Just when you thought this game might have been cancelled, Microsoft whips out something new. Here’s the ESRB-rated trailer for the upcoming free-roaming shooter for the Xbox 360. Microsoft recently released the exclusive trailer, along with some more info on the game’s protagonist.

Featuring melee combat, stat upgrades for every aspect of the agent (including the vehicles they drive), and some of the coolest weapons featured in a video game, Crackdown has the look and feel of a serious classic. Then again, it could end up being like the movie Superman Returns; a lot of high-expectations and plenty of mediocre crap. So far, the game doesn't look like it will suck toes, and the inclusion of a multiplayer mode only makes things better.

While Gears of War has hogged most of the spotlight since E3, it looks like Crackdown will finally get its turn to shine. With a scheduled release for the first quarter of 2007, Crackdown will offer gamers a team of cyber-enhanced, kick-butt, super-hero cops who can hurl cars through the air, leap from building to building, and even snipe a target from nearly two-blocks away. The new trailer showcases some of the game's super-cool physics and gameplay mechanics, giving players a taste of some of what’s to come.

But that’s not all, Real Time Worlds has some insightful character overviews for the team of Crackdown Cops that will be at your disposal. Once you get done checking out the bios, you can view the trailer below.

“When designing our Agents, we wanted to avoid the typical tall-dark-and-handsome cliche we’ve seen in any number of games. Not every hero looks the same, so we aimed to create a team of Agents that would draw from all types of races, cultures and historical backgrounds.”

Agent Backgrounds:

African American Agent: Not every superhero is tall, dark, handsome and white. In our efforts to make the Agents as diverse and complex as possible, we drew our initial inspiration from the popular comic book character, Blade. Before we had made any decisions on the character’s race, Blade was featured heavily in our reference material. He’s a super-hero with a very dark side and the sequences of him jumping from building to building in the first Blade film were key to what we were trying to accomplish with our own characters. We suppose that the streaks on the side of our character’s head at level five are in homage to Blade’s famous hair styling.

Russian Agent: As with all the Agents, it was quite hard to define this one without resorting to a moustache and a big furry hat. Eventually we decided to look at the Kurgen character from the Highlander film for inspiration. Starting there, we essentially turned the character upside down. Instead of having patchy hair, he ended up with a patchy beard, deep set eyes and an overall nutjob look.

Goth Agent: We really wanted the pasty white Marilyn Manson motif with the black make-up overlay, but we also didn’t want him to end up looking like a member of Kiss. So we decided to evolve the Agent from level to level using facial hair patterns. Turned out to be a popular choice.

Norse Agent: We couldn’t really do the classic Norse, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, braided-hair model, so we came up with a single braid going over the top of the head and added some interesting blue face paint in lieu of tattoos.

Maori Agent: Didn’t want this one to fall to traditional tribal cliche, so we modernized the approach through the use of tattoos and steel spikes woven throughout the hair.

Thai Agent: Essentially the opposite in tone from our traditional Asian Agent. Once we had the features nailed down, we simply used everything that we hadn’t used in the other model.

Hispanic Agent: We really wanted to highlight strong South American features in this Agent. We gave the character some personality with tattoos, facial hair and a peppering of battle scars.

Asian Agent: The idea with the Asian Agent was to go traditional in appearance but to age in theme. Rather than bulk-up the way the American Agent evolves, the Asian character ages into strength and wisdom. At level-five, he ends up with a full head of white hair which looks quite good against the black costume.