Crackdown 2 – Review

Crackdown was a game made for those sandbox junkies who just can’t get enough of ‘messing about’. Jumping on the game with another friend to go and jump around Pacific City was fun, especially with all the crazy stuff you could do. Your creative mind rang a charming agility orb sound every time you stepped foot in to the game, for some strange reason you just felt compelled to collect these glowing green orbs on the tops of buildings.

Crackdown 2 hopes to leap above the original and create an even bigger experience, with more explosions and a competitive multiplayer element. However, does the game once again crack down on crime or is it a complete coalition government of upset and confusion?

Story

Pacific City has once again been thrown in to turmoil since you left, someone left the security doors open. The city has gone to hell. A new gang of vigilantes called the Cell have become the next problem on the streets, they are not afraid to ruin your day job, they’re not the only problem though. At night the city turns into something very different. A recent virus outbreak has caused a outburst in zombie freak like monsters pursuing the street for more flesh at midnight, lots of them.

Shooting dudes never gets old, espcially when you have the option to punch them!

The objectives have you linking up connection a system called ‘Project Sunburst’ which is the equivalent to the UV weapons in a good old Blade movie. You go and connect 3 satellites to charge one beacon in 9 areas of the map. You defend the oncoming freak horde and then rinse and repeat. Same old Crackdown repetition which does kind of ruin the game.

However, just like the original, the story means nothing to you. Ruffian games have set out to make this game just a massive sandbox world which you and a bunch of mates can just go mental for. It is a shame that the game’s opening scene is so awesome but that’s all you get for the game’s rather elusive background story. Shameful, we do like a bit of story with our video games.

Gameplay

Things go boom!

Blow stuff up. Shoot people in the face. Throw cars at fellow peacer-keepers ‘by accident’. Jump onto the highest building and then slam into the ground killing an entire estate full of people. That’s how Crackdown 2 roles and will continue to role when you’ve got 3 of your friends running around with you. The 4 player co-op is definitely a nice touch and is the best part of the game.

If you have played the original Crackdown then you will know what problems the game has which hampers the gameplay. The targeting system is still totally busted and It’s a little odd that they didn’t go about fixing it. You’ll be in a massive firefight but the game will have you targeting a random barrel which is miles out of your sight. Expect the same 5 abilities to upgrade throughout the game. Agility’s 5 star level has you mastering the use of a ‘wing suit’ which allows your to float around the city with an up and down glide,. This takes a little time to get used to however when you’ve mastered it you’ll find yourself getting round the city rather fast. Although you can always just extract and spawn in another place for no cost to your experience.

The city is still bustling with vehicles which can happily jack and take for a roll in, the cars still handle like grandma’ broken Zimmer frame. Throughout my play through I have hardly used the option to drive a car to a destination. Driving is slow, running and climbing up tall buildings isn’t the quickest way around but It’s more fun.

Challenges have returned as well as the agility orb which you can now ping your mini-map infamous style to reveal any orbs in your vicinity. The wing suit has its own challenge rings to fly through and Is most definitely the hardest of all the challenges. Ruffian have also added rogue orbs which have you chasing them around the world. Driving as well as agility, they are both pretty tough and you may even find yourself shouting at the TV as they do like to be cheeky and go back in the opposite direction.

Multiplayer

New to the Crackdown system is the addition of the multiplayer. The game has 3 modes to keep 16 people entertained for the evening. Standard deathmatch and Team deathmatch as well as mode called Rocket Tag.

The online modes give you access to a level 5 super agent so you can use all the abilities that you would get in the single-player. It’s a perfect opportunity to have a mess about with the wing-suit if you haven’t got it in your single player already. You can also jump into random tanks and other deadly vehicles to kill your foes with. It all is a lot of fun killing each other and actually gets rather competitive.

Although there is one massive problem which shadows the experience, balance. The balance of the weapon pickups can totally change your place in the leader board. If you grab the homing rockets, you’ve pretty much won. If you get into a helicopter, you can just rain down hell across the map and no-one will have a chance to eliminate you. It’s gets very annoying and boring very fast. It also doesn’t help that there is a 4x damage multiplier which lasts for a good 30 seconds, so you can wreck havoc with a sniper. Feels under-tested.

It doesn’t end there, ‘Rocket Tag’ is like a game of tag but with rocket launchers! Sounds fun right? Well it is for the guy who is winning by doing the same tactics over and over again. I’ve played a bunch of games online and you can totally take first place by constantly doing the same thing over and over again. The online maps have launch pads which when you jump onto them they will fire you in a specific direction across the map. This helps you get around very quickly from one end of the map to the other. Imagine someone doing a circuit of the map and making sure that they stay in hard to reach areas. Not fun.

It really does feel a shame that the multiplayer does feel tacked on. It would have been good if they had put in a bunch more modes, Capture the flag? Wing-suit dogfights? I don’t know exactly what’s doable but its not the multiplayer you were after.