First off, my final review of Crackdown. Yes, it's even more addictive than I originally thought. But the game world still feels a little empty. Here are some of the things I'd like to see the developers add via download:

*Jet packs - Once you max out your agility and driving skills, you could access a jet pack to take to the skies and fly through all the city streets and tunnels. Then the enemies would get jet packs, as well. And the bad guys would have floating airships they'd use as their base of operations. Parachuting would be cool, too.

*Water craft - Cigarette boats, mini-submarines, jet skiis, whatever. Scuba gear would be awesome, so that you could explore underwater bases, James Bond-style.

*Disguises - Dress up like a gang member, infiltrate their operations, and discover where their next major crime is going to be committed. Then you can either sabotage it or just toss off your disguise and start shooting. Perhaps you could sneak off, race back to the police tower to alert the troops, and then help spring the trap.

These are the sorts of wrinkles that the developers should have included in the original game, but it seems like they were so focused on mastering the basic gameplay that the rest of the game got neglected a bit.

And here's my weekly game column, about why Sony's decision to downgrade the backward compatibility on the European PS3 isn't a big deal. Sorry for the weird formatting on the column, though.