Crackdown Now Free on Xbox Live August 1, 2013

Crackdown was a bit of an interesting beast.  It was published by Microsoft and released shortly before Halo 3.  The game was an open world simulator where you play as a physically augmented officer tasked with keeping the peace.  It’s call to fame was that anyone who purchased the full priced game at retail would be allowed access to Halo 3’s exclusive multiplayer beta test, and get the chance to play Halo 3’s new multiplayer maps before anyone else did.

However, the reviewers and critics who did purchase the game for Halo 3’s beta found themselves with a bit of an additive game, which while flawed, still accumulated to a lot of wasted hours messing around in an open world environment, collecting secrets and

I never got the chance to play Crackdown when it came out at retail.  I was able to get early beta access to Halo 3 through a promotion on Bungie’s website.  Now it looks like I, and other Xbox Live Gold Members, will be able to get the chance to play Crackdown free of charge.

Starting today and ending on the 16th, current Xbox Live Gold members can download Crackdown for free through Microsoft’s Games With Gold promotion.  Just click on the Games With Gold box from the Xbox 360’s dashboard after you log into your Live profile.  The game is over six and a half gigabytes, so make sure you have the space freed up in your storage device.  If you’re a gold subscriber, you have no reason to delay!

Starting on the 16th, a new game will be made free of charge.  Microsoft has already teased that the downloadable version of Halo 3 will be made free this promotion, but have not listed when they will make it free yet.