Last week, the demo for Crackdown 2 landed on the Xbox Live Marketplace, and not having had a chance to jump into the game at E3, I cheerfully downloaded it. I had recently picked up the original Crackdown for a mere twelve dollars, but had yet to play it, making this demo a fresh experience. I played through it, then immediately put the original game in my Xbox and played through the entire thing that very weekend. I guess you could say the Crackdown 2 demo makes a good impression.

The demo has a few unique features. For one, it is a timed demo. It allows 30 minute play sessions, and there’s no continuity between. You play for 30 minutes, and if you want to play more, you can, but you start over with a new 30 minute session. Anything you collect or any level progression you make does not transfer over. The other unique feature is just how gigantic this demo is. It’s literally bigger than some games I’ve played. It basically sets you down in one section of the game, out of three I believe, and let’s you do whatever you want. There are guidelines, but they’re easily ignored. For a demo, it’s massive. The 30 minute window keeps things under wraps, never letting you experience too much of the game, but you still can if character advancement holds no interest for you. In the hour that I’ve played, two thirty minute sessions, I’ve explored a shipyard area, collecting agility orbs and shooting down members of an organization known as Cell, and driven around the streets at night plowing freaks down. Basically, I’ve gone two directions out of maybe ten that this demo allows.

Gameplay is nearly identical to the first game. In Crackdown, agents could find orbs to increase agility, could drive cars to increase driving skill, shoot things to increase gun-play, blow things up to increase explosive power, and punch things to increase strength. The same attributes apply in Crackdown 2 and they are acquired in the same manner. The lock-on system is nearly the same, with a notable exception. Agents lock-on to enemies, but with a flick of an analog stick different body parts of that enemy can be targeted. Head shots can be initiated, though the reticle that shrinks as you aim to denote accuracy takes longer to shrink when aiming at a smaller target. I didn’t find this particular feature useful in the demo, but I am curious what applications it could have in the game. Boss fights in particular could play out differently if head shots or arm shots enable a different way of fighting.

Visually the game is also similar, but obviously with a few more years of development the game is going to look better. It still sports the same animated style, but everything’s prettier. I noticed the water in particular was noticeably more watery.

I didn’t get a chance to try out any new weaponry in the demo, but it could very well exist. It’s hard going from the endgame arsenal of the original Crackdown to an opener collection for the second game. The standard shotguns and SMGs just don’t compare to my grenade launcher. Nonetheless, I would hope they might have some surprises for us. With the slightly futuristic tone of the series, some futuristic weaponry certainly wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility.

New to the series are two enemies: an organization known as The Cell, who in the demo were a bunch of thugs shooting at me all the time, and the freaks who are basically mutated people who flood the streets at night and attempt to overwhelm you with clumsy melee attacks. We saw these briefly in the first game, created as part of a genetic mutations program initiated by one of the street gangs. They appear to have spread to and now flooded the city. The demo doesn’t really offer much information about either of these antagonists, and for the most part we’ll probably be waiting for the actual release to get the full skinny.

The actual city your agent has access to is the same Pacific City from the first game. The biggest difference is that following the events of the first game, something happened to destroy the place. Statues are thrown down and buildings torn apart. It’s a real war zone. The same could have been said of the first title, but at least things were working. Chaos seems to have overtaken the city in Crackdown 2, and it sounds like it’s your agents job to restore order to it all.

Also returning to the series is the announcer from the first. I don’t think it would quite be the same game without him. He gives you directions and announcements and generally makes a nuisance of himself, but as there’s no central character aside from your nameless agent, he really gives the game its personality. The agents themselves are similar to the 4 playable from the first, except there are more, and you’re allowed to color code them however you like. This is probably for whatever multiplayer they’re integrating. One new feature of co-op play comes in the form of orbs only accessible when two people are grabbing them. There was multiplayer in the first game I know, I just never had occasion to play it nor any desire to. I’m not saying it couldn’t be fun, but I have a hard enough time coordinating my own play sessions, much less play sessions with real people.

If you liked Crackdown, go download the Crackdown 2 demo immediately. It’s expansive, familiar, and with just enough new flavors to satisfy fans. If you’ve never played Crackdown at all and enjoy open-world games where destruction is paramount, go buy it. You can finish it in a weekend if you’re serious. It’s a much-needed evolution to open-world games, offering some of the best exploration travel methods out there (only eclipsed by Prototype and various Spiderman games in my opinion). Hopefully new developer Ruffian Games has taken the reins from Realtime Worlds and improved things. Look for Crackdown 2 itself on store shelves next Tuesday.

Tags: crackdown, crackdown 2, demo impressions, Preview, ruffian games, Xbox 360

This entry was posted on Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 5:17 pm and is filed under Previews, Xbox 360. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.