Crackdown 2 - Page 2

The game is colourful as all hell, which is making me be kind to it, but it definitely feels a little off. The aiming is fucktarded though and considering how much shit there is the ammo situation is ridiculous.

Best thing about the demo for me: the UV shotgun. It was fun blasting cars, freaks, citizens, and everything else in the way with that thing. The main thing I took away from this demo is that it felt exactly like Crackdown with a slight improvement in the feel of the movement controls, although the aiming was as stupid as ever.

The best things about the original were the ridiculous explosions and jumping between buildings once your agility had been maxed out. It looks like the sequel will offer both of these things. It also seems to offer a billion more collectibles this time around, including annoying orbs that run away from you. Collecting orbs is one thing, but having some of them run away from you is just mean.

The UV Shotgun is a hell of a lot of fun.

I've heard that they're releasing a day zero patch to fix the aiming. Which doesn't bode well.

After going through it three times I still have no fucking idea what I'm doing. I'm hoping that without the time limit constraint I'll be able to work out a way of tackling things logically, but it just feels like a clusterfuck of ideas right now.

From what I have seen in the trailers it doesn't look like we are getting a resolution to the end of the first game though - which kinda sucks.

It does suck that your cars don't upgrade as you go along.

I loved the first one, but was pretty unimpressed with this demo. The weapons aren't very satisfying to use (yes, even the shotgun), the aiming is horrible, and throwing zombies in the mix is as dumb as I'd feared. Think I'll be passing on this.

I'm a lot more selective with my purchases now, and not every game can make the cut. I loved the original Crackdown, but my impression of the demo is that I don't need the sequel on day one.

Can't say I disagree with the impressions here, I had much the same thoughts as others:

- The targeting is truly awful. When I have a handful of enemies in front of me, how can I be automtically locking-on to a parked vehicle that is behind them?
- I'm not sure the introduction of mutant freak enemies is an improvement. I liked the straightforward "super cop" versus criminal vibe of the first game.
- The environment is swarming with enemies. Fine. But I felt I was running out of ammo way too often.
- Maybe I was missing something, but I found the demo objectives a little confusing. Take control of drop points and call-in support, activate three scattered beacons, protect a beacon in a freak lair. The simplicity of the first Crackdown worked for me - take out all the gangs and their leaders, take control of their supply points.
- I miss that vehicles transform based on your experience level.

I think I'll attempt to play this again, but ignore objectives, and just explore a bit.

I'm sorry but this demo was a huge letdown.

I mean even the demo for the first game was pretty cool when you got skills up to a certain level. Here my strength is a a level high enough to throw cars and shit, yet it feels so weak when he hits someone. Gaining levels for cars is pointless, it just unlocks vehicles. Gaining levels for guns sure as shit doesn't fix the aiming, it just unlocks guns. Agility was fun in the first game, but I didn't see much opportunity to increase it here. Especially not with gangs shooting you or creatures coming after you. The creatures....wtf. You get ONE ORB from killing one. You might as well not even bother. They're no fun to kill.

The UV Shotgun is damn cool. I'll admit that, but the graphics look like they've gotten worse and hampers my enjoyment of knocking shit around the environment.

The graphics haven't got worse, they just haven't got better. The team has focused on optimisation, hence why you can have 4 player drop-in co-op without the tearing and sync issues the original had. What the sequel doesn't have is as asthetic, which is what made the original Crackdown seem better, visually, than it was.

So I was watching some Crackdown 2 animated shorts. They seem to explain what the deal is with the beacons you are activating and protecting. It's all part of some Sunburst system which is used against the infected. Those rooftop beacons you activate collect sun power. And those beacons underground, in the lairs, need to be protected, because they emit a huge burst of light to eradicate the freaks.

I saw no explanation of that in the demo, which made those objectives all seem rather random. In summary, this game would still be better off without the introduction of the mutant freaks.

I am assuming that those shorts will either be on the game disc or some equivalent of that background info will be in the setup of the full game. I am guessing that they decided the demo was better served by throwing people in the middle of things rather than explaining everything. As long as the aiming is fixed somewhat, I think the full game will probably be fun, although the orb collection stuff seems to have gone a bit overboard.

Personally I don't really mind the freaks (they were sort of in a tiny part of the original game after all), but they don't really seem all that special from the demo either, just weird looking people that you don't get in trouble for murdering.

Another difference is that they explode into a cloud of green mist when your vehicle runs them over.

I just found out that there is a fairly simple trick that glitches the timer in the Crackdown 2 demo so it doesn't count down. Apparently physically unplugging your network connection when hitting the button to start a new game (after selecting your agent) will pull up an error message. If you sign back into Live using the guide, cancel out of the error message, and start a new game from the main menu, the timer should be stopped, letting you play the demo at your leisure. Starting a race will supposedly restart the timer though.

Anyway, I might have to try it out for myself later on to see if it actually works or not.

Reviews have started coming in. It looks like it is mediocre at best.

Downloaded it over the weekend. I wasn't a huge fan of the original Crackdown, and I didn't hate this as much as a lot of you but it sure felt like a $20 game. 500 agility orbs (plus the rogue orbs) seems just insanely retarded, but when you start running faster and jumping higher then you really want to collect them just to get to the fun stuff. You can definitely amp your strength up (SKILLS FOR KILLS) pretty quickly by making a concerted effort to kill everything with melee in the demo, 5 minutes in and you're killing everything with one punch so I'm not sure what that complaint was about the strength. It seemed like some dumb fun, but nothing great.

I read this in the Kotaku review. Really seals the deal on me skipping the game. Might be fun for the orb hunting and sandbox aspect, but only as rental or at a huge discount.

Not nearly as much fun as the original. Unless you like collectible missions, cause there's plenty of those. The whole goddamn game has you hunting (insert number) out of (insert number) of mundane tasks. Plus, even less of a story this time around, if you can believe that. The ending is a fucking joke.

Don't worry, we all hoped it would be better.

"..and that's an ACHIEVEMENT!"

Jeez, really?

There's an achievement about collecting a collection of collections. Never a good sign.

I may grab a guide and hit all the audio logs, as they're the most interesting thing in the game. It's still a fun rental, but it sure feels like DLC for Crackdown 1...

Hey now, chin up. We're all allowed our own little Brutal Legend.

It's top of the sales chart over here, so it must have done something right. I'm waiting for the inevitable drop in price in a few months time.

This 100% correct. The game just feels unfinshed.

Car #1, Commuter #2. No Labels of the maps.

Actual missions would have been nice. Some interaction.

Didn't much like the first one, other than the jumping. Now that thrill is gone, so all I have is running over hordes of mutants in my automobile, which is only fun for about a minute. They dropped the ball bigtime.
At the very least they should have pushed the envelope with the superheroics.