The original Crackdown for me holds a very special place in my heart. For the most part, it’s largely responsible for the creation of this website - it solidified my love of cooperative gaming. In fact, Crackdown may be the game I’ve spent the most time with this generation - putting well over 40 hours into the original - and there’s still stuff left to do. So how is Crackdown 2 going to match up with it? What quirks and hooks can developer Ruffian Games add to the Crackdown formula to make it bigger, badder and more addictive? The answer? It doesn’t take much.
A lot of people look for sequels to take everything the original game did to the next level, to change up the formula, and to feel like a totally different game. Crackdown 2 isn’t that game, and to me that’s a good thing. You’re back in Pacific City, now in ruins after a virus has broken out unleashing hordes of freaks on the population. There’s only one gang this time, the Cell, which controls key sections of the city as it tries to fight back the growing freak problem. Once again you’re an agent for the Agency, a police organization hell bent on bringing order and government to Pacific City. Sadly there’s only four characters to choose from for your agent, and all are nearly identical. Add to the fact that once you hit level two in a few skills your agent gets a helmet thrown on, and you miss that “look at my avatar” feeling the first game had in co-op.
You’ll still be working to level up your Agents five base skills: agility, guns, strength, explosives and driving. Completing actions in any of these categories will collect mini orbs to level up your character, and you can supplement the XP increase by finding other orbs too. While the lower levels rank up pretty quickly, it will take you a bit longer to max out your agent. Depending on how effecient you are it’ll be around the 10 hour mark of play.
Supply points have been replaced with tactical locations and in these the Agency will drop you, weapons, and vehicles for your battle with Cell and the Freaks. These locations appear more frequently than supply points did in the first, and they require liberation of more than one section of the city at a time to achieve. If you don’t take back all tactical locations in a group, Cell has a chance to regain once you’ve conquered - creating an ebb and flow to the game world.
The big mission of the game is to capture beacons to create power grids for the Agency’s light mass bombs. These power grid triangulates over a Freak lair and allows you to conquer it much like you conquered a gang bosses territory in the first game. These lairs live deep underground and require a survival style mission as waves of Freaks try to stop the bomb from going off. As you get deeper and deeper into the game the Freaks get bigger and badder, they become larger in numbers, and the presence of a co-op partner makes these missions much less frantic and more strategic. The Freaks aren't the only enemies that get more difficult, Cell finds themselves getting more well equipped with armor and bigger guns trying to take down your efforts to save them from the Freaks.
The missions are only half the fun in Crackdown 2, now there’s a larger focus on collectibles and things to do. Orb types have been beefed up from two to five, with co-op orbs, renegade agility and renegade driving joining your standard agility and hidden orbs. Co-Op orbs require at least two people to pick up and the renegade orbs require you to chase them down to get them. In a way they replace the rooftop races and driving races in terms of earning bonuses for completing them, though both races are still present in the game. There’s also four kinds of audio logs to collect, each one from a different character presenting the back story of Crackdown 2.
There’s a few other standout improvements in Crackdown 2. Graphically the game is cleaned up a bit, textures are sharper, and the draw distance is just as large as before. More explosives objects litter the world making the beautiful explosions even bigger and better than before. There game also contains, surprisingly, a lot of licensed music that you’ll hear from cars and speakers that Cell has placed at the entrances of their sections to scare of Freaks and spout propoganda. There’s also some really nice ambient pieces that play as you complete objectives througout the game.
While a lot of the old weapons have returned, and shown some marked improvement, there’s also a lot of new guns to load in your arsenal. The UV based weapons are great against Freaks, and fun to shoot your friends with to boot. There’s also some new explosives like the mag which creates beams of attraction between objects and the satchel which allows you to stick a bomb to a car (or other object) and remotely detonate it. You’ll unlock different weapons, explosives, and vehicles as you level up your agent - or you can find them in the game world and store them at tactical locations like the first game. Your agent also has new abilities like the charge maneuver and the wing-suit for gliding.
The co-op has been improved in every way. With the addition of four player co-op, I was a bit worried about network playability - the first game was pretty notorious for that. Thankfully the game handles the four agents nicely, though when the action gets pretty crazy the game itself slows down. Players can now revive each other and the co-op orbs help keep groups of people together - though you don't have to stick together. However there is one glaring omission, your progress in co-op games is not saved unless you are the host. You can still build your agent and level him up, but any supply points or UV bombs you launch in co-op don't get counted towards your city.
Crackdown 2 is essentially Crackdown on crack. I know, I know, that’s a cop out way of describing it. But it truly is everything you loved about the original game with plenty of more things to do and minor improvements all around. For some this might not make a true sequel, but like the original, the game is what you make of it. Co-Op doubles, triples, and quadruples the fun - and solid online code makes it much more enjoyable. Add in versus modes and Crackdown 2 has some serious legs.
Now in true co-op fashion, we’re going to talk about some of the co-op experiences the Co-Opticrew had in Pacific City during their Crackdown 2 excursions.
Experiences from Pacific City
Loren "AgtFox" Halek
Unlike the rest of the gang, I wasn’t so high on the original Crackdown. It was enjoyable, but at some point it just became boring to me, even the addicting orb collection. Also unlike the rest of the gang, I generally play and enjoy single-player games over co-op/multiplayer ones. Even when I played with the gang, I ended up going my own way because I wasn’t leveled up in my agility like others were and they were able to get to the top of a building whereas I couldn’t. The great thing is that Crackdown 2 allows you to go anywhere in the hosts’ game and there is no invisible fence or anything.
Playing co-op was quite enjoyable and anything you pick up from an orb perspective translates to your own game whether you play single-player or enter into another co-op game. The only bad thing I noticed in co-op play was where there was a lot going on and all four players were in the same place, there was some major slowdown. Outside of that, play was quite smooth. As I play through by myself I find there are some areas that would certainly benefit from additional people helping you, but I was able to persevere by myself.
From a co-op perspective I think this is a really good pickup and the overall story is far more tight. Gone are the assassination missions and the divided gangs. Now there is only the Cell and the Freaks with the ability to go after any available mission you want. The game plays much the same as the original, the same concept is there.
Mike "pheriannath" Katsufrakis
Crackdown is my favorite example of a sandbox game. While there are some loose guidelines for how to “complete” the story, the real star is the fun you make for yourself. The same is true of the sequel. Though we’d often get four players into our sessions, we’d waste a ton of time powersliding though freaks during the nighttime hours, orb hunting, cackling at each other when we’d miss a jump and fall 50 stories to our death. It became especially fun once I acquired the homing rocket launcher, which I would use with flagrant disregard for the safety of my nearby co-op buddies. Luckily, Ruffian included the ability to revive your co-op partner.
It’s great fun to revisit old areas of Pacific City, especially when you don’t recognize a location at first. During our co-op sessions, we were constantly remarking about how a place has changed, or how we remembered that a particularly tough to get orb was hidden in a place that is now easily accessible in the sequel.
I don’t really miss the gang structure of the original game, and while the Cell faction isn’t particularly interesting, the dynamics of capturing their territory makes taking them out more pressing than the gang leaders in the original. To lock down an area, you’ll have to take between 1 and 3 Cell-controlled areas out, and failing to capture all three within a certain amount of time will allow Cell to recapture them. It forces you to focus on completing the objectives, as we found out when we decided to start hunting for green, glowing crack rather than finish the job we started.
This is a worthy sequel for anyone who was a fan of the original, and I can only hope Ruffian releases some more keys to this city.
Kat "ShadokatRegn" Pawlowski
With any sequel it can be expected to see familiar elements as well as many new experiences. Crackdown 2 completes both of these objectives with perfect style. For instance, you can still climb and reach outstanding heights, but now your agent is much more likely to grab a ledge that he may have missed by that much. Climbing is much less frustrating alone, as well as in co-op since it’s a lot harder to punt your buddy clear across the map if you accidentally land on their head.
I was a bit disappointed we didn’t have morphing Agents in this round of Crackdown, like the guy with dread locks changing as you gained skills, or the one with the mask - but the only real flaws were purely aesthetic. The armor still morphs as you progress your skills, and are available in a few colors (four of which are a pre-order exclusive). I feel the agents just lost a bit of the individuality of the characters - Maybe that is the goal in some sick, twisted way. The cars losing the ability to morph didn’t phase me as much, and driving is a lot easier to handle at the lower skill rank.
Of course, there are also the very familiar things that we all love from the original, like blowing everything up - and I mean, everything. I thoroughly enjoyed blowing up Freaks, Cell, and even myself and company. Sometimes it’s annoying to be hit by a stray rocket, but mostly I just laughed at how far I’d be launched in the blast. The original charm and enjoyment factor is fully intact for Crackdown 2. Overall I’d say they did a phenomenal job at fixing what was broken, and leaving the rest well enough alone.
Jim "txshurricane" McLaughlin
I love the new look of Pacific City, but honestly I don’t see much resemblance to the original. Maybe I’m missing the major landmarks...I just feel like it’s a different city altogether. There are a ton of new handholds and ledges (I’m especially thankful for the ability to grab the sides of lateral pipelines); unfortunately, I’m finding that I have a harder time grabbing the smaller ledges. The new Renegade Orbs (Orbs that you have to catch, either on foot or by vehicle) are a stroke of genius and just as addicting as collecting the classic stationary Orbs.
In addition to the new Orbs and climbing environments, my appreciation also goes to the “Regenerate” experience: you can quickly hop back into the action at the nearest drop spot, or choose one anywhere in the world. If you go the long route (choosing to Regenerate manually), you are given choice of weapons and vehicle to spawn with. It’s really handy, and I found myself sometimes committing self-inflicted atrocities...just to come back with a full loadout and a shiny new vehicle.
The plot in Crackdown 2 seems much better thought out, to me, although there is still a lingering odor of repetitiveness (activate that thingy, Agent...now go activate that other thingy, Agent) - which is where ingenuity and co-op come in. True to the original Crackdown, the game is what you make of it. That’s great for some people; not so much for others.
Finally, a quick word on versus multiplayer: it’s serviceable. I like that word, because it describes the versus modes as being decent enough, but makes it clear that I was not overly impressed. Fun for about an hour, the versus multiplayer plays a bit like Halo in third person - it played well enough. As you level up, you gain access to nifty perks - like the glidesuit - but after my first 45 minutes I hadn’t reached level 2 yet...and with minimal matchmaking support, a lack of personal progress tracking, and very little player customization, I knew this wasn’t the type of competitive multiplayer that would suck me in long enough to get anywhere above level 1 or 2 anyway.
Nick "bapenguin" Puleo
For me Crackdown 2 allows a lot more of those “little moments” that make the game so much fun. It’s not necessarily completing the story with friends that makes the game so enjoyable, it’s the crazy things your co-op crew tries to set up. The UV weapons are a great addition to this, as there were numerous times I’d try to blast my partner up to a higher ledge or over an area without him taking much damage. Ragdoll physics are still as funny as ever.
With three other agents by your side and a ramped up AI difficulty, it’s always great when backup arrives. Numerous times I’d quickly become over run at a tactical location and after calling for help (usually after dieing) it’s awesome to see one or two agents stomp into the field of view knocking enemies around and reviving you. The chaos that can ensue from three or four agents with rocket launchers and cluster grenades is absolutely beautiful. It’s beautiful destruction.
I absolutely loved seeing all the familiar landmarks of the original, now in rubble. It's really interesting to see how the city dynamic has changed because of the wear and tear. Familiar areas feel fresh and new, but still have that nostalgiac factor.
One thing that surprised me with Crackdown 2 was the sheer scale of of the Freaks. While they played a minor part in the first game, there’s a large variety of them. Not only that - there number of Freaks on the screen at any one time is incredibly impressive. As they fill the roadways it’s so satisfying to blow them up, or better yet, run them over in explosions of green goo with a vehicle.
At one point a friend and I were over looking the old quarry from a building and the entire thing was completely filled with Freaks as far as we could see.
“Wow, that’s really impressive, “ I exclaimed.
“There’s only one thing to do,” he said, “lets find a car.”