CRACKDOWN 2Formats: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Format Reviewed: Xbox 360
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Developer; Ruffian Games
Release Date: 9th July 2010
Score: 85%
Back in 2007 when Crackdown was released, most people knew it simply as “that game what came free with the Halo 3 beta”. It was what they like to refer to as a “sleeper hit”, sidling into the market on the back of Microsoft’s biggest Xbox cashcow and taking everyone by surprise by actually not sucking at all. To be fair, it was the fact that Realtime Worlds’ little gem was really a rough diamond that endeared us all to it. It didn’t feel big budget, it didn’t feel pretentious, it was just a game that let you blow stuff up, jump over buildings and become addicted to collecting hundreds of little orbs. It never claimed to be anything else, and as a result was one of 2007’s best games and remains one of the 360’s most enjoyable breakout hits.
It was also a game that was always going to have a sequel made eventually, not only because of its surprise success, but also because, when examined closely, it still needed some work. A largely repetitive mission structure was only tempered by the ability to wreak cel-shaded havoc across an entire city and bounce around the place like the Incredible Hulk on his tenth cup of coffee. The enemies were fairly samey, the weapons weren’t particularly inspired and the skills of your Agent were unbalanced. Still, the game garnered respect and adoration because of these flaws, and not in spite of them, and remains a tutorial in how to make contemporary videogames fun – something which a lot of developers forget these days whilst trying to create the next best “interactive movie experience”.
The thing about Crackdown 2, though, is that nothing has really improved in the last 3-and-a-bit years, with new developers Ruffian Games adhering fairly closely to Realtime Worlds’ original template. Don’t get me wrong, the game itself is incredibly fun, but it’s hard to shake the feeling whilst playing that it’s really just Crackdown 1.5. Without clarification that statement sounds derogatory – unfair, even – but in actual fact the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” rule allows for an equal number of pros and cons.
For example, you still take control of a personality-deficient cloned “Agent”, complete with ugly chiselled mug and sarky handler (whose voiceover begins to grate within the first few hours). The difference is that this time you’re encouraged to be even further distanced from your avatar when, upon gaining your first level (more on those later) the game slaps a generic super-soldier-esque helmet over your fugly Chevy Chase. Honestly, whoever at Ruffian came up with the idea to do-away with the frighteningly-tattooed Maui Agent from the first game needs to be smacked in the face with a wet fish until they learn the error of their ways. Still, a soulless automaton the protagonist may be, but he gets the job done. Mostly because the “job” in question is blowing seven shades of snot out of anything and everything that moves. Well, you’re penalised for killing civilians, admittedly, but you won’t give a damn when you’re swinging your ride around corners trying to beat your best time in the road races, or targeting a terrorist’s fuel-tank to blow his car sky-high like a rusty firework.
Publishers Microsoft’s PR department was clearly once again in full-on “keep-smiling-whilst-bullshitting-everyone” mode in the lead up to Crackdown’s release, since the promise of a “story” was largely hot-air. The much-vaunted narrative is actually a pretty bog-standard tale and manages to amount to even less of a mission structure than the original title. A virus is spreading through Pacific City, causing infected citizens to turn into mutated Freaks after dark, whereupon they erupt from their lairs onto the streets to murder, maim and generally harangue the public. Meanwhile, a terrorist organisation named Cell has taken key areas of the city as strongholds from which to propagate its campaign of terror. During the day, Cell is the main antagonist, whilst after sunset the Freaks emerge, filling the roads with what amount to hundreds of squishy speed-bumps. Despite the ending of the first game giving us a fairly strong hint that all is not as it seems and that Cell are probably the good guys and the Agency are somehow behind the Freak crisis, the blinkered citizens of Pacific City have once more turned to the superhuman Agents to clean up the mess.
In a campaign mode that manages (somehow) to be a dumbed-down version of the first game’s, you are required to retake tactical locations from Cell and activate Beacons to eradicate the Freaks. The former is achieved by locating the C-logo in each stronghold and calling in air support whilst standing on it. You then have to take out a certain amount of Cell personnel before a message announces that the location is now under Peacekeeper control. It sounds simple, and is, but it’s also incredibly fun in its simplicity. The weapons are much more balanced in this game, the combat that much more satisfying – particularly once you’ve played for a few hours and have increased your skills sufficiently. Once a location belongs to your guys, you can use it to call in weapon and vehicle drops whenever you need some new gear, which is fairly often. Each stronghold is comprised of three tactical locations, and all must be taken to prevent Cell from reclaiming their ground.
Activating the Beacons is slightly more complicated, but still pretty straightforward. This requires the location and retaking of Absorption Units, devices that convert sunlight into UV energy. Activating three will triangulate beams of said energy on a nearby Freak lair, inside of which is a target area. The idea is to get in, call down a Beacon, and then defend it from wave after wave of Freaks until it’s sufficiently “charged” to unleash a huge UV explosion and wipe out every mutated monster in the immediate vicinity. Again, simple yet fun – although with 27 Absorption Units to activate for a total of 9 lairs, it does begin to wear thin after a while.
Thankfully, though, Crackdown 2 is full of stuff to waste time on. Besides random encounters with Cell or Freaks, and closing down Freak lairs after dark, there are also checkpoint races dotted around the city (as in the first game), colour-coded purple for vehicle races and green for on-foot agility runs across the rooftops. There are also special stunt locations to uncover for the motor-headed nutcases out there – not to mention the Orbs.
Anyone who played the first game will likely attest that without the inclusion of the hard-to-reach Agility Orbs it wouldn’t really have been all that. Bearing such truths in mind, Ruffian have spread 500 of the blighters across the map, as well as 300 blue Orbs containing experience for all 5 skills. Adding to the blissful frustration are the Renegade Agility or Driving Orbs, flighty little beggars that bugger off as soon as you get close to them. Chasing them down is hair-tearingly touch-and-go, requiring keen reflexes and a lot of patience, but the satisfaction when you catch one is second to none within the game.
Similarly to Crackdown, there are 5 skills to increase throughout the game, each by 5 levels. “Strength” experience is earned through melee combat, and each level increase your health, power and size, eventually allowing you to hurl vehicles at your enemies and perform devastating ground slams. The “Driving” skill unlocks faster, more durable vehicles and is improved by pulling stunts and mowing down enemies (take your car for a spin at night through Freak-infested roads for insane boosts that more than correct the Driving skill imbalance from the first game). “Explosives” does what it says on the tin, each level unlocking bigger bombs and better grenades, not to mention increasing the radius and damage of your explosions. “Shooting” improves accuracy and opens up a huge assortment of weaponry, whilst “Agility” boosts your running speed and jump height, and at level 5 grants you one of the game’s best new toys, the Wingsuit – and yes, it does pretty much what the name implies.
Perhaps the biggest improvement in Crackdown 2 over its predecessor is the multiplayer, particularly the 4-player Co-op mode. Whilst the PvP modes are fun (who wouldn’t love Rocket Tag with 16 players that can jump forty feet in the air?), the co-operative aspect is crazy fun. Tear-arsing around the city like a bunch of tooled-up chimps only loses points due to the ease with which you can just drift apart and do your own thing. It would have benefitted from a stricter, more focused mission set in co-op, but it’s ridiculously bombastic fun nonetheless.
The cel-shaded, comic-booky graphical style from the first game is maintained to wonderful effect, still a welcome break from the Unreal Brown™ palette that colours 99% of shooters on the current market. The visuals are vibrant and sharp, never even attempting to trick your mind into thinking anything you’re seeing is real. The grimy, gritty solidity of sandbox titles like Prototype may appeal to the more mature-minded gamers out there, but there’s no denying that Crackdown 2 is beautiful to watch. Sound effects are par for the course, full of rat-a-tat-tatting machine gun fire, meaty explosions, screeching tyres and tortured metal – but the goddamned voiceover will have many gamers chewing off their own bottom lip in a self-flagellant rage. Or maybe that was just me.
It would be nice to see more customisation in the inevitable threequel, perhaps with the ability to create a truly unique Agent for use both on- and offline. Interchangeable heads, armour, colours and emblems would add much-needed personality to the protagonist, and really isn’t outside of the console’s abilities. Oh, and please, Ruffian (or whoever ends up developing Number 3), let us wreck buildings next time. We want to bring skyscrapers crashing to the ground around us, levelling entire city blocks in multiplayer in an effort to score just one more kill. We want to be able to set charges up and down the street, Mercenaries-style, and find a nice safe vantage point to watch from as we blow the cel-shaded shite out of Pacific City, just for the hell of it. We don’t need a third retread of the first game, we need everything ramped up to 20 with a cherry on top, if you please.
That said, on balance it’s fair to say that Ruffian Games achieved 100% of what they intended to with Crackdown 2, but probably only because they didn’t really intend to do that much. Formulaic missions broken up by free-form, sandbox mayhem create a gameplay dynamic that genuinely does stand in a league of its own, but doesn’t distance itself nearly enough from its much-loved predecessor. On the surface, Pacific City is bigger and more vertical than before, the enemies are thicker and quicker, the Orbs are more plentiful and the controls are far tighter, but on the whole, Crackdown 2 ain’t no revolution. Fortunately for us, it ain’t trying to be, either.
Words by Mick Fraser
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