If nothing else, Crackdown 2 speaks to the strength of the original Crackdown formula. Collecting orbs, Hulk-jumping rooftops, firing absurd ordinance, and generally acting like a wreckless super freak has never been funner. The problem is, every new decision Ruffian Games has made is shortsighted, ineffectual and in many cases outright dumb. You could probably say this is our fault for putting Crackdown 1's pedigree on such a shameless pedestal, but that'd be like blaming the weather man for predicting lightning would strike twice.
The open world formula has never been facilitative to a scripted narrative, and the original Crackdown took a beating for having almost none whatsoever. CD2 takes that failure to the next level by not only sidestepping narrative, but concealing what little back-story it has into 40 or so audio logs randomly strewn about the map. The only story you'll be spoon fed is the incessant orders from The Agency about murdering everything in sight and not asking questions. Near the end some rogue transmissions make it seem like maybe there's some sort of good / bad ending choice coming up, but it never pans out and the game always ends the same way. They did have the decency to tack on an ending cinematic, but its just a needless and unsatisfactory lead in to an unlikely sequel. And we all know, seeding your next effort is the best way to reward people for supporting your current effort.
Unfortunately, progressing through said non-existent narrative is an equally uninspired affair. Your virtually directionless objective is to eradicate the mindless zombie menace that plagues the city, and stop the terrorists who are getting in your way. It seems the only way Ruffian could come up with to present this act is with two of the industries worst gameplay mechanics; mob hunts and escort missions. Every one of the games "missions" involves running, climbing or falling into a static area of the city and then hunting down every enemy in the immediate area, protecting a target from every enemy in the immediate area, or worse, both. No real targets, no story, no planning, no stealth, no strategy. You do have a variety of guns, explosives and even melee options at your disposal, but you're not going to need any of it. Even at game start you're leagues ahead of your opposition in capability and long after you've come up with every way to abuse your enemies, the game will continue to throw them at you over and over again. As though that somehow justifies the general lack of content.
As an additional middle finger to people who bought the first game, the games map is virtually the same as before. Some buildings have been slightly changed in the ten years since the last game, none of it makes a huge amount of difference in play. No effort has been made to make the tedious process of window scaling skyscrapers any easier, and you will still frequently find yourself surrounded by concealed targets with crack shot rocket launcher aim. You may occasionally get a kick out of seeing a classic location slightly changed (the old car sales place is particularly amusing), but whether you've if you've already taken the super human tour in CD1 or not, there's really nothing interesting going on in Pacific City.
Now the tricky part here is that the entire experience, limited and shortsighted though it may be is not entirely unfun. Frequently, its exceedingly fun. Using your super cop powers to establish dominance is awesome, even moreso when accompanied by 2 or 3 other super cops via co-op. But its an awesome every Crackdown 1 player has already experienced, and this time there's no point or payoff to any of it. Without a story, bosses, or even creative locations to explore, there's no motivation to actually participate in the boring activities that make up the games "core" except to perform the extras along the way. Sure, you'll be powering up your agent the entire time, but not because you need them to beat the game, only because it will make life easier when you decide to hunt down all of the games extras.
Extras are of course are the main replay value in any sandbox game, but with Ruffian's poor understanding of what is actually fun it feels like this sandbox has no real toys in it just more chores. Remember those 800 orbs you had to collect in the last game? Now there's even more (the number of collectibles is up over 1000 all said and done), including some that run away from you when you get close to them, and some that are only available within close proximity to other online players. And that's on top of the timed races, the stunt markers, the car collecting, and everything else we already did in Crackdown 1 or Grand Theft Auto or Spider-Man or every other sandbox game. Its not that any of these activities are inherently bad, but there's just way too many of them and way too little motivation unless you have absolutely got to have that 1K on your gamercard.
Sadly, the whole game stinks of some "if it ain't broke don't fix it" logic, but its not like Crackdown 1 was perfect to begin with. Instead of fixing the first games issues and expanding on the gameplay, Ruffian has chosen to simply flip the record over and play it again, twice. Now I like B-sides just as much as the next guy, but mixing comfortable awesome with questionable decisions does very little but tarnish the integrity of the original especially when its so needlessly padded out to fill an entire game. There's no reason the content presented here couldn't have been done as an expansion pack or at least some sort of re-release that includes the original content. Crackdown 2 isn't so much bad as it is unneccessary and kind of insulting to the people whose wallets made it possible by supporting the first. In contrast to the original, CD2 is worthy of a rental at best.
-F.
