0Now like most people when I heard that Microsoft decided to include a beta invite to this springs Halo 3 mulitplayer beta in every box of Crackdown I just thought that the game wouldn't be able to live up to it's potential and Microsoft needed to cover their balls. I was wrong.
To me Crackdown seems like Psychonauts. It is a great game but nobody will ever play it... well lots of people will be playing Crackdown because they want that beta invite.
So after I gave the demo a whirl I decided I really wanted this game so I went to my local EB Games and asked to preorder it. So I ask the guy behind the counter if I can preorder Crackdown. He kind of laughs and looks over at the other employee and says to me, "Heh, we don't have any Crackdown for preorder, we only got Halo 3 Beta invites." He started laughing really hard.
"Wait... they are selling Halo 3 beta invites to the public?" I was confused.
"Dude, Crackdown sucks, the only reason people are getting it is for the Halo 3 beta. Preorder the Halo 3 beta and get a free copy of Crackdown!"
I sighed and walked off to look at the Nintendo DS games and I waited for my friend to come in. (She works there about an hour after I got there.) After she clocks in I go up to her and ask her if I can preorder Crackdown and just to spite the other asshole that was crackin' wise to me I also asked if I could get an EB Edge card (The employees looks better the more preorders they have and the more EB Edge cards they have... the Edge cards are harder to get than the preorders)
So the point to my story? Well, it's simple. Don't play down a game just because it is sitting in the shadow of something huge. Crackdown is a great game and if you are just going to push it aside because it seems like a gimmick from Microsoft why don't you actually give the game more than 10 minutes of your time.