All this talk about Prototype this and inFamous that, I think most of us are forgetting that before Radical and Sucker punch were vying for comic book open world supremacy, there was this little comic book open world game attached to a beta code for another really huge game and, you know, that little game just might be the best of the lot.

Wow, that paragraph sucked.  The condensed version: Crackdown = great.

I bought the game a while back and rocketed through it, even though my tolerance for open world stuff is minimal.  But developer Real Time Worlds crafted a fun, action-filled romp, enhanced by the fact that your character eventually turns into a super-sized cop stud capable of leaping over buildings and throwing cars at people.

Add to that a goofy but serviceable story about cleaning up gangs in Pacific City, a narrator who thinks he’s pretty awesome, terrific cell-shaded graphics, tight driving and aiming control, lots of weapons and cars and the unholy addiction that is Agility Orb collection, and that, my friends, is gaming bliss.

The virtual cherry on top: the online co-op that I just played for the first time a couple of days ago.  After Erich bagged the game for fifty cents at a yard sale (!) I popped the disc back in and the two of us jumped into Pacific City.  What a simple, perfectly executed multiplayer option.

Sure my beefed-up character compared to his rookie cop was a surreal juxtaposition (it was like bring your son to work day), but Holy Cow is it fun to have one player drive around a city bus and the other stand atop the vehicle and fire RPGs and gangs.

And that’s all from 2007!  Catch you later!