1) Beef up all your skills upfront. Roam around the game world collecting the green orbs to increase agility, run over gang members to pad your driving skill, and melee-attack criminal scum to beef up your strength. Of course, you can also use guns or explosives to add to those respective skills as well. Bottom line: You’ll be better equipped to handle the bosses if you’re already buffed out.

2) Now that you’re ready to start taking on lieutenants and kingpins, keep your eye on them and ignore the generic thugs. It’s not worth the time or the hassle to plow through all of a boss’ underlings — just make a beeline for the big guy and take him down.

3) The old meet-me-after-school tactic of brawling applies to boss battles in Crackdown, too: Kick him while he’s down! If your strength skill is high, you can kick a boss once and he’ll drop to the ground. Now simply give him a few good boots to the ribs (cold, but effective) and he’ll be easy to fi nish off, nullifying whatever long-range heavy weapon he was likely carrying.