Crackdown 2 is modeled very similarly to the first Crackdown. The third person open world game-play, with good visuals, epic violence, and super cop status are back and offer a bit more for this iteration. A new feature to the Crackdown franchise is the ability to drive all the different types of vehicles to explore the maps. Also, unlike old Grand Theft Auto games, you have the ability to explore all the areas without being locked out of them until you complete the objectives in one of the areas first.
The green orbs for increasing your agility are back and the skills sets are enhanced as well (i.e. agility is enhanced to jump higher and run faster). The skills are: Strength/Fighting, Driving, Agility, Firearms, and Explosives. To increase your agility you will need to complete Rooftop Races, collect agility orbs/renegade orbs, or killing enemies at high vantage points. To increase your firearms skill you will need to kill enemies using your non-explosive weaponry and mounted gun turrets. To increase the driving skill you will need to complete Road Races, jumping through stunt rings, and collecting Renegade Driving orbs. The explosives skill will be increased by using your explosive weaponry (Rocket Launcher, Grenade Launder) and your different types of grenades. The strength skill will increase as you fight opponents and beat them with anything you can grab or throw, as well as your Charge or Ground Slam (which you will receive as your skill is increased).
The weaponry in the game is basic, and does not offer much in customization. The guns do not include pistols, and are the usual shotgun, rifle, machine gun, rocket and grenade launchers. The grenades are more diverse but are still basic in design with regular grenades, UV grenades (used to kill freaks), proximity mines, and remote mines.
The narration for the game is back from the first Crackdown and provides some humor to the game. For instance, if you die while infiltrating the Freak Lair the narrator will say something to effect as: “…stock up on weapons and attack again when you grow a pair…” After several hours the narration becomes quite annoying and just makes you wish you could turn it off.
The positives for this game are the great visuals, collecting the orbs, achieving the maximum level for your skills, and the open world game-play to do what you wish. Unfortunately, these are all overshadowed by the incomplete game mechanics for movement (jumping/grabbing), finicky targeting system, lag time between pushing buttons and action onscreen, and frame-loss. There are many times throughout the game that there was lag between my own commands and the actions onscreen. The in-game action was so much that the game slowed down with some frame-loss as well.
The game provides a fun environment for gamers in the beginning. Soon enough though, the game becomes monotonous and repetitive with no kind of replay value. The first Crackdown was able to provide a certain amount of progression by going through the different crime bosses throughout the game. As you kept taking out bosses you knew you were getting closer to the end of the game. Crackdown 2 does not do this; they only show you what objectives are needed to be completed in order to finish the game. Your only real enemies are the Cell and the Freaks. The Cell is the organization fighting against the Agency. You are the Agent entitled with supreme gifts to take out the Cell and its leader, Catalina Thorne. Catalina Thorne is the archenemy of the Agency, and is the main reason why the Freaks are destroying the city. The Freaks are the disgusting inhuman species that was mutated by the experimental genetics that Catalina had been doing while working for the Agency years before. As the “Agent” you are to bring peace back to the city and destroy both the Cell and the Freaks.
Unfortunately, the game becomes so repetitive by infiltrating and destroying Cell bases and closing out the Freaks several lairs, that you start to lose interest in the game. It is great fun looking for Orbs, being able to do what you wish, and killing all types of enemies. It just does not take away from what the game is; which is a mindless, repetitive, anti-climactic game that just does not justify its cost of $60. Even with the added-on feature of online only co-operative game-play, the game does not offer much in variety of enemies, or in difficulty.
The game needed actual in-game bosses that you could attack from different points in the game. If this was so you could have more variety of weaponry or gadgets to attack bosses at different times from different points with your friends. Only having enemies and bases to attack was boring and repetitive, and did not offer much in replay value.
If you do not mind a game that will provide an open world to explore and mindless violence, this game will be right up your alley. On the other hand, if you’re a seasoned gamer looking to justify the cost of owning the game, having fun, and with some type of replay value; you will want to look elsewhere. The game itself does not justify the $60 price tag that it has, and should have been offered with another game like the first Crackdown. The review that this game is at least a score of 7/10 or even 7.5/10, I do not believe to be true. You will see the ratings I gave to it below. I hope this review was helpful to you all and please keep visiting the site for more information on everything else!
-Happy Fraggin’
r3c0iL
