Crackdown 2 – Review

Ruffian Games are back again giving gamers a sequel to one of the award winning exclusives on the Xbox 360. Does the sequel hold its freedom? or is just squared off…

Story
The story takes place of you sprawling around the metropolis that was once Pacific City. The city we once knew has now been divided between the Agency, The Cell and the Freaks who are humans infected with a virus. As you would of guess it they are fighting a contentious battle between order and anarchy. The story isn’t the strong point of either of the Crackdown games, Its not so serious so we don’t really have to debate to that fact. The gameplay is Crackdowns strong point.

Gameplay

Crackdown 2 picks up where the first one left of and continues to pull of the gameplay rather well.  Crackdown 2 still follows you having to destroy you enemy’s to level you character up with the XP system. There are now five different classes, agility, strength, explosives, guns and driving for you to achieve XP points for.  There’s a lot of XP’ing this time around for those XP junkies.
As you would of guessed, each of the class’s level based on the actions you have to do to do so. Agility is gained by jumping around roof tops to collect green agility orbs, there are also roof top races with the basic outlook of just getting to A to B. Its nice they put this in since the XP system now has multiple ways to level up your character. The agility orbs have been slightly upgraded in Crackdown 2 since they are more harder to catch, but once you do the XP is rewarding and worth the struggle.

After you are busy running around the roof tops killing the freaks and cell members, it’s time go “nut up, or shut up”… In other words, there’s guns, and lots of nice guns at your disposal.  The list ranges from the standard assault rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers, (which all gain more XP thanks to class system which also allows you to unlock more weapons).  I tend to use the shot guns more, since it kills enemy’s quicker and has a better spread than assault rifles.

Strength out of all the classes, its the most simplest and easiest one to level up. Just keep beating the crap out of your enemy’s and you will just become the next Arnold Schwarzenegger. Its that simple. There’s loads of enemy’s to kill and the best time do so is when the “freaks come out at night”… no seriously loads of enemy’s come out at night to party and you just come along to be the party pooper and get loads of XP.

Now working towards your Driving XP, I am pleased to say the driving is actually improved dramatically. I found in the original Crackdown driving was to hard to handle and I always ended up crashing into a building or just a massive group of enemy’s and dying . You can now find driving orbs scattered around Pacific City which as you would of guessed give you more XP, not forgetting stunt driving also helps you level up. Through out Pacific City you will probably end up gazing at the sky and notice these purple rings. The rings are apart of stunt driving side challenge will with gain you more XP similar to the roof top races.  There’s a lot of awesome vehicles this time around, you can drive in a SUV, Tank and a buggy alogn with police cars. My favourite is the SUV, I just love jumping about… Then again blowing up things with a tank to build up explosive skills is always enjoyable.
One of the noticeable changes to the gameplay is the “aiming” system. This time round I feel Ruffian have messed up badly. The auto-loc on aim really doesn’t do any justice and the majority of the time it will loc on to an explosive barrel of some sort instead of the enemy. Its not avoidable to the point due to the fact blind firing wont get you very far.

Design
The design is where I still have a strong dislike with certain things, Its a mixed boat. The actual level detail is great and is well designed but it isn’t out breaking. It was clear that they wanted to make it a bigger sandbox game but just lacks originality. The effects on the explosions are amazing, when your in combat and you need to clear out a massive bunch of enemy’s just blow up a few gas canisters, cars and you will be having the time of your life. That said when the effects are in place it just looks like effects from an N64 game. The explosions are very pixelated and becomes much noticeable as it seems like they were rendered in a different ratio.

We normally don’t talk about soundtrack/audio in a review unless its mind-blowing. The music in Crackdown 2 is brilliant, Ruffian have chose the right type of music to fit in with the atmosphere of the Crackdown 2 Universe. The audio effects are brilliant also from the cheesy one liners, to the cars smashing into things, breaking, explosions, guns and people dying. Its music to the ears and this does set the atmosphere in Crackdown 2.

Multiplayer
New to the Crackdown engine itself it the new sandbox experience featuring 16 player multiplayer modes with an all new party system.

Crackdown 2 multiplayer is better than expected and really packs in some really good multiplayer modes. The game supports four player online co-op which is great. The host for the online co-op can invite 3 other agents to join them through the campaign.  The bad thing is that the host will only receive the campaign completion. The invited players will still get XP for their agent’s and achievements.

Arenas is the online VS mode for Crackdown 2 which is also great. You have a choice on choosing different types of the multiplayer mode to play, you can choose from Rocket tag, Death Match and Team Deathmatch. Each mode can have up to 16 players to battle through sections of the Pacific City.

During the time of writing this review the online has been working smooth and we can report not issues. Hopefully the servers are strong enough for launch.

Overall
Crackdown 2 is a great sequel and fans on the previous will understand this. Jumping around Pacific City killing Freaks and Cell gang members with 3 other friends brings the enjoyment factor to sky high. Collecting is huge for the ones who want to find the green and purple orbs. The online modes are good but arn’t really inventive but it brings enough to play on short doses. The game looks and feels like the first which isn’t exactly a bad thing but it is a shame to not see really anything new to the table.  Even though the 4 player co-op is in this edition with the multiplayer modes. Crackdown 2 is a game for those sandbox lovers who just love running around and blowing the crap out of Pacific City.  Even with its flaws its still worth picking up.

Story 4 / 5 – Pacific City, The agents are here to save the day with an exciting story.

Gameplay 4 / 5 – Killing mutated humans and gang members is where it is at.

Graphics 3 / 5 – Its just a shame it looks to much like the first.
Soundtrack 5 / 5 – Rave songs on the car radio? funny sound effects. Seems to be a perfect.

Overall Score 4 / 5