Knee-Jerk Impressions on Crackdown 2
By BlazeHedgehog 63 Comments
So I just downloaded and played the Crackdown 2 demo for the first time. The video you see above was actually me livestreaming the game over at my uStream channel, and it's about 30 minutes long. After having played it once... eh. I don't know that it's as fun as the original Crackdown was. Okay, sure, it still has that awesome power-up system, and yeah, there are plenty of orbs to collect, but...
Crackdown 1 was like a Mega Man game, in a way. There were six or eight guys per island and taking them down in specific orders would have an impact on the game world. Take the weapons expert down first, and not only are you given a totally sweet grenade launcher, but everybody else working for that gang will have wussy guns. But, if you choose to take down the weapons expert last? Sure, he'll still have that amazing grenade launcher, but so will all of his guards, and you're going to be exploded in to a fine mist within seconds. The world had a tangible and fairly immediate reaction to the actions you took within it.
Now, Crackdown 2 is like every other open world game except instead of needing to drive to one location and kill all the guys, you need to drive to three locations and kill all the guys. Though you're given the option to go to the three in any order, none of that matters because each of the three locations are nearly identical and what you do at one location has no impact on the other two. It's just more "Cell" rebels to shoot, and more zombies to explode. It feels like I'm grinding in an MMO - but instead of a hobbit telling me he wants three gortusk livers, it's a nebulous Agency voice-over demanding that I activate three sunlight generators (or whatever those things were).
And while we're at it, let's talk about the Agency V.O. He was amusing in the original Crackdown, but there's also too much of a good thing. He constantly flaps his gums about every little thing in the world, now. Every turret, every orb, every vehicle, and almost every kill. It's entirely possible that he only does this because it's technically "the beginning" of the game, but it's still kind of annoying. It also doesn't help that the tone in which he speaks is also pretty blatantly menacing. It's not difficult to conjure mental images of a man in silhouette wringing his hands with evil intent every time this guy talks to you, even when the instructions he's giving you are supposedly things that are meant to benefit the city.
Overall... ehhhh. I'll probably go through it a couple more times just to get a feel for it, but so far I am not impressed.