Go and grab your riot gear

What, you never played Crackdown? I'm not entirely surprised. Maybe you just wanted in on the Halo beta and didn't even notice it came with a whole game. Maybe you didn't even care for that. If you didn't liked the first, I'm not entirely convinced the second would really impress you. If you did play the first, I'm pretty sure you'll only end up disappointed. Crackdown 2 isn't exceptionally bad in any specific area, but it doesn't really feel like it moves the game forward in any significant way (except actual co-op support) and instead moves backwards. I was able to get through a whole playthrough and did get several dozen hours of playtime out of it, but by the end it leaves you with that bland taste of mediocrity instead of desperately wanting more.

The first Crackdown was good for a number of reasons, most of which was the interesting venture into new and mostly uncharted territories. Very few games allowed you the same sandbox-y freedom combined with a 'rpg lite' leveling system, over-the-top action and plenty of side diversions to keep you interested. GTA is comparable with the sandbox, but too bogged down in realism and story to just let you loose on the world. Saint's Row gets close, but has a poorly implemented sense of progression and many side events have no perceivable benefit aside from cash and killing time (or just being humorous). Both of the previous examples spend alot of focus and gameplay around the vehicle and driving/chases in general, and tend to focus less on gunplay and 'combat'. Crackdown attempted to take the best parts of these two (and others) and, despite some flaws, was a refreshing change of pace. Now that it has a sequel, though, the newness is gone and the flaws become more obvious.

Crackdown 2 is a disappointment in many ways, but almost all of them could have been avoided by significantly improving the story and the achievements. As an actual sandbox, Crackdown 2 is a pretty significant step forward over its predecessor, but this time around there is significantly less structure to the game. This is probably fun to many of those who just like to go around and do whatever, but in the age of achievements there is very little desire to do something 'just to do it'. The first game had achievements like 'Global Impact', 'Repo Man', 'Confiscator' and 'Shot-putter' to give you plenty of stuff to do on the side that is not already explicitly spelled out for you. Achievements like 'Pysch out' also reward you for beating things on higher difficulties, even if it is limited to just the time trials. Crackdown 2 has a few of these to play around with - 'Pebble Dash' and 'Yippee-Kai-Yay' are pretty fun - but is otherwise just a list of things already explicitly spelled out for you in game. The DLC gets a little better at offering up interesting challenges not explicitly tied to gameplay goals, but I really shouldn't have to wait for DLC to make a game fun or interesting. (Admittedly, 'Pysch out' is technically from DLC, but it's free DLC, so that's something.)

Perhaps the worst part, though, is the complete lack of requirements on difficulty settings. There is no reason to play Crackdown on anything but the easiest setting except for personal satisfaction. Given how hard it is to do many of the side items on higher difficulties (try looking for agility orbs with 5 turrets all trying to turn your face into swiss cheese), so the only thing playing on higher settings does is frustrate you more. I would have liked an achievement like 'Pysch out', or maybe some specific goals that required being on higher difficulties, to give the game a bit more of a challenge and replay value. I'm not one to promote forcing a player to go through a game 2-3 times to get all achievements, but I do like to see companies reward players for challenging themselves and trying their hand at harder difficulties.

Speaking of difficulty, the game almost becomes a joke when you stumble upon the homing rocket launcher. I like the weapon, don't get me wrong, but I sometimes wonder if we would be better served by having just a 'normal' rocket launcher and more varied combat and AI, than being given a homing rocket launcher and just jump-nuking everything within 5 feet. The newer weapons like UV Shotgun and old favorites like the Harpoon gun are fun to use but almost completely outshined from a usability standpoint by an explosive weapon that does decent-to-good damage that does almost all the work for you. Where's the fun in that?

The achievements probably could have been forgiven if the actual story mode had more meat to it (and I use the term 'story' very, very loosely). If you thought the plot points in the first Crackdown was lackluster, this time around they will seem almost non-existent. And I'm not even talking literal story here (on which both games are boring, bland throw-aways). What I'm more interested in is the integration with gameplay, to give your some kind of objective to reach towards. Instead of being interesting and entertaining, the game isntead opts for a 'do the same thing over and over again' approach, with predictable results. The 'story' goes like this

1) Go to Absorption Unit, stand on a spot
2) Repeat #1 two more times
3) Go to Freak Lair, defend light bomb thing
4) Repeat #1-3 ten more times, or until you die of boredom, whichever comes first
5) Fight the hardly-challenging final mission and be underwhelmed by a terrible ending

Really. That's it. Sure, there's tons of other things to do to disctact you (tactical locations, orbs, races, logs, etc) but in terms of progressing the 'story' that's all you get. It is not engaging or interesting in the slightest and gives you no real reason to want to come back to play... so why would you? The game is fun, especially for those of us who haven't played Crackdown in some time, but quickly loses focus and momentum. There are many who can take a large sandbox and channel their imagination and creativity into a lifetime of fun, interesting gameplay. For the rest of us, though, the game just feels extremely repetitive.

That's not to say there are not significant improvements at work here. The inclusion of an actual co-op mode is very nice, and probably one of the only reasons I actually played the game for as long as I did. Teaming up with 1-3 other friends to tackle the freaks (and each other) is much more fun than the co-op 'missions' from the first game. There are even a few achievements specific to co-op for you to work on as an added bonus. Co-op does make the game significantly easier (and, therefore, take less time), but I'd rather have more fun in less time than less fun in more time any day.

For all my fellow OCDers, finding all those collectibles is significantly easier now. You can 'ping' your minimap and it will show you any uncollected orbs nearby your current location, as well as check on your map for all the orbs you have currently collected. There are also a ton of new orbs to find - online orbs, renegade orbs, audio logs and wing suit stunt rings add to the checklist of things you will need to hunting through Pacific City to find to max out your achievement score. The main story may be skin and bones, but they definitely went the extra mile in trying to pack more things to do (and more rewards for doing so) into the world. There are some cool new perks for reaching your maximum skill levels, like unlocking a tank or getting access to a hanglider of sorts called a wingsuit. While the wingsuit takes some getting used to (the control mechanism is not exactly intuitive, and the explanation of how to use it is more confusing than helpful) it can really help you get from place to place easier and unlocks new areas and ways to get around that feels more interesting than just giving you 'jump level 6'.

Some of the new weapons and vehicles are interesting additions as well, the magnetic grenade being the best of the bunch. You can use these to 'stick' one object to another, either for a very useful affect (like sticking a helicopter to the ground or a vehicle to the wall) or just for hilarity's sake (perhaps creating a 'spider web' of cars floating in the middle of the street). In terms of playing around and having it's very nice to have around, but functionally in the actual 'game' it has almost no purpose because almost nothing challenges you enough to require interesting or unique tactics beyond 'walk in and rocket stuff in the face'. The sticky, jumping SUV is also a nice bonus and makes for some very cool stunt ring challenges, but controlling vehicles is still a bit stiff and so the races and renegade orbs that "require" a Kangaroo SUV are more of an exercise in frustration than fun.

Overall, Crackdown 2 suffers from being stale and playing it safe instead of really trying to branch out and make a niche for itself. The world is nearly the exact same from the first one (but now destroyed), the story is almost non-existent, hardly any of the achievements are interesting and despite being 'open world' there is a lack of variety in gameplay. Despite this, I still had a good amount of fun playing this with a friend to completion. This makes it such a hard call: on one hand, the game offers up almost nothing to warrant a purchase except for 4 player co-op and a few new gadgets and gimmicks, while on the other, you can wring a good dozen or so fun hours out of it with co-op play. I can't outright recommend the game unless you find it sifting through some kind of bargain bin, but if you've got a few friends who really liked the first game, this may be worth looking into.