Today's ballsiest video: Crackdown Iron Ball Gag
by Kevin Kelly 
{ Feb 20th 2007 at 2:28AM }
Now that's one freaking huge ball, and it reminds us of that scene in Fight Club. You know, where the huge ball/modern art sculpture takes out a Starbucks-esque coffeeshop? Who knew that it would find its way into Crackdown as well. One thing is for sure, we can't wait to try it out for ourselves. Even the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction didn't have this much fun with his balls.
In other news, damn that guy sure can jump high.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Einhanderkiller @ Feb 20th 2007 2:58AM
Hmmmmm......
zAlphaOmega @ Feb 20th 2007 3:03AM
uh......wha?
Grunge @ Feb 20th 2007 3:07AM
Best ending ever.
Cuja @ Feb 20th 2007 3:32AM
Definitely classic.
NeverSage @ Feb 20th 2007 3:40AM
? I... expected more...
Baby21 @ Feb 20th 2007 3:44AM
Ouch it is probably worse physics game I’ve eve seen.
joel @ Feb 20th 2007 4:01AM
Gee whiz, that sure was super nifty neato watching someone's video of them running around with a ball! Actually, I lied. That was lame. Why did I waste precious moments of my life watching that? Furthermore, why am I wasting more time typing this?
Mythor @ Feb 20th 2007 4:19AM
I thought most of the lead-in stuff was fairly ho-hum... But the ending totally made up for it. :-P
And baby21: "Real" physics in games is rarely fun. Virtually every game fudges it. Crackdown is fudging it on the side of making it more fun, not less...
brandon @ Feb 20th 2007 5:39AM
Wow, what a shitty media player. I waited thirty seconds for it to buffer, then waiting 10 - 20 seconds every TWO seconds for it to play the video. I'm about four seconds into the video. What a joke. Maybe next time you could post a youtube vid or something that doesn't require a fully leased T3?
Baby21 @ Feb 20th 2007 5:10AM
Well Mythor, frankly I afraid completely disagree with you.
I think more reality physics will be more enjoyment for me. Like stick the low gravity on space or other plants but stick with earth’s gravity if the game based on earth (nothing to do with time as gravity barely change)
Some real physics need to be done in this game like when he thrown the ball to the car and it still nothing much effect, why not make it crunch effect and flip more reality cos the stone ball must be tons heavy.
The ball physics is not too bad but it is far too slow motion.
Also the lame slow jump is like you are on the moon. It took too much time in the airtime that you cannot playable very well in this moment. It will make whole game quite slowly and lead to boredom very quickly.
But it can be use same height jump like this video but make it less like you are on the moon.
Grunge @ Feb 20th 2007 5:28AM
@9
Because obviously you've seen a superpowered cop throw a giant metal ball at a car, or jump sixty feet in the air. I would agree that more physics never hurts (especially crumpling cars) but it's just not a realistic possibility for a sandbox game at this point, especially considering the point we're at in this generation.
2kings @ Feb 20th 2007 6:26AM
from what i can see The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction looks funner
im not even gonna try and finish that video because i do not have all day
Rubang B @ Feb 20th 2007 6:42AM
I had to read about a billion other articles while I waited the 10 whole minutes for that thing to load. And then only one of the 91 seconds was even funny. I too feel cheated.
adeeL @ Feb 20th 2007 7:02AM
Crackdown is a pretty good game. Just like GTA, you can play it in spades the first few times, but after you ahve seen and done everything (which is not going to take very long in crackdown) you wont want to re visit it.
The exagerated physics in this game are pretty good, I dont think you can relly ask for realisn in a game where the caracters are super human.
And regarding the video.. seriously, the end was brilliant. Cant you trim the video to the last 10 seconds? the rest was painful to watch.
-------------------------------------
"Halo 3 beta demo, inc. crackdown"
Geo @ Feb 20th 2007 7:02AM
It loaded right away for me, and was crazy boring. The guy has a ball. Ive yet to play crackdown, but all the videos Ive watched so far make me less and less interested.
Martin @ Feb 20th 2007 7:13AM
That video was really lame, until the end... Just skip to the end, and don't bother with any of the rest of it... Seriously, it is worth it! I laughed out loud at work!
Jake @ Feb 20th 2007 8:08AM
That guy sucked, but the ending was hilarious. As for the physics, they work well with the game. And to the person who complained that the car didn't crunch, they usually do. You can make them roll and flip and bounce around. I am unsure why it didn't do anything that time, probably because the ball skipped off the top.
Bennyishere @ Feb 20th 2007 8:32AM
I don't get it... What was the punchline? He gets hit on the head. Big deal... Is it because it saves at that exact moment? I want an explanation!
The ball obviously had some weird physics. It just skipped of oncoming traffic! The cars crumble when you kick them, so something's wrong...
How did this video not make you want to play the game? He plays with a big ball. Not exactly a complete walktrough...
SynikaL @ Feb 20th 2007 8:42AM
Yeah, outside of displaying some very timid physics for that ball an amusing ending, that video was pretty whack.
Still think the game is gonna be good though.
-Kimosabae
Evan @ Feb 20th 2007 9:05AM
That looked like a PS2 game!
I hear all these fanboys saying the 360's processing power means better physics and A.I., but here we have yet another 360 game with physics and A.I. straight off a PS2! The physics were simplified and unrealistic. The cars had weak A.I., and they don't even take damage! And I love how he landed on the edge of the bridge and steps off air! Crackdown is nothing but a last-gen game wrapped in 720P graphics.
Jake @ Feb 20th 2007 9:21AM
Evan,
You could have just said you don't have a 360, nor have you played Crackdown at all or in HD. That would have sufficed.
fawazr @ Feb 20th 2007 9:37AM
@21, I have a 360 and have played it in HD, but this game is still a GTA clone right down to its uninspired A.I. and physics. Crackdown really isn't one of the best titles to grace the console. I think many are just awed by the marketing and the included beta invitation.
nick @ Feb 20th 2007 9:39AM
Anti-climatic. I was thinking he was going to do something funny with the ball, instead he ends up dying. That's a gag? Isn't a gag when it happens to someone else?
Seen the ball before. Seen the character die before doing stupid things.
Watership @ Feb 20th 2007 2:15PM
Have you noticed when it comes to Crackdown people fall into two camps? Those that absolutely LOVE it and those that think its the worst game ever made. I've never seen a game so polarize people.
RUSKULL @ Feb 20th 2007 9:59AM
he tossed an apparent "iron ball" at a car and it bounced off! That aint right. Think for a second what it would take to make an iron ball bounce in the first place. Even if you dropped it from a building, it would likely just crumble into the earth in it's path, leaving a crater. This video just illustrated bad use of the Havok physics engine.
joe @ Feb 20th 2007 10:03AM
retards how can this game be a clone/rip off of GTA when the guy that made GTA made this game, look it up. if anything this is the evolution of GTA or where he wanted to take GTA once rockstar decided they had hit the commerical motherload of a whore, then joined forces with the king of money grabbing sony and then released 10+ verisons of the same game GTA I,II,IV,IX etc PSP verison etc. He bounced and made this game. Stop hating becasue your $600 piece of junk has no games and nothing like this in the pipe anytime soon. have fun playing your crappy collection of weak ports and lame first gen games.
Vidikron @ Feb 20th 2007 10:12AM
OMG... what a bunch of morons. I can't believe we actually have people who have never played the game saying it doesn't look any fun from watching that video. Or that so many people are complaining about physics in a game that essentially takes play in a comic book like setting. Seriously, the main character can jump like 40ft in the air... I think you can leave realistic physics safely out of equation in a game like this.
Slaziman @ Feb 20th 2007 10:18AM
I didn't like the physics from when the dude got hit by a car, and throwing a iron ball at a car and not seeing any damage whatsoever was lame too. Can someone who has played it tell me if it's like this all the time?
the real Steve @ Feb 20th 2007 10:39AM
Slaziman,
when your guy gets strong enough, you can start kicking cars, they dent where you kick them until they start smoking, eventually they will explode (which is awsome). I've jumped down onto cars and it dents the part of the car that you land on.
Videos do not do the game justice. I thought nothing of it until the demo came out. The demo lets you play for about 1 hour. I've played the demo more than 20 times and I'm picking up the full game tonight.
to the people bitching about the physics. IT IS A GAME. the physics are still better than 99.9% of games. everything can be thrown around, collides properly, accelerates properly with gravity. If your guy can push off the ground with 20x the force as you or me..... he will go higher. Is it really that hard to understand? Maybe the ball is hollow. Who in their right mind would sculpt a ball out of solid metal when it is being used as part of a statue or something.
Slaziman @ Feb 20th 2007 10:52AM
That's true, it could be hollow. It still looks lame how he fell when he was hit by the first car, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.
Evan @ Feb 20th 2007 11:37AM
The cars can be damaged, but only in response to certain circumstances, which implies that car damage is scripted and not actually based on physics.
And, the way his feet don't conform to the ground implies the character is rigidly animated and not using real kinematics.
Those are problems I expect to see on a PS2, because the developers had to cut some corners due to the limited processing power of last-gen consoles. However, there is no excuse for those problems on a 360, because the 360 has plenty of processing power to do it better. This is why I said it looks like a PS2 game!
Vidikron @ Feb 20th 2007 11:46AM
@30
How about you actually play the game? It's not the best looking game around, but it is far beyond what the PS2 can handle... especially with the draw distances factored in. The stuff you're talking about (scripted damage, rigid animation) is still quite common even in today's games... yes, even on the PS3 (see RFoM).
Pyronite @ Feb 20th 2007 12:13PM
"Maybe the ball is hollow. Who in their right mind would sculpt a ball out of solid metal when it is being used as part of a statue or something."
Sadly enough, Real Steve, this is probably the most ingenious thing I've ever heard any say on these comments. (And I say that in a good way.)
And yeah, to those who say this is a PS2 game: maybe it's because you're looking at it in a 320x280 flash window? The demo I have looks great, and I play on an HD. I do think the cel-shading makes it appear a bit less detailed than it actually is, as it gives it a more polygonal/chiseled look rather than the round edges we're used to otherwise. That's just an art decision and I have no problem with devs not shooting for hyper-realism.
I probably won't buy the game, but I'm definitely going to (at least) rent it. It's the most fun I've had with a demo since the 360 was released.
the real Steve @ Feb 20th 2007 1:30PM
Evan, you have no clue what you are talking about. Have you ever heard of havok? It is a physics engine that utilizes ragdoll and rigid body physics. Of course the vehicle damage is scripted in. If you had any idea how much more demanding (for the developer and the cpu) soft body deformation was, you would stop typing right now. The only game that I am aware of that uses real-time dynamic mesh (soft body) deformation is not even out yet; that game being Colin McRae: dirt.
The majority of games use completely scripted character animation. Some games use animated characters that, when hit, will switch to a ragdoll to control body movements (crackdown, saints row). Some games take it further, like tony hawk's project 8. When the player crashes, it mixes ragdoll physics with animation. I'm not aware of any other specific games that use that method, but it works the best.
ssuk @ Feb 20th 2007 1:46PM
Gamevideos is as slow as the average AOL user and goes down more often than a Thai hooker, stop using it.
Jake @ Feb 20th 2007 2:02PM
Evan,
You haven't played this game. You saw a 280 feed and started typing. Your opinion is worthless until you at least try the demo.
Remember, it is better to remain silent and be thought of as a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
lionzub @ Feb 20th 2007 2:21PM
I liked the part where he threw the giant heavy ball at a car and nothing happened to it.
Shmil @ Feb 20th 2007 2:18PM
@ Jake
*Whats everyone talking about? uhoh i better say something of else they'll think i'm stupid*
And that's the end of that!
steve17 @ Feb 20th 2007 2:41PM
lol. u sony boys. anyone whosays crackdown sucks or its just selling cause of the beta either is pissed cause they r stuck with gaystation or doesnt like sandbox games. and this is anything but a GTA ripoff. notice the horizon. no more buildings warping in as u get closer. thats one big improvement. and while GTA is gun the gunplay sucked and we all know it. and im tired of CJ jumpin 2 feet and cant reach ledges or clime fences higher than 6 feet. im a huge GTA fan but im really excited to see some parts of it die.
and how can u say a game looks boring after watching 1 vid that had nothing to do with the game other than a guy who found a ball. this game looks fucking sweet if u ask me
go play gundam:crossfire and leave us 360 guys who have games to play alone.
Ken Seang @ Feb 20th 2007 4:45PM
The Hulk game was much better with the ball than this, you can't go bowling can you?