There was a time when I thought no free-roaming game could beat the design of Grand Theft Auto's. I came to this conclusion because of the fact that SO many others tried and failed miserably. True Crime put you in the shoes of a dumbass in an obvious mock-up of the GTA world; it was worse. Saint's Row copied Grand Theft Auto's design exactly, but pumped up the graphics; it was worse. Driver 3, well, I'm not sure exactly what it wanted to do, but it definitely copied GTA; it was worse. It just seemed to me that, perhaps, the free-roaming genre had reached its peak with San Andreas.

Boy, was I wrong.

Crackdown for the Xbox 360 is the biggest leap (no pun intended) the industry has seen in the sandbox genre since the release of Grand Theft Auto III. You assume the role of the Agent, a genetically altered police officer, sent out in the streets to rid the cities of crime, and whose abilities allow him to do everything a normal human can do...times 20. You're given 5 abilities to play around with: Agility, Strength, Driving, Explosives, and Firearms. Each time you do anything pertaining to one of those five abilities, your experience increases in that category. For example, say I'm facing 20 Los Muertos gang members and I choose to throw a grenade at them, sending them flying in all directions. This will increase my Explosives ability via differently colored orbs that fly out of the enemies and into me. As a result, my grenades will have a larger blast radius. If I choose to kung-fu kick a gang member and send him sailing away to his doom, my Strength ability increases. The same goes for if I decide to throw a garbage dump at someone. As a result, as my Strength skill increases, I can carry larger and larger things, until eventually I'm throwing 18-wheelers at 18 gang members. It's really wild, and the inclusion of this RPG-styled leveling up really adds to the addiction factor.

But, the greatest thing about Crackdown is its Agility ability (hey, that rhymes). In order to increase your agility, you must collect Agility Orbs, which are strategically placed on buildings in each of the four cities. The more you level up your agility, the faster you can run and the higher and longer you can jump. Imagine, for a moment, taking a running start off of a skyscraper, and catapulting off of it. Soaring through the air, you obliterate 25 gang members below you with your rocket launcher, sending them screaming through the air in flames. It's a huge rush, and it's also a major contributor to the game's uniqueness in comparison to other free-roaming games.

The second factor which sets Crackdown far apart from any other GTA imitator (Crackdown doesn't deserve that title; it's better) is the inclusion of Xbox Live Co-op online gameplay. I've played a lot of Xbox Live, but I've never played multiplayer like this. What it does is pit you and another online player smack dab in the middle of the city. And it leaves you there. The genius of this mode is that you and your friend can do whatever you please. You can choose to scale buildings and waste time together, or you can choose to buckle down and defeat some druglords together. It's really ingenious, because it takes the concept of free-roaming and makes it the guiding theme of the multiplayer component.

There are a few minor downsides to Crackdown, however (and I do stress MINOR). The first is the lack of a target switching button. For example, when I lock on to an enemy with the left trigger, and I kill them, the target remains on that dead enemy. In order for me to switch to another enemy, I must let go of the trigger and press it again to target another one. This can be frustrating when fighting crowds of 10 or more gang members. It would have been very helpful to be able to press a button to switch your target to the nearest enemy. The second issue I have is with the connection process in the multiplayer mode. If you're in a single-player game and choose to connect to a friend's game, and the connection falls through, it exits you entirely from your single-player game and takes you to the main menu. This can be a bit annoying but, again, a truly minor complaint that, in the scheme of things, really doesn't matter. It will probably be fixed in a later patch, too.

All in all, Crackdown is a magnificent game and should be right up there with any other must-buy 360 title (Oblivion, Gears of War, Viva Pinata). If you enjoy Grand Theft Auto, and you enjoy having fun, then it is a guarantee that you will go gaga over Crackdown.

If not, well, then, get a damn life.