Taken to new heights? Or flat on the ground?
Three years ago gamers piled to the local game store to pick up Crackdown. Not because it looked like an interesting take on the sandbox genre, but more to the point it came with a Halo 3 multiplayer beta code. What should have been a poor game that needed a big name attached to make it sell, surprised many by actually being a kickass action game. One that took GTA's open city approach and raised it by 300ft, literally. We loved jumping across the rooftops seeking out every last orb, and we enjoyed hunting down the ganglords and bringing peace to Pacific City. It's a fair point to say that it was a basic game, but one we would gladly see develop into something bigger and much better. Along comes Crackdown 2. There's no beta code attached to this one, and success is reliant solely on the surprise impact of its predecessor.
Crackdown 2 returns to Pacific City, albeit one that's a lot more run down and decaying. This time there's something more sinister going down than just a few trigger happy ganglords roaming the rooftops. By day the Agency has to take on the ruthless Cell, a large group hell-bent on seeing the fall of the Agency. By night the freaks come out to play (as seen briefly in Crackdown 1). The mutants run terror around the streets, and they also don't take kindly to Agents. It's your task to clear out the freaks and the Cell, and once again make Pacific City a lovely place to live.
Rather than progress the gameplay and make missions more interesting, Crackdown 2 takes the same approach as the first one. Rather than hunting down master criminal and his lackeys, the repetitive main missions this time revolve around activating Absorption Units and then protecting a beacon deep in the freak's lair. There are nine beacons in total, but before you can begin the arduous task of activating it, you need to seek out three protected Units, spread around the area, and stand on a trigger to charge it up. Once this is done you're off underground to protect a charging beacon as hundreds of mutants have their mind set on destroying it. Rinse and repeat eight more times, then onto two final missions, game done!
The beacon protection can be relatively challenging to stupidly difficult, depending on which of numerous difficulty settings you wish to play it on. While at first they may seem a tad easy, before long giant mutants (and several of them) appear to inflict massive damage. If you're not levelled up enough then this will feel like mission impossible, with a few broken control pads, but with high explosives skill they are relatively easy. If sadistic is a little too, well, sadistic for you, thankfully the difficulty can be changed any time you load up a game, with no negative affect on achievements or trophies (if they're your thing). Alternatively, you can team up with three other players online to make a challenging task a walk in the park.
This is the main game of Crackdown 2, no mission variety, just more repetition. However, there are many more side quests to divulge in if you're seeking Pacific City enjoyment, many more hours of play and 100% completion. There's the Cell bases and Freak hides, which basically involve killing every last enemy in the area, or until the voice over says you've done enough. There are also roof top races, plus more incentive to use cars, with timer races, stunt jumps and fast moving orbs, but you'll still most likely ignore the vehicles as the rooftops is where you'll want to be. Why? Because the Agility Orbs also make a return.
There are 500 normal, plus 300 hidden, and even orbs that run away from you and Xbox Live only orbs. Once again the more orbs you collect the higher and further you'll be able to jump, meaning an exit from a troubled area is literally one jump away, and that tall building suddenly won't feel so tall anymore. Agility orbs always seem be the priority, even if you're in the middle of a hostile area having several rockets blasted up your ass, it's generally a case of "must get that orb even if it kills me." Naturally you'll find them thick and fast, and when you get to around 400 it starts becoming a painful task, not to mention the last 10. It's not as if a walkthrough guide can help you either as you can't exactly remember which ones you've already got! Still, the Agility Orb in Crackdown is by far the most sought after collectable in any sandbox game, mainly due to the increased super powers you get for collecting them.
It's not just your agility you can upgrade, as cars, firearms, explosives and strength can also be upgrades just by using each of them. The higher you level up the more bigger and badder it becomes - stronger weapons, faster cars, bigger explosions, you can even ground slam and unlock a glide suit to spare yourself from death from a bad jump off a tall building. Helicopters are also controllable now, but this is only if you manage to stumble upon one as they're never actually introduced in the game surprisingly. The downside to the levelling up is the ridiculously small level cap, which is only level 5. Sure, some can take many hour to cap, but I had maxed out strength within the first two hours of play by merely beating the crap out of Freaks for a while. This is another factor that takes away any chance Crackdown 2 has of becoming an "epic" sandbox.
It's just a bit of fun though, and was no doubt 'not' developed with delusions of high critical acclaim and numerous awards in mind. While the single player will give you 15 hours of fun, depending on how far you want to go with it away from the main quest, the game is more fun when played online with friends. You can go through the whole experience with three other friends or simply shoot your friend with a rocket launcher and run away. In Pacific City you can create your own fun, which is what you should do if you want to get the most out of the game.
Liking Crackdown 2 depends on your opinion of the first game. If repetition and more of the same is what you want from this adventure, then you'll hold Crackdown 2 in high regard. It's still fun to jump around the city, collecting every orb, and it's still fun blasting away at enemies. If you want a game that develops on from the first one you won't find it here. If you've never played Crackdown before, perhaps you'll find more enjoyment in part 2 than the veterans would.
Back in 2007 super powers in a large city was a new concept, before Prototype and InFamous. Now crackdown 2 looks towards those two for inspiration. It's basically copy, paste, insert monsters and some new objectives, and call it Crackdown 2. Many would no doubt much prefer this as premium Crackdown 1 DLC, and have the developer take a whole new approach and new city for this sequel.
While it may have the "been there, done that" factor and it's extremely repetitive, Crackdown 2 still has enough to draw you in. You'll be determined to protect every beacon, clear out every Cell base, level up every power, and most importantly - find every last damn orb. It can be fun while it lasts, but it won't be remembered. If there's going to be a Crackdown 3, I hope the game can move on and develop into something a lot more special.
Positives:- Online co-op
- It's fun
- More objectives
- Some badass weapons and vehicles
- Repetitive missions
- Same city
- More of the same in general
