I loved the first Crackdown game.  Though I was a little late to the Xbox 360 adpotion party, I showed up in full force and bought Crackdown as my first real game for the console.  Given that I was so fresh to the console and this was really my only primary game for it, I easily spent 3 months in early 2007 playing through it.  I even went as far as to purchase the DLC for the game, though I never found it as challenging and fun as the core game itself.  Suffice it to say, I was a Crackdown whore though.

A couple years later, Real Time Worlds attempted another game called APB.  This was set in a similar environment to Crackdown, but was more focused on becoming the next big MMO, which of course we all know WoW will keep that crown until the end of time.  Since Real Time Worlds was putting all their focus into APB, they pawned Crackdown 2 onto a new studio that had grown out of RTW called Ruffian Games.  I was aprehensive of this at first, but was still loving the idea of a sequel to a game that I spent so many hours and even months on.  Now anyone who has done any amount of serious video gaming should know that you are setting yourself up for failure once you start getting too excited about a game.  It seems best if you just let them sneak up and slap you across the face, as this year’s release of Borderlands showed.  However, I let myself get excited into the hype of Crackdown 2.  Reading previews, watching trailers and developer diaries, I should have known that I was setting myself up for disappointment.

Dell had a deal a few days after release of the game, which they said was a pre-order discount but they were still running it well after the release date.  Taunted by the good deal on the game I placed an order and refreshed package tracking pages in rapt anticipation.  When it arrived I coveted the cover and swooned with dreams of Agent sugarplums in my head.  Putting in the game I found myself in the same world that I had left three years prior, though it looked much more worse for wear.  Controls and game play came easily, and contained the same niggles such as the struggle of getting a proper enemy targeted when in a horde of target-able objects.  I threw myself into the game, looking for new adventures.

For a while, I was honestly entertained.  I built up my skills, explored the world and new game concepts such as closing freak breaches, which proved to be one of my favorites.  The game was fun, but it was nothing new.  There were new objects to play with, like the magnetic grenades that allowed you to suspend objects in midair in springy fashion.  Even these wained my interest quickly and I hunted for more depth in the game.

I didn’t find it.

The entire weak storyline had been stripped from the game, leaving you only a series of tasks to be done in almost any order.  Though the appeal of the open world was there, and great expanses of sandbox to play in, there was so little direction in the game that I felt there was nothing to work towards except a hollow checklist of activities.  Freak breaches closed: check.  Control point controlled: check.  Collect every gun by bringing it back to a checkpoint after I was through a bunch of the game and forgot the mechanic: check.

I spent a good couple weeks in my copious free time hacking and slashing through this game.  I even got most of my skills up to the amazing cap level of 6 (ground pound and the wing suit were fun at this level).  I closed breaches, controlled points, and tried to destroy the infected zombie apocalypse, which seemed to be the only real goal of the game.  More often than not, I found myself frustrated trying to get these goals done.  Freak breaches could only be done at night, and I often found myself crawling across the map to close one, only to have dawn arrive and I can’t work on the objective, which caused me to wander off and forget about it until it was dark again, getting to it just in time for…dawn again.  Arrrgh!  There was one last control point that I needed to complete, but the bulk of the enemies were on the roof of the building above the point.  If I went too far away from the point while climbing the building then it would reset and I would have to start over.  The weapons were satisfying, explosions abound, and I never found myself at a loss to blow things up or mow them down.  Nothing really new to see here, but that was fine as well.  Graphics were also about the same.  With a texture filled cell shaded world it is a style I’ve come to like a lot, though it’s not really pushing the pixels that hard.

Orbs were a big part of the last game and this iteration was no different.  I found them easier to get in many areas and had mighty asparations to get them all this time.  I was also excited about online co-op, since the previous game didn’t perform well in this area at all.  Needless to say, I didn’t get all the orbs because my lack of enthusisiam preventing me from wanting to stay in the game long enough to do so.  To be honest, the orb hunting was one of the highlights of this game for me.  I easily spent hours doing nothing but this.  In the end though, it wasn’t enough to keep me going.  Co-op never happened either since no one I knew had gotten this game.  Better luck next time.

Overall I was left unsatisfied.  I wanted it to be the sequel of a lifetime.  What I got was less of an overall game, put out as a quick money shot for a publisher, riding on the successes of a prior title.  Had this game even been given the shallow storyline treatment of the first game, or better yet sliding even closer to a GTA title, it would have done so much towards giving the game structure.  Instead I didn’t even bother finishing it, and it goes into my Goozex queue of shame.  I pour out a drink for my homie Crackdown 1, may you rest in sweet peace in my gaming memories.

– Ben Mazhary-Clark

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