Crack Down

Crack Down (クラックダウン) is a run and gun arcade game released by Sega in 1989 and ported to the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis in 1990 in Japan and 1991 in North America by Sage's Creation. It was also ported and released to a number of home computer platforms by U.S. Gold.

This article is about the 1989 arcade game. For the 2007 video game, see Crackdown (video game).
For a definition of the verb "crack down", see the Wiktionary entry crack down.
Crack Down
Developer(s)Sega
Hot-B (Genesis)
Publisher(s)Sega
Sage's Creation (Genesis)
U.S. Gold (home computers)
Composer(s)Yasuhiro Kawakami
Platform(s)Arcade, Mega Drive/Genesis, Atari ST, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, ZX Spectrum
ReleaseArcade
1989
Mega Drive/Genesis
JP: December 20, 1990
NA: March 1991[1]
Genre(s)Run and gun
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

The Mega Drive version of Crack Down was re-released on the Wii Virtual Console in Japan on August 7, 2007, and in PAL regions on September 7, 2007. It also released on Steam on June 1, 2010.

Gameplay
Arcade screenshot

Using a top-down perspective (akin to Gauntlet), the player controls either Ben or Andy, a pair of agents charged with stopping mad scientist Mr. X (Mr.K in the Sega Mega Drive version) from taking over the world, as they make their way through several timed levels, planting bombs and destroying cyborg enemies using guns (the "machine gun" and the "cannon" can be swapped back and forth) and smart bombs (which wipe out all enemies on screen.) The goal of each stage is to plant all of the bombs and escape before their collective timer goes off.

Reception

In Japan, Game Machine listed Crack Down on their May 15, 1989 issue as being the third most popular arcade game during the previous two weeks.[5] Console XS gave a review score of 82%. They praised the detailed graphics and felt the gameplay was very addictive and praised the 2 player mode saying it's double the fun. They concluded saying it's worth playing.[6] MegaTech gave the genesis version a review score of 65%. They praised Crack Down saying it's enjoyable to play and praised the two player mode calling it fun. They criticized the game's lack of challenge.[7]

References
  1. "EGM_US_020.pdf" (PDF).
  2. Scott Alan Marriott. "Crack Down Review". Allgame. Archived from the original on November 16, 2014. Retrieved May 31, 2022.
  3. "A-Z Software". Console XS (1): 128. June 1992. Retrieved March 24, 2022.
  4. "Game Index". MegaTech (1): 77. December 1991. Retrieved March 28, 2022.
  5. "Game Machine's Best Hit Games 25 - テーブル型TVゲーム機 (Table Videos)". Game Machine (in Japanese). No. 356. Amusement Press, Inc. 15 May 1989. p. 21.
  6. "A-Z Software". Console XS (1): 128. June 1992. Retrieved March 24, 2022.
  7. "Game Index". MegaTech (1): 77. December 1991. Retrieved March 28, 2022.


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