Crackdown 3. The worst games of 2019

There was a time when the Crackdown series had the potential to become one of the mightiest brands in Microsoft's portfolio. The first part of the franchise, released in 2007, delighted players with its unique style and enormous freedom of actions. However, the second part, which was released three years later, failed to generate such enthusiasm and offered just a few novelties. Crackdown 3 was supposed to bring the series back to its shine by adding a new environment destruction system on an unimaginable scale – this feature was so complex that the whole thing had to be supported by external servers in the cloud.

The title was announced in 2014 and was supposed to be released two years later. It was supposed to be one of the most important exclusives for Xbox One, but the prolonged production and rotations among game designers (eventually the game was finished by Sumo Digital studio, which originally was only responsible for the single player campaign of the game) have delayed the game's release, which took place in 2019, when most of the players had already forgotten about the title. And those who have still remembered about the game, didn't receive any reason for joy.

Crackdown 3 ultimately turned out to be another copy of the first installment of the series. It was enhanced in a few places, but it's a very archaic and tedious title. The freedom of in-game actions that impressed twelve years ago ceased to amaze modern players, and the pompously announced environment destruction system was not innovative in any way – in addition, it was restricted to multiplayer mode only.

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Vane

Oh dear. I was curious about Vane before its release, but then I completely forgot about this title. While I was preparing to write this article, it turned out that I prevented myself from a real waste of time in the past. Vane had ambitions to become an emotional and intriguing journey into the unknown as The Journey, but it stumbled on a rock somewhere along the way. The game triggers anxious confusion instead of curiosity and evokes frustration instead of positive emotions.

It's a shame, because it was looking pretty good. We were supposed to enter a mysterious abandoned world and explore it by taking control of a bird which has an ability to shapeshift into a boy. Unfortunately, ambiguous puzzles, which could easily make you stuck for a while, and an overwhelmingly oversized world, made the players irritated. Instead of engulfing themselves in a melancholic atmosphere, they were feeling aggravated and vainly searched for the right path. As far as the plot is concerned, the creators were overwhelmed by the desire to leave the story opened to interpretation. By doing so, the storyline turned out to be an incoherent mess, and even seemed incomplete to most players.

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