Video Games

B+

For Xbox 360. Rated for ages 17 and up. $59

JOHN Q. LAW: This free-roaming game is almost completely unstructured, with only a microscopic plot to propel it. But even without much depth or mental challenge, building a supercop and then propelling him through the air like Spider-Man with a police badge is insanely fun.

'GRAND THEFT AUTO' MEETS 'WORLD OF WARCRAFT': GTA is obviously the first game you'll think of when Crackdown starts. You're an agent of destruction (although this time on the side of law enforcement), with a massive city to explore and blow up. But Crackdown also has some role-playing elements to it since you can build up the physical abilities of your character. You progress from an Olympic-caliber athlete to a superhero in Kevlar.

ORB HUNTER: Because the game rewards you so heavily for increasing your physical stats, you spend as much time hunting down green orbs to increase your agility, for example, as you do actually snuffing out the crime lords terrorizing the city. That is a little tedious, but upgrading your abilities does give you some pretty impressive powers.

BOTTOM LINE: My first impression of Crackdown was that the game was too insubstantial to keep my interest for long. But I didn't stop playing until 4 a.m. So it must be doing something right.

Victor Godinez