Demo Impressions: Crackdown 2

If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you’re in one of two groups: people who don’t know what Crackdown is, and people excited as hell that there’s another Crackdown game coming out. If you’re in the first group, welcome. You’re going to hear about one of my favorite (soon to be one of your favorite) Xbox 360 titles. If you’re a part of the latter, then you should know of (and have rigorously played) the Crackdown 2 demo now available on Xbox Live, and thus don’t need to be here. Go ahead, play that demo again; see how many Agility Orbs you can get this time. My highest total is 107. Beat it.

For everyone else, Crackdown was the big surprise of 2007. It did pretty well in sales, but not because it was a great game; it was paired with beta codes for Halo 3. The funny thing was, people that got this game just for the code found an engrossing, hugely fun sandbox title where you were put in the shoes of a superpowered Agent, tasked with enforcing the law in Pacific City. Crackdown 2, if this demo is any indication, is a part of the “if it ain‘t broke don’t fix it” school of sequels.

The demo starts off with a bang, as you’re immediately dropped into a tense battle at the Pacific City docks. Here you learn the ins and outs of combat, along with the extreme platforming the first CD did oh so well. I was leaping and bounding about during the battle until an old problem crept up again. The targeting system hasn’t improved much from its predecessor; you can still easily lock on to a flaming barrel or vehicle rather than the thug standing right in front of it. With the ability to switch between body/car parts to aim at, targeting can be a bit tricky. Instead of easily shifting your aim, you’re usually left deciding whether to aim at the tires or the hood of the car you didn’t want to shoot. It happens about as often as it did in the original game, so I’m surprised it’s returned.

Like last time the game world will be filled with different factions to battle. In the demo you’re up against The Cell, a gang of hooded, highly-armed thugs, and the local Freak population. Freaks are the Crackdown universe’s version of the creatures from I Am Legend; citizens who’ve been turned into bloodthirsty, sunlight-averse beasts. One-on-one, the Freaks mean nothing. In a horde though, the bastards get tough.

Speaking of tough, this demo’s got a little heat to it. I died more than a fair share of times due to the intensity of Cell members and their rather intense weapons. From what I can gather The Cell are a gang that rose up with hatred towards The Agency. At the start of the level you’re dropped into a standoff between The Agency and a Cell group at the docks. Upon defeating the Cell you open up your first drop point, an area where an Agency heli can be called upon to drop ammo or vehicles you’ve collected, or respawn your character. This is a great, massive improvement over the distant, hard-to-find ammo depots in the last game, which I always thought held the original Crackdown back.

Those drop points are just one of the new elements the game adds; there’s also a fuck-ton more things to collect. Orbs have gotten a makeover with the new mobile Orbs. These Orbs must be chased down (either on foot or in a vehicle), and are pesky as hell to pick up. I know right now that collecting these new Orbs is going to be a pain. There’s also Online Orbs, which can only be collected if you’re on Live and paired with another agent. Yup, there’s going to be amazing co-op in this Crackdown as well. On top of that you’ve got audio logs to pick up, ranging from old Agency communiqués to descriptions of the Freak population by some sort of Steve Irwin wannabe. These logs give a little bit of insight into the world of Pacific City, and with hundreds to collect, look to be just as fun to grab as the different Orbs.

Returning to Pacific City is a desire that I never realized I had until I played this demo. It’s so much fun diving back into this world and seeing what has changed over time. I loved visiting the old Los Muertos hideout and Volk statues and seeing what became of them, and messing around, grabbing errant Agility Orbs. It’s just as much fun as last time, with the added elements make the experience that much better.

My biggest problem with this demo, as many can agree to, is its length. At 30 minutes, while you do get to see and enjoy a lot of the city, I don’t get to have nearly enough fun with my character. Last week a less-than-savory method of increasing that time was revealed, but it’s since been patched out (upon loading the demo, you’re asked to download an update, which I’m assuming was the patch because the glitch didn’t work as it did before). However, if that’s the worst you can say about a demo, there’s got to be something special about it. If you can’t wait to get your hands on Crackdown 2 on July 6th, this demo will definitely help tide you over.