I was one of the very few people that picked it up the first one for the actual game, and not the beta for Halo 3. I enjoyed the first one, I did really. But I have a horrible problem when I play sandbox games unfortunately; I tend to just run loose in the city and rampage or collect orbs, so I hadn't actually beat Crackdown. So with the help of a friend, we sat down two nights before the game came out, and beat our games(since he hadn't beaten it either). Turns out I was only four bosses away; whodathunkit?
To be honest, I have been waiting for Crackdown 2 for a very long time. Upon day of release, I was off and went to the store and grabbed my copy, happily plopping it in my 360, praying to the game god in the sky that it wouldn't RROD. It booted, albeit loudly, and after a few minutes I was dropped in game. After some droning tutorial, I was set loose to wreak havoc on a new city.
Except it wasn't. It was the same damn city I had just been in two nights before, only kicked around a bit to make it seems like something big had went down. But that was alright, the games "story", was that all hell had been let loose in the city, and I was there to clean it up. To give it that shine that it had before turning into this uninspired mess of a city I haven't seen since Bubsy 3D. So, I let it slide.
I ran around excitedly, shooting the bad guys who decided to shoot at me, who, as it turns out are called Cell. They went and salvaged some old cars and weapons from the old gangs in the last game. These guys are your enemy. You're main enemy. Your only enemy.
"What about the freaks!?", you ask. Well they're, there too. Only they flit around randomly during the day, and come out full throttle at night. But that's it. That's all you have.
There are no bosses. Nothing for me to take over but these random Tactile Points, charging a few beacons, and protecting them until they charged up enough to blast themselves all over the faces of any Freaks within a certain radius. Let me tell you; it gets old quick and after a few of these, the game just seems to get repetitive.
I wandered aimlessly, going where ever my map told me to go, collecting orbs along the way, sometimes coming across "Renegade Orbs". Now these are kind of cool, requiring you to be deft and quick, as these orbs run away from you. Some of them take paths that just make you want to strangle yourself, but it's okay. It was something different.
But the rest of the game wasn't. It was a watered down, copy/pasted version of Crackdown 1. There isn't much more to say about it. I've summed it up.
Oh? The multiplayer. Yeah. Just add three other people to the single player game. There you go. There's your multiplayer. A few friends can help you take over Tactile Points and charge/protect beacons, and that's cool and all, but it doesn't go back to their game. Yes, like in the first one, you still have to help your friend take over the points on his game, then go back to yours and do it all over again; but there truly is no sense of accomplishment in this game. Having to go through the same tripe again, while not satisfying just makes the game seem like you have "events" for "events" sake. I suppose they thought this would make the game last longer. There is also PVP, and you've got Rocket Tag, Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch to choose from. And they all are, exactly what they sound like.
What the hell has Ruffian been doing this whole time? All it seems they did was take out the bosses, add some points, copy and past the city and re-skin it in the most shit brown they could imagine. It took me two days to beat this game, and that's only because I had to work the next day. This should not pass as a sequel; this will not pass as a sequel; not with me, and hopefully not with any of you.
I won't lie to you, as hard as I'm being on this game, it is fun. It's fun to romp around the city with my friends and blast shit to pieces as we collectively run around like so many Batman/Superman spliced hybrids, but, as many others have said, and I'm saying it too; play the demo.
Play it over and over again, and that, my friends, is what it feels like to own this game.
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