginning of the game at the lowest level starts off with a relatively muscular body, and becomes outright enormous when the player levels up in agility and strength.
  • Los Muretos' fitness instructor Rodrigo "Montana" Alvarez, and The Volk's motor-man Igor "Rafik" Biragov are the largest non-Agent characters in Crackdown. Both with comparable physiques to a Level 4 Agent (who is unnaturally large from super-soldier augmentations, suggesting that neither of the two had acquired their physiques without the assistance of steroids).
  • The Volk's explosives expert Olga "Meat" Romanova is the largest female character in Crackdown, and is heavily implied by the Agency Director in her dossier video to have acquired her physique through experimental steroids she started taking during her athletic past.
• Unwitting Pawn: The Agent. The Agency's plan involved running the law enforcement of the world into the ground, allowing complete anarchy, so they could step in and take over the world as a totalitarian government — which they do, now that you've been so polite as to take out the gangs for them. Some think the action montage ends with the Agent shooting the Director — this has definitely been disproved by Crackdown 2.
• Useless Useful Spell: The 'EX 1 Proximity Charge' thrown explosive introduced in downloadable content automatically detonates when an enemy moves near it. Unfortunately, with the exception of a handful of bosses who run along a scripted path, most enemies in Crackdown don't move around on foot much leaving the Proximity Charge the fairly useless niche of destroying approaching gang patrol vehicles.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: It's there and readily available for your exploitation.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: If you kill civilians or peacekeepers, you get docked some XP, though the amounts are small enough that it doesn't make much difference.
• Villain Protagonist: The Agency would be the bad guys in most games. Taken to extremes in the sequel, where you play as the primary agent of a repressive police state fighting to suppress a ragtag band of plucky freedom fighters, which is pretty much a total inversion of a fairly common video game plot.
• Villain with Good Publicity: The Agency. They want to look good to the people, so they trust them. So if you screw with civilians, they'll take you out. Of course they're only playing goody-two-shoes until they Take Over the World...
• Weapons That Suck: 3 has a singularity gun... that shoots multiple black holes.
• Wham Episode:
  • The ending of the first game which reveals The Agency's been Evil All Along and The Director's the true Big Bad.
  • Collecting all the audio logs in the second game turns the plot right on its head. Catalina did not release the Freak Virus, The Agency did, by accidental, during the battle against Balthazar in the first game. She tried to warn them that the Virus shouldn't be messed with, but the Agency ignored her, fired her, and conducted experiments with the Virus, leading directly to the outbreak. Oh, and they actually do have a cure, but refuse to release it in favor of Project Sunburst, which is actually a WMD designed to destroy anyone the Agency doesn't like.
• Wham Line:
  The Director: Congratulations Agent, peace at last... You overthrew the world's most evil criminal masterminds and their dominant empires. You have returned law and order to Pacific City. You gave the people back their lives. Thank you. (Evil Laugh) It's taken years of meticulous planning and patience to reach this stage, but it was worth it. Who do you think supplied Los Muertos? Who do you think turned a blind eye to the Volk's activities? Who do you think was Shai-Gen's biggest supporter? Who do you think ran organized law-enforcement, and ran it into the ground? The people had to experience absolute anarchy, before they would accept unconditional control. You are the portent of a New World Order, Agent. Pacific City was only the beginning.
• What the Hell, Hero?: The Director does this to you if you cause too much collateral damage.
  "Do. Not. Kill. Innocent civilians!"
• Whole-Plot Reference: The game is basically Judge Dredd WITH SUPERPOWERS!
• Wide-Open Sandbox: The scale of the city lends itself well to this.
• With This Herring:
  • Averted in the first game — the player starts off with an assault rifle with an adjustable scope, access to the best vehicles in the game, the ability to jump ten feet straight up while standing still, and the strength to rip a car door off its hinges... and everything goes up from there. Of course, given that you eventually become the Hulk with a missile launcher and a Batmobile, it's hard not to feel underpowered when you replay the game from the beginning.
  • Played straight in the sequel, which starts you off with access to a standard-issue Peacekeeper cruiser and the most budget SMG and shotgun the Agency could find — even weaker than the SMGs and shotguns on the street, in the hands of the Cell.
• Zerg Rush: The favored tactic of Freaks in Crackdown 2.

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