Review: Crackdown 2

This is a guest review.

To my knowledge, there’s only one game in the world that lets you team up online with three friends playing as super-powered SWAT agents, make a rendezvous by leaping over skyscrapers, pile everyone into (and onto) one car, tear down the street at 100 mph (rendering a road-clogging zombie horde into a messy green spray), then crash that car into a terrorist hideout in an explosion that rips through most of the bad guys inside. That game is Crackdown 2, and for that reason Crackdown 2 is ridiculously fun.

The problem I find is four-player co-op is really the only new feature this title brings to the table despite this, Crackdown 2 is still a heap of fun, especially with on 4 player co-op. Again the game its self has stuck so close to the original it seems like it lacking effort, maybe the dev’s where to scared to try something different or they thought why change a successful formula as the original game was such a hit? Who knows. The sequel looks and feels more of an add-on pack than a true sequel. And I feel that a full price title is far from deserved. Just be sure to recruit a few friends to make the most of the experience. Crackdown gave players a crime-ridden city skape as a playground. The main mission almost didn’t matter, it seemed more of a side line and the focus stuck to exploring and collecting hundreds of collectables. The game its self was far from perfect, but it was completely addictive and fun to play.

The sequel is essentially the same game with mainly cosmetic changes. And again as the original, players encouraged to explore Pacific City, which is pretty much the exact same city as before, the difference is that this time many of the most landmarks have been damaged, and the city is overrun with zombies (Freaks) at night. The Freaks are a strange gimmick to begin with, it seem like the zombies have just been added to beef up the game.

The most disappointing thing from the original Crackdown was that by the end of the game, you’d become so powerful that the last few missions felt almost pointless. As high-level Agent you could simply wade through huge mobs of pathetic bad guys, and even when killing most bosses you would hardly have to break a sweat. In my opinion what Crackdown really needed were enemies on that where on the same level as an Agent, bringing more skill to the game. But instead the developers have taken a different route, rather than challenging players with smarter deadlier enemies, they just flood the screen with a rabble and hope the numbers win the day.

For the first few hours of play the zombies actually pose a small threat, but as your skills increase it becomes simple to annihilate crowds of zombies with a missile or even a ground-punch shockwave (like stepping on ants). Eventually the some super zombies make an appearance, but even these tend to be no problem unless they spawn outside your range of vision and knock you down with a cheap hit from behind.

To me it’s bad enough that the game’s missions feel extremely poor in comparison to Crackdown’s pathetic campaign objectives; but even Pacific City feels far less interesting this time around. I think part of my growing dislike is down to contempt for familiarity; so much of the in-game world up to and including the placement of many of the objects is simply carried over from the original title. Even the city itself is less exciting; it’s dark and grimy, where the older version of Pacific City stood apart from its HD-generation peers through its use of hyper-saturated colours. There’s none of the originality from the first title, the city is decaying and crumbling.

Despite all of its failings, Crackdown 2 is still a lot of fun, especially with friends. The way it sticks so close to the original game definitely serves to highlight its lack of effort, but this ensures that the core of what made Crackdown so good is repeated here as well. There’s no question that Crackdown 2 is a mere shadow of the first game, which will always be an absolute classic. And as I said earlier this sequel feels more like a cheap add-on pack than a true follow up. Still this instalment is extremely addictive and I suspect that Crackdown fans will be more than happy for an excuse to revisit Pacific City.

Personal opinion: Wait to get a copy pre-owned… do not pay the full retail price.