Crackdown 2 review

When we got an early hands-on with Crackdown 2 back in May, I was enamoured with the game.  You see, I was a huge fan of the original, and everything seemed in place to make Crackdown 2 bigger and better.  In a lot of ways, Ruffian Games did build upon the original, but in their quest for pure gameplay, I couldn’t help but feel something was lacking.

The story is set 10 years after the gang uprisings in the original, and the city is barely controlled by a terrorist group called The Cell, while mutant freaks come out to roam the streets at night.  As the latest generation of bio-engineered super cop for The Agency, it’s your job to clean the turds out of the sandbox that is Pacific City.  As you jump, run, drive and shoot your way through the city, you’ll improve upon your various skills (Strength, Agility, Firearms, Explosives and Driving), which manifest in a very real sense.  Take Strength for example.  When you start out, you can pick up a barrel and wield it as a melee weapon, and by the time you hit the highest level, you’ll be tossing around cars just because you can.  Similarly, while no slouch while jumping at the start, by the time you power up your Agility, you’ll be leaping across city blocks.

Unfortunately, the core missions themselves are very repetitive.  The pattern goes something like this.  There are 9 UV bombs scattered through the city, UV being like kryptonite to the Freaks.  Each of these bombs needs 3 generators to be activated before deployment, and The Cell conveniently controls the generators.  Liberate 3 generators, drop into the Freak lair to deploy the bomb, which you have to defend from Freaks as it warms up, but once it’s gone off, your work is done in that part of town (other than the occasional Freak Breach).

In our interview with Ruffian’s creative director Billy Thomson, he mentioned that other than the first and last mission, it’s totally up to the player how to approach the missions.  There is a pattern of increasing difficulty based on geography, but you don’t have to adhere to that.  When I traveled to a far off part of the city early on, I certainly did get my ass handed to me.  At the same time, I felt if I were a better player, I just MIGHT have made it.  But maybe that was just the hallucinations of grandeur that the game can induce at times.

Luckily, the sequel gives you a larger array of weapons and vehicles to clean up the city, giving you more tactical options.  Besides UV based weapons to deal specifically with the Freaks (I highly recommend the UV Shotgun during Freak Breaches), there are mag grenades you can use to create slingshots out of objects, including but not limited to vehicles.  Speaking of vehicles, the Agency helicopter is a nice addition, and for a 3rd person game, it controls fairly well.  Certainly better than in GTA IV.

The multi-player additions to Crackdown 2 give it some extra replay value, with both co-op and competitive modes.  The rocket tag multi-player is a blast to play through, and while playing co-op, there’s no need for the agents to be nearby at all, working on clearing out different parts of the city.  In fact, when playing the campaign, you can set it so that others can hop into the fray at any given point.  There are a number of Xbox Live Orbs scattered throughout the game as well, which are greyed out when playing single player.

Visually the game is very similar to the original as well, with a hybrid cell shading style that maintains an almost cartoony look, while taking things a bit more grungy than the first.  This makes sense, given that Pacific City isn’t in the same shape as it once was.  The colour palette is just on the right side of the vibrant/garish line.  On the more technical side, there were a number of frame rate drops when things got particularly hectic, but it didn’t get so bad as to be a major distraction.

Agility Orbs and Hidden Orbs are back, along with new ‘Renegade Orbs’, of both Driving and Agility varieties, which move around the city and are meant to be pursued.  These make for interesting diversions from the ‘story’ based missions.  Ruffian hasn’t changed the formula for sounds when it comes to Orbs either, which is probably one of the best use of location based sound in a game.  Some of those Hidden Orbs are REALLY well hidden, but when you’re in the vicinity of one, there a faint hum, even if you pass it by as you’re leaping from a 20 story building.  The algorithm they use to determine the volume and location is just bang on perfect.  In fact, the overall sound design is as solid as the first.  I’m consistently impressed with the ambient sound of the game, from street level to the point where you climb the Agency tower to make the big dive, with street level noise off in the distance.  The audio experience is across the board top notch.

The idea that one can use their sense of sound to track a Hidden Orb speaks to the physicality present in the game, and this is true of the jumping/climbing mechanics, which I just love.  In many ways, Crackdown 2 plays like a sandbox version of Sonic the Hedgehog, with guns and cars thrown in for good measure.  It’s an interesting take on the sandbox game, but it’s not without its flaws.

There’s a passing attempt at story, told through a number of audio logs scattered through Pacific City, but it’s little more than window dressing.  Think of audio logs as just another kind of Orb, and you’ll be okay – maybe.  Although I’m not of the camp that every game has to have a great story, as game design and play mechanics have their own inherent aesthetic value, Crackdown 2 would certainly have benefited from some work in this arena.  They probably would have done well to take a few cues from [Prototype] in this department.

Although [Prototype] isn’t a perfect game, like Grand Theft Auto 4 or just about any other sandbox game, having at least some semblance of a story, no matter how cornball, serves the purpose of guiding the player through the various parts of said sandbox.  One doesn’t have to be restricted to following routes precisely, but a little structure would go a long way.  In the case of Crackdown 2, the combination of lack of story and repetitive missions leads to a lot of random jumping around, and a general not giving a crap about progressing through the world.

It’s a real shame too, because I’m a huge fan of the game mechanics and how it feels to be running, jumping and driving around in Pacific City.  Although the melee combat is of the single button variety, it works well, and the targeting system works well, once you figure it out.  That random jumping around to hotspots, and the actual engagement is great.  In short, I was never bored during my stay in Pacific City, but a little narrative thread hand-holding, and more mission variety would have made this a must buy.  I love so much about this game it’s a shame that Ruffian didn’t quite get the narrative/gameplay balance right.