Crackdown 2
Saturday, July 31, 2010
It was a couple of years ago that Realtime Worlds developed the Xbox 360 exclusive game Crackdown, on to other ventures (All Points Bulletin) two members from Realtime Worlds formed their own Studio named Ruffian Games and created the game sequel of the game Crackdown, conventionally named Crackdown 2.
I was hyped about this game, the first game had a pretty big impact technically on the Xbox 360 , the game offered a big world to run around in, working seamlessly and was fun and new. The sequel however takes all the good from the first game and not much more.
Better or not?
For all of you that don’t know, Crackdown 2 is a third-person action game where you play as the main character “The Agent”. Taking place ten years after the first game Pacific City’s “peace” has fallen into ruins, freaks has overrun the city and a human resistance group called “the Cell” opposes The Agency. What happened to the city? Who are Cell? and who is Catalina Thorn are all questions that you, the Agent will find out during the game.
To be honest I’m not really impressed by the story in the game, though it serves it purpose by giving some kind of meaning to the existence of the world we play in, as well as the characters and monsters we meet during the game, but other than that it’s not particularly engaging.
Gameplay-wise Crackdown 2 is pretty much an extension of the first game, however I’m not entirely sure if the changes were good or bad. The experience-system is still there, allowing the Agent to level up his skills (Driving, Strength, Agility, Firearms, Explosives) by performing tasks involving the different categories. The game does bring some new things, like a wing-suit functionality when Agility is leveled up enough allowing the Agent to soar through the air, but in the end it’s not much of an improvement.
The are two primary missions in the game, one lets you take on Cell Strongholds, a stronghold is usually several locations throughout the City with Cell activity, you go in, call for backup and take out all enemies who oppose you. If there are any other strongholds in the area you need to take them out too or else Cell will re-capture the stronghold you’ve already captured. Pretty simple, annoying but simple.
The other primary mission is “Project Sunburst”, the mission objective is pretty much to clean out Freak Strongholds. To do this you need to go around the city and activate certain beacons, then head into the Freak Stronghold, call for the Sunburst machine and keep it safe from Freaks until it loads up and destroys the Freak stronghold. There are several Freak and Cell Strongholds scattered about in the city, now you have to go to each one of them and do the exactly the same task over and over again at each location. Sounds fun right? Well it’s not.
What made the first Crackdown enjoyable for me was the co-operative experience as well as the gathering of Agility Orbs and those aspects are still there in this game. Other than that not much has changed, mission structure is open though the islands are different in terms of difficulty and enemy equipment. The game however expands on the multiplayer-functionality allowing four players play at the same time in Pacific City, and that is what it’s all about. Team up with three other friends and take on the freaks and Cell.
Other than that there are smaller missions/objectives like clear out “freak holes” which are several holes in the city where freaks come up at night, agility and driving races, wingsuit challenges. Other than that there is not a lot to do in Pacific City not by yourself anyways.
Dead world, dead narrative
A game these days need to impress, either by great visuals, great gameplay or a great narrative. However this game only barely survives on the previous games efforts. The gameplay is fun and to some extent addictive but it’s disappointing since there are so few actual changes between the games. The once fantastic city has become grey, destroyed and boring in some cases. There is nothing new to see here except some damaged landmark buildings. The vehicles are the same as the first game but without their cool transformations, it is without a doubt disappointing.
However the game is still a solid game which can provide a couple of hours fun, I on the other hand played the game myself which might be the reasons why I think it’s a bit disappointing, it’s always more fun to blow up enemies together with friends, and maybe I wouldn’t care about the flaws as much if I did play it with friends but in the end the flaws are still there.
