Crackdown 3 review – flimsy futuristic fun as moreish as popcorn

PC, Xbox One; Sumo Digital/Microsoft
This simple action caper where players liberate a neon-clad city from a sinister megacorp makes 15 hours disappear easily

A capsule comic-book power fantasy, Crackdown 3 is a colourful, uncomplicated action caper through a vaguely Tron-like futuristic city that you, a special agent with superpowers, must liberate from a sinister megacorp. At the beginning, you're mostly waving pistols and machine-guns in the faces of the city's militia and getting instantly wiped out whenever you stray into more heavily armed districts. Hours later, you're chucking cars at groups of soldiers, leaping over tall buildings like a buff flea, and blowing up factories with ease. The whole thing can be played co-operatively with a friend, flattening the odds even further by throwing two superpowered agents into the fray.

TerraNova is an unoriginal but pretty neon-clad city of skyscrapers and slums, airborne highways that wind confusingly between its districts, and holographic propaganda projections that issue platitudes from the rooftops. It's an interesting and varied place to run around, home to clustered shanty towns lining the perimeter of an industrial quarry, well-to-do areas with gated residences and ostentatious nightclubs, and an unexpectedly huge raceway. Hundreds of tantalisingly glowing, ability-enhancing orbs are dotted liberally around the place, encouraging you to investigate its nooks and crannies and climb its towering buildings.