Crackdown has been one of my favorite games this generation. I was so up for it I had it pre-purchased before the Halo 3 beta was announced. It was pure, stupid fun and the idea of an open world game with superhuman powers seemed like the ultimate no-brainer.
It seemed to be a brief blast of fun as MS seemed to have no desire to sequelize it and Realtime Worlds went on to make the rather-poor APB. Then, it turned out that Ruffian Games was producing a sequel to my fave game this gen.
Say hello to 2010's Disappointment of the Year.
Its not that Crackdown 2 is bad. It is quite a lot of fun. Its just the EXACT SAME GAME AS THE ORIGINAL. The story isn't as good and draw distance looks better (the original had insanely good draw distance as well, but this one seems more impressive), but otherwise, there is almost no difference. You still power up skills by using them. You still hunt orbs. Driving still is terrible until you level up. I will say that while I can appreciate the attempt to make the two games connected by having the same city that was being liberated in the first game being partially destroyed...but it just makes the game, overall, a bit uglier.
You are a new agent trying to rid Pacific City of a new terrorist group (cleverly called The Cell) while dealing with zombie-like (called the Freaks). Already, we have some darned uninspired names here. You are seeking to help the Agency pump UV light underground to wipe out the Freaks. So you have to set up 3 absorption units, which power beacons, which will produce the light.
That is the game. You do the same thing repeatedly. Don't you just feel the plot developments?
You don't feel as if you advance at all, something the original did (while you can argue that there wasn't a great deal of advancement, I did like how you could attempt to take out the gang leader early on, but dealing with his minions makes the battle markedly easier). And the missions are identical. And easy. I did die on one mission, which was much more difficult than the other missions...making some REALLY uneven changes in difficulty). The toughest missions are the optional side missions, which allow you conquer Cell territory which will feature lots of people firing lots and lots of rockets at you or shut down Freak escape routes, which lowers the overall enemy encounter rate during main missions.OK, the freak missions aren't difficult, at all, but the Cell ones really are. Annoyingly so, as it usually consists of you being hit with a rocket, being unable to get up before another one hits, and dealing with 6 or so in a bloody row.
To be honest, this game does nothing different than the original...and does some stuff worse. This game is more repetitive and the story is worse. The orb collection is still there with the only addition being Renegade orbs, which run away from you...making more annoying than a fun challenge. I have wonders if Ruffian is so much a game developer as somebody quite good and simply Xeroxing game codes and makes moderate changes here and there.