Crackdown 2 - Xbox 360 (360) Previews


	Platform Xbox 360 Genre Action Publisher Microsoft Game Studios Developer Ruffian ETA 2010
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Crackdown 2

I remember Crackdown for a few things but the chief things are the two-player co-op and the outlandish sandbox action, where 80% of the fun was just stacking things up and making them go BOOM! or bounding up the side of a building and leaping off (hopefully landing in water). The missions, straightforward “kill this list

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of guys” thing, offered some direction and challenge, but they weren’t super important to having fun with the game.

From what I’ve seen of Crackdown 2, it looks like what made the original so much of an event (beyond it being the only way to access the Halo 3 Multiplayer beta) is being included right alongside some expected improvements like new weapons, the ability to glide/fly like a flying squirrel, and armor.

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Pacific City remains the playground of your super-powered Agent. The landscape has changed a bit, which can mostly be attributed to a plague of super-mutant monsters (reportedly descendants of the freaks that appeared in the first game) but it remains to be seen how the rest of the city is broken up between the Agency and the Cell -- the third faction which hasn't really been shown.

Multiplayer appears to be another focus. Grand Theft Auto IV featured a robust assortment of multiplayer features is a wide-open world, so it’ll be interesting to see what Ruffian Games can come up with in this regard because the clips have demonstrated four-player co-op as well as a 16-player capture the flag mode, which is an awesome feature. A bunch of Agents skipping across the city firing homing missiles and heaving cars? I’d be down for that.

All this and Michael McConnohie narrating? And those infuriating Agility Orbs? Sold!

Crackdown 2 will supposedly ship 2010, I’m thinking the latter half of the year, likely Q4, which definitely puts it in contention to be pushed into the first few months of 2011. Whatever happens, it’s on the list of My Most Anticipated Games.

- Aaron Simmer

(February 24, 2010)