Crackdown 2 (360)

[Womble9]

I played the first one a lot. Completed it again early last year I think.

I'd say that anyone who's played the first (one of my fave 360 titles) will feel the 2nd's quite disapointing. I didn't find it as bad as many did (people had all sorts of gripes) but it just doesn't feel as good and the zombie things are pretty cack too!! Still not a bad game by any means, just not as fresh / fun as the 1st for me and you could do alot worse for ?10 .

[Bassman]

I am not expecting brilliance and from what I read at Amazon it looks worse than the first game. The demo pretty much put me off putting in a pre-order and relegated the game to "bargain bin" status. If I can tear myself away from GT5 for long enough I will give the game a go, though it will be vying for time with Fable III and NFS: HP (Birthday and Christmas Presents) let alone Claptrap Revolution on Borderlands.

[Daragon]

I'm actually looking forward to my copy arriving. The mag grenades look rather fun and serve the same function as the grapple hook from just cause 2 but without the fail.

I didn't think much of the demo, but like all good demos it seems to have given a rather poor portrayal of the full game.

[Bassman]

Mine arrived yesterday. Had two sessions ont he game today (while running B spec on GT5). Spent about an hour on the first. No real complaints other than dying while protecting the device that kills the mutants (as I did with the demo).

Had another session later and could find no way to Save and Quit (I managed it the first time) so probably lost the entire 45 minute session (not impressed). I looked at both menus but could not see what I was looking for. The narrator also managed to get on my nerves!

The view and camera were not as good as the first game. I was enjoying it I hasten to add, though the moving orbs were seriously annoying. As usual I built up my strength as a first priority. May reduce the level of difficulty (if I can) so that I have an easier time of it and maybe have more fun. About 3% complete after my hour of play.

I must say it looked like an early 360 game rather than a sequel. Probably worth the ?10 I spent on it!

[Sixty]

Heh, I'm replaying Assassin's Creed II at the moment and it's so dull slowly climbing everywhere. I keep wishing I could be an Agent and bound across the rooftops instead.

Anyway, let's see if I can help you out here. To save, press start, then move the stick right until you reach the tab on the far right. There's a Save & Quit option here. You can turn the Voice of The Agency down or off completely in the audio settings.

You can select the difficulty level each time you load a save file (you also have spaces for three Agents and three cities, so if you wanted to start a new game with a maxed out Agent after finishing it once, you can).

And Renegade orbs are indeed annoying and some can't be caught until you've levelled up a bit (as shown in this rather amusing and NSFW video). The number of spikes they have indicate their difficulty. It's often best to ignore them and come back later.

[Bassman]

The disadvantage of turning the voice off (which I did) was that you don't know when you are attacking the wrong people.

I must say that with a bunch of people around you it is far too easy to kill off someone you shouldn't. Only really a problem on foot when the mutants are out in force. So far that only happened rather more than it should have when I was chasing a roaming Driving Orbs which tended to pick crowded alleys.

I will probably fire up the game tomorrow (Superbowl is on at the moment) while doing some more B spec on GT5 as I need three more Indy 500's to get another level (so that leaves me about 7.5 hours for other games!).

[Sixty]

Luckily it doesn't matter that much if you just kill one or two innocents. Comes with the job, I always think.

But yeah, driving orbs and races are best done at night, otherwise you end up massacring a ridiculous number of pedestrians.

[Bassman]

I've just been wandering the city attacking the bad guys. Strength is up to 4 now. Have been doing firearms and explosives (wandered off with a Rocket Turret briefly which was fun). Unfortunately I managed to lose it before I could find some mutants to try it on.

Ought really to complete the first mission I suppose!

[Bassman]

Put in some more time on this. Maxxed out my strength now. Even managed to catch a few roving Orbs!

From what I have seen so far, the menu system in this game is worse than GT5!

I think I have been playing on the easiest setting but am still struggling with the first Beacon. This must be the only game I have played where the Single Player game can't be completed Solo! Why do the geniuses at Games Houses always seem to aim the difficulty at a point where I sometimes cannot reach it?

Frustration is definitely setting in. If anyone has any useful tips, they would be appreciated!

[EvilBoris]

I finished the game by myself...

[nem]

Same here. Was pretty easy too.

If your weapons skills aren't fully developed, use the UV guns and grenades. Concentrate foremost on the enemies that spew the green slime. Repeat for all beacon missions.

[JazzFunk]

Pumped a fair few hours into this over the last four or five days, done all the 'Tactical Locations', done 5 of the beacons and have activated all the AUs, got about 370 agility orbs, got my main stats up to 5 (bar driving) but am finding this a fun-ish but massive chore right now. It's a Stepford Wives reinterpretation of Crackdown, the highly-durable 'core' is (just about*) there, it's just there's a disturbingly depressing absence of magic with this instalment, whole thing feels obviously like a grind not far from the outset, even the depersonalization of your 'Agent'** (fully helmeted-up at the very early stages!) sucks personality from this.

**Where's my pasty goth Travolta, want my pasty goth Travolta??!

Whole thing seems like a succession of miserable and predictable sidequests. Free running controls*^ seem a bit 'off', first game felt incredibly tight in this regard, here it seems like you just lose your grip willy nilly at awkward points, a right pain in the arse, you start to *lose confidence in your Agent's superhumanity*^ (unlike the first game), plus it makes the core game mechanics seem wobbly and less robust, like they've sort of 'rusted' since the first game. Also, the post-apocalyptic setting, it's just tired, boring to play in, uninspired, it makes Pacific City murky, dark, un-bright and devoid of fun. Derelict. Resi-style mutants (read: zombies) are added, for f*ck's sake(!) How desperately **** is this addition???

Not only that, being faced with enemies packing heavy heat, homing grenade launchers and the like. Lock on and I target CARS (which, empty of their inhabitants, are just useless Lego chunks that are basically 'explosive landscape'). When **** gets mellow and I find a stealthy way to proceed around a difficult bit and I WANT to stealthily shoot an explosive barrel to take out a couple of snipers/bazooka-wielders, it's like a 1 in 100 chance, I cannot lock on said explosive barrel! (Ah, so **** are its foibles, and so f*cky-uppy when en-massed to the game as a whole).

Despite what I've said, the game is not a bad one, it still is very playable and I'd just hope that folk who never played the first game could understand that the first game is effectively the SEQUEL to Crackdown 2, given how it features improved gameplay with more structured tasks to pursue, an evolved and better-looking, more engaging world, a gameworld that is so much more full of personality, colour and vibrancy than the phoned-in pseudogame that is Crackdown 2, despite it being three-and-a-half-years older than that game!!!

If I could almost describe this in a nutshell, it would be like playing through The Secret Of Evermore a few months after finishing The Secret Of Mana, that benign malignance you kind of feel inside upon comparison.

(But, I'm still after them orbs...)