Crackdown 2 (Xbox 360) Review

Posted by Trace Aber on 07.22.2010

Is the highly anticipated follow-up to the original surprise hit worth returning to Pacific City for? Well, in short, no.


Game: Crackdown 2
Genre: Third Person Shooter
Players: 1-4 (co-op)
Developer: Ruffian Games
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studio
Rated: M for Mature

In 2007, Realtime Worlds released the original Crackdown to respectable critical acclaim and was praised highly for its open world and impressive graphics. One of the most appealing aspects was the ability to jump great distances and collecting the agility orbs, which were scattered throughout the large Pacific City that players were able to explore. Over three years later and Scottish team Ruffian Games (founded by members of Realtime Worlds) have released the highly anticipated sequel to the surprise hit of 2007. Unfortunately, they refused to take risks and instead released an extremely similar game that struggles to stand out from its predecessor.

Ten years have passed since the original game and things have gone sour after a brief time of peace in Pacific City. A young talented scientist was doing well at the Agency until she was found conducting her own experiments, which led to her firing. Unhappy being jobless, she did the only reasonable thing a person would do and began injecting a virus into various clones in the Agency cloning facility. The virus caused the people to become violent and mindless and it began spreading across the city, and with the Agency crippled due to the outbreak, people began looking for answers. A terrorist group known as The Cell was formed to destroy what remains of the Agency and to get the cure, which the Agency “supposedly” has.


The Agency also hates bridges

The Agency has a plan to stop the Freak virus from spreading (and, yes, it’s called the Freak virus), and that’s through Project Sunburst, which consists of harnessing the power of the sun to destroy the Freak lairs, which are, as expected, filled with freaks. By activating three absorption units the Agency is able to activate a beacon in the lair, and once all nine beacons have been activated the Agency will be able to put Project Sunburst into full effect. So, to recap, there’s a bunch of freaks taking over Pacific City while the Cell is trying to destroy the city’s only hope, the Agency.

Taking on the role of an agent in the Agency, known only as Agent, you must restore the city back to its former glory and take out the Cell once and for all. Oh, and stop that whole zombie problem. When you start the game you’re already pretty well equipped to take out the Cell and freaks, including a decent set of weapons and a nice car. Plus the Agent has some mad jumping skills. As you progress throughout the game, however, you’ll become even more powerful as you unlock the game’s large variety of vehicles and weapons, as well as upgrade five different abilities. The most popular ability is that of agility, which allows the Agent to run faster and jump higher, and is upgraded by collecting the various agility orbs throughout the city. While most of these are stationary, you’ll encounter a few renegade agility orbs which run away from you and must be caught before improving your stats. You’ll also have a chance to improve your driving, explosives, weapons, and strength.


Agent Ted shows why he’s not the Agency’s top Agent


Crackdown 2 is an extremely fun game, and part of that is due to being able to jump around the city like a superhuman (because you are a superhuman). You’ll eventually be able to pick up and throw vehicles, punch a guy in the face holding a rocket launcher and not regret that decision, and even glide around the city and catch some beautiful views. Of course, to do all of this you must collect the orbs. There are also a bunch of tapes to collect throughout the city, which give you some more detail about the game’s story and background. All in all, you have about one thousand things to seek out while in Pacific City. For collectors this game will be great. If you’re not into searching high and low for every orb, this may not be the game for you.

Of course, if you have the original Crackdown, this may not be the game for you because most of this isn’t new to you. In fact, outside of a few additions and changes here and there, you won’t be getting your $60 worth. Most of the missions consist of destroying a bunch of Cell members while waiting for a helicopter to come down and activate an absorption unit, or the occasional mission where you get to destroy a bunch of Freaks, wait for a helicopter to come down while you defend a beacon until it’s activated. There’s very little variety in the missions and after the third beacon you’re really praying for something different, but you still have six more to go. Awesome. Sure, there are some side missions, but in the end you’re just gunning a bunch of people down and you don’t feel better or worse after the experience.


I don’t know who has more balls here

In addition to the dull missions, there are plenty of races and stunt ring challenges, both of which take place in either a vehicle or on foot. These are just as disappointing as the main story missions and most of the time you either completely annihilate the mission or fail due to the shoddy driving mechanics. It also doesn’t help that these feel more forced than anything and seemingly don’t belong in the game.

Pacific City itself is more or less the same this time around, with the exception of zombies running rampant and the buildings being destroyed. If you’ve explored everything there is in the original, then you’ll find little worth exploring here. Yeah, it’s neat seeing familiar structures destroyed, but even that grows old quickly. The game is much more drab looking this iteration, and while a lot of that has to do with the atmosphere of the game, the poor textures don’t help things. It’s possible to have dark colors and make a good looking game, but Crackdown 2 doesn’t attempt that. It slaps on some colors and calls it a day, regardless of overall appearance.

There’s also frequent slowdown when multiple enemies are on the screen, which happens often in this game. This is one of the more annoying aspects of this game, as there are seemingly few locations where you aren’t constantly being attacked by the Cell and/or Freaks. Even when I’m on huge skyscrapers I’m getting shot at and it grows annoying when you just want to go orb hunting. Luckily, the enemies are pretty easy to take out, but I’d rather be able to explore the city instead of constantly fighting for survival.

The narration that follows you throughout the game starts off campy and fun, but eventually becomes grating and you’ll want to make him shut up. Starting the game off is pretty horrid too, as you’ll constantly hear “…that’s an achievement!” It’s cute the first time, but every other time makes feel violent towards the world.

Crackdown 2 is a game best played with friends, and thankfully you’re able to have up to three people join your party this time around. Even this, however, is not without its faults. You can’t set markers and there’s no discernable way to tell which team member is which, and there exists only a small selection of vehicles that can support all four players at once. Still, if you want to make the most out of defending absorption units and beacons, this is the way to go.

The game also ships with a decent, if basic multiplayer mode. Deathmatch definitely won’t set the world on fire or set any standards, but it can be fun simply jumping around raining bullets on those below you. In my experience, however, whoever gets the helicopter first seems to win the most. Rocket Tag is neat for a few minutes, but eventually shooting a bunch of rockets manages to lose its appeal. How? I don’t know, you should ask Ruffian Games.

The 411
Crackdown 2 is quite a fun game, and for gamers who love collecting things this is the way to go. But if you’re not into that, or already beat the original, there’s nothing new worth seeing here. The missions have little variety (even by sandbox standards), the graphics somehow seem worse than the original, and the story is practically nonexistent. Multiplayer combat feels rushed and incomplete while online co-op manages to provide a decent experience, but nothing that you NEED to go out of your way to play. And that’s the problem with Crackdown 2 – there’s nothing about it that worth going out of your way for. Hell, even if its along the way it’s not worth picking up. If this was the first game, it would have been great, but it's not. Ruffian Games followed the formula of the original well, but were too afraid to deviate from it and that hurt this game, and perhaps the franchise.

Pros
-Large open world to explore
-Around 1,000 things to collect in all
-Four player co-op is fun

Cons
-Very simplistic story that they don’t really explore
-Multiplayer combat is forgettable
-Nearly identical to the original Crackdown
-Has no worthwhile purpose

Graphics	6.0	This game looks great at certain angles, but most of the time you're looking at an ugly mess
Gameplay	5.0	It's not that the gameplay isn't fun, it's just that nothing has changed from the first game
Sound	5.0	There's not much to say about the music of the game, and the Agency Narrator can burn in hell
Lasting Appeal	6.0	With over 1,000 items to collect, there's plenty to do. Of course, whether or not you'll want to collect all 1,000 is up to you.
Fun Factor	4.0	If you never played Crackdown, this game will be extremely fun, because it is a fun game. Other than that, you've been there, done that, got the achievement.
Overall	5.0   [ Not So Good ]

Screenshots
All 9 Crackdown 2 Screenshots