Phil Wilson: Crackdown is “different”

Crackdown‘s heritage stretches back to Grand Theft Auto, partly because of RealTime Worlds‘ head David Jones, but that doesn’t make Crackdown a “wannabe” title. This was producer Phil Wilson’s reply to Xbox Community Network when asked about the frequent comparisons between the two titles.

Still, from the interview featured in XboxWay International:

I’m as guilty as anyone else of hearing about a city-based game and assuming that it’s just going to be like GTA… But there is room for other types of games in the sandbox city genre, and we’re already seeing that people are enjoying the difference that Crackdown provides.

Based on what downloading the demo did to Xbox Live (which is to say, jam it with more traffic than Pacific City), we’d agree.

Phil emphasized Crackdown‘s “true” free-form gameplay, in comparison to GTA, Saint’s Row, and The Godfather. “In Crackdown, it’s really up to you,” he said. It seems he that there’s no story-restricted linearity to progress in the game – if you want to take on the gang boss when you first go online, he said you can.

Asked to comment about Halo 3 Beta’s inclusion in Crackdown, Phil was as full of praise as his boss David. “So while a lot of people will be looking at Crackdown because of the Halo 3 Beta, there will be many more people looking at it on its own merits.” The way he looked at it, Crackdown was a great game to partner the beta with.

Speaking of which, on a lighter and more off-topic note, we, er, found this picture from Xkatsu, a Flickr user, of a box of Crackdowns w/ Halo 3 Betas on some inventory shelf. It seems like whoever decided to tag the box this way had his own set of priorities: it’s Halo 3 Beta feat. Crackdown, and not the other way around.

Crackdown‘s heritage stretches back to Grand Theft Auto, partly because of RealTime Worlds‘ head David Jones, but that doesn’t make Crackdown a “wannabe” title. This was producer Phil Wilson’s reply to Xbox Community Network when asked about the frequent comparisons between the two titles.

Still, from the interview featured in XboxWay International:

I’m as guilty as anyone else of hearing about a city-based game and assuming that it’s just going to be like GTA… But there is room for other types of games in the sandbox city genre, and we’re already seeing that people are enjoying the difference that Crackdown provides.

Based on what downloading the demo did to Xbox Live (which is to say, jam it with more traffic than Pacific City), we’d agree.

Phil emphasized Crackdown‘s “true” free-form gameplay, in comparison to GTA, Saint’s Row, and The Godfather. “In Crackdown, it’s really up to you,” he said. It seems he that there’s no story-restricted linearity to progress in the game – if you want to take on the gang boss when you first go online, he said you can.

Asked to comment about Halo 3 Beta’s inclusion in Crackdown, Phil was as full of praise as his boss David. “So while a lot of people will be looking at Crackdown because of the Halo 3 Beta, there will be many more people looking at it on its own merits.” The way he looked at it, Crackdown was a great game to partner the beta with.

Speaking of which, on a lighter and more off-topic note, we, er, found this picture from Xkatsu, a Flickr user, of a box of Crackdowns w/ Halo 3 Betas on some inventory shelf. It seems like whoever decided to tag the box this way had his own set of priorities: it’s Halo 3 Beta feat. Crackdown, and not the other way around.