Crackdown 2 won’t be bounding its way to UK stores till July 9th. But that didn’t stop us getting our hands all over the highly-anticipated sequel to the Xbox 360 classic at a secret preview.
Crackdown 2 is a direct sequel to the original. It follows the events of Pacific City where a virus has spread throughout infecting its population, turning them into city-ravaging ‘Freaks’.
Complicating things further, an underground resistance called The Cell has taken matters into its own meddling hands, having lost faith in the Agency and its ability to restore order. The Cell plan to sabotage the Agent program and attack your side – the Agency. As in the prequel, players reprise their role as Agents to bring peace to Pacific City. But with a three-way free-for-all between the Agency, The Cell and the Freaks, things get a little messy.
But before we got our hands on Crackdown 2, we got to hear from its producer, James Cope on the developer’s thoughts and ambitions for the sequel.
As we sat down, Ruffian Games booted the game up from somewhere in the middle of the game’s story, before telling us that Crackdown 2 will be one of the most “immersive fun action experiences” around. As per the original, players can expect over the top action and destruction.
The original had plenty of hidden extras for players to locate. Crackdown 2 follows in the same vein. Cope explained how Crackdown 2 will reward gamers according to how they play. As usual, players will level up depending on how they attack Crackdown 2′s challenges. For example, use a melee combat often and you’ll enhance your strength stats.
The day/night cycle will also have an impact on gameplay. It’s not just an aesthetic touch. Cope told us that Ruffian Games doesn’t do mere aesthetic touches. Every design choice has to affect the gameplay. During the day Agents fight against the Cell. Nightfall is when the freaks come out. According to Cope it’s an attempt to deliver a gameplay contrast, and to humble players. During the day players feel like superheroes. But at night, with hundreds of Freaks emerging from the sewers players are soon overwhelmed despite the enormous array of firepower at their disposal. The Freaks just keep on coming. The more you kill, the more they come back at you.
And what about the weapons? There’s plenty. And vehicles. We were shown the Agency Helicopter as one example of the way players will explore the vertical gameplay of Crackdown 2. It has twin rocket launchers and is good for co-op we’re told. “We like explosions”.
The Wingsuit lets players jump out of helicopters to glide through the air like Superman to drop in on unsuspecting enemies. It seemed a tad unfair, but of the Wingsuit, Cope said it’s a “game rewarder, not a game breaker” requiring skill to navigate with. “We wanted that sense of limitless vertigo”, Cope explains.
Everything you loved about the original features in Crackdown 2. Cope was the first to admit that the gameplay has changed very little. For fans of the franchise, that’s no bad thing.
During the day you’ll find yourself getting into occasional gunfights with the Cell whilst you go about clearing the game’s missions. They’ll even give chase in their automobiles. At night the Freaks are just as bothersome as Cope told us. No matter how you kill them, they keep on multiplying. We found ourselves running away from them more often than not. Likewise, the sense of scale and vertigo is just as dizzying as it appeared at first glance.
Some of the missions we played had us leaping off massive sky-piercing towers and other structures. Mistime your jump and you’ll have to ascend all the way up again. Luckily there’s plenty of Agility Orbs floating around the city to collect in order to increase your jumping skills – 500 in total. Collect enough and you’ll soon be bounding around the city as if it were a bouncy castle.
As you’d expect with the game’s three-way power struggle, street skirmishes are typically frantic. Luckily there’s plenty of new weapons to get stuck into. Among those we manhandled was the UV Shotgun. It uses electromagnetic bursts to shoot shockwaves at enemies, sending them flying through the air. It comes in particularly handy for fending off large numbers of freaks simultaneously, as we found during one mission where keeping them away from us was imperative to achieving our objective.
Another new weapon we tried out was the Mag Grenade. It’s a sticky grenade that forms a magnetic bond with other Mags once another is thrown. They’re great fun for sticking to objects, and making cars hang from their bungee-cord like grip for maximum devastation. How you use them is up to you and your twisted imagination.
Other confirmed new playthings include a Turreted Minigun and Rocket Launcher. New rides include the Agency Helicopter we played with, Agency Buggy, a high-speed Supercar and The Truck – used by The Cell as an armour plated defence unit.
Unfortunately we didn’t get to try out all the new things that’ll appear in Crackdown 2. We started our hands-on at the beginning of the game, so naturally we didn’t get to tinker with all The Agency’s weapons and skills you’ll get once you’ve levelled up your abilities. It’s worth noting that the build we played was not the final retail version, but debug code missing plenty of extra features that should appear in the finished version you’ll soon see dotted along retail shelves.
So how’s Crackdown 2 coming along? From what we saw and played Crackdown 2 has more than enough to keep fans of the original satisfied. It might have players returning to the same city, but with lots of original missions, storylines, weapons, vehicles and enemies it’s shaping up to be just as fun.
More on Crackdown 2 when we get it. Till then, we’ll be expecting Crackdown 2 to deliver more of the same, but better than the original when it arrives on July 9.
Out July 9 | £TBC | Microsoft Game Studios
