Crackdown 2 in Review

Just finished writing up my review of Crackdown 2 for the West Gamers blog. Here it is in the non-fancy version...

You're walking along the street. You notice a building that has started crumbling, but this doesn't surprise you, after all, Pacific City hasn't been going so well over the last ten years. Suddenly you're attacked from behind by a weird mutated human that you could only describe as freakish. Just when you think you're about to be eaten, the creatures head explodes and as you wonder what just happened, you see a masked behemoth of a man leaping along the rooftops above carrying a sniper rifle. Congratulations, you've just met The Agent.

Crackdown 2 is the sequel to Realtime Worlds original cell shaded cross between GTA and... whatever game allows you to play a cop trying to extinguish gang war. Crackdown 2 was not created by Realtime Worlds though, instead it was Ruffian Games behind the wheels of what Microsoft were clearly hoping to turn into a major franchise. The game takes place ten years after the original with Pacific City falling apart and overrun by 'Freaks'. Shortly after the end of the first Crackdown, a virus was unleashed upon the city that turned its inhabitants into hideous mutated beasts. Believing the Agency has a cure they refuse to release, Catalina Thorne starts a resistance called Cell and by the time the game starts, you'll find the streets overrun by Cell members by day and flooded with Freaks at night.

The main objective of the game is to take over Cell strongholds and take back control of power nodes that will let you activate a UV based weapon to eradicate the Freaks. While the concept is fairly similar to the original, it becomes much more repetitive and boring by the fact that there are no longer unique gang leaders to take out and every mission is essentially the task of going to a specific location, then clearing that location of enemies... That's it. Rooftop races make a return and will have you throwing yourself all over the skyline as fast as possible, as do Road Races, which have you tearing through streets as fast as possible, although you really need to do Road Races at night if you want to avoid civilian casualties because civilians clearly have no concept of the difference between a road and a walkway.

Crackdown 2 uses the same cell shaded style as Borderlands and the original Crackdown. Everything looks nice and the style works well but, as like much of the game, it's nothing you haven't seen before. Gone is the evolving agents from the first game too. Now you'll be given a choice of 4 different heads and (if you didn't pre-order) 4 different coloured suits, however your choices wont make much difference as the suit automatically adds a helmet as soon as you get one of your skills to level one and regardless of which head or colour you choose, you agent still transforms in the exact same way.

The soundtrack is fairly hit & miss with some music going really well with the action and other parts being bland. The narrator from the original game is back and will be the person you hear the most as apart from random moments of speech, the only other dialogue in the game is through audio logs you'll pick up. The random speech you'll hear from enemies and civilians is occasionally funny, and even takes into account your actions (i was shooting at some enemies and had to reload, at which time i heard a nearby peacekeeper yell out "the agent's reloading, cover him"). Eventually i found the audio to just get boring and the dialogue to be mostly useless so i found myself playing the game while listening to my iPod.

People who finished the original Crackdown will know that it wasn't really heavy on story, but it managed to pull an interesting twist at the end. Crackdown 2 attempts to follow in its predecessors footsteps, but comes tumbling down on the last hurdle. The ending of the game was pretty mediocre and just sets up the next game. In fact, i wouldn't blame you for missing the story entirely as i found out more about the story from the audio logs than i did from the actual missions. Really it just felt like the story was written to set up Crackdown 3, but it really is something i would have preferred to see as a 3 minute opening cutscene to Crackdown 3 than as an entire game.

Mechanically Crackdown 2 works much the same as the original, but transforming agency vehicles are gone. Instead you'll unlock a new vehicle with each level you gain in your driving skill. The same for weapons and explosives. Maxing out your strength and agility will net you an extra two abilities. An agent with max strength is capable of performing a ground pound, while a level 5 agility gives your suit a glide ability. Unfortunately, by the time you get your strength to level 5, you probably won't need a ground pound ability anymore, and the wingsuit has horrible controls that involve less gliding and more swooping up and down like a dolphin who learned to fly.

Overall Crackdown 2 provides plenty of fun, which can be quadrupled thanks to 4 player co-op, but not a whole lot else. Everything in the game has been done before and been done better and a lack of variance in the missions means that Crackdown 2 isn't good for much more than some free-roaming.

Visuals 6/10 - Looking exactly the same as the original Crackdown, everything looks well, but it's nothing exciting.

Audio 7/10 - Some decent voice acting, and the soundtrack has it's moments but the dialogue is pointless and the soundtrack gets old.

Gameplay 6/10 - There's fun to be had, but it's certainly not from doing what the game wants you to do.

Overall 6/10 - Crackdown 2 suffers from many problems the original did, plus creates a range of new ones. Fun for you and your friends, but you could just as easily be entertained by something else.