Crackdown 2 is a sandbox game, with a slight change of pace for what I shall call the final showdown. That's the kind of variation you should expect here. I'll start with the story. The story is that you are a buff marine super soldier guy. You're superhuman, and made and work for an agency called the Agency. Which is the armed police type corporation that takes on any bad stuff within the city called Pacific City. (I think it's near the Pacific) And you, a member of the Agency, are referred to throughout the entire game by the name, Agent. And you combat the terrorist cell of people called The Cell in day time, and by night you take on the zombie mutated freaks called.. the Freaks. I am unimpressed by the names, to say the least. There are three main characters in this. And I use main character in the most generalistic of terms since for all intents and purposes all of these characters are one dimensional. You have yourself, the Agent. You can pick your face. Out of four. Male, faces. Except you go through the entire game (Except the very short tutorial at the beginning) Wearing a helmet. And you can pick a colour. Dark blue, black, grey, or white. You never speak. Your character has no emotions or choices whatsoever.
The second 'character' is the narrator who tells you what to do and where to do or how to do it. You never see him, but he is part of the Agency, and in charge of you. He is a faceless annoying voice. And at the end he leaves a not-vague-at-all cliffhanger to his intentions for world domination, now that you, his lackey, has just annhilated the Cell and the Freaks from the city.
Third character is the leader of Cell. She has a name, I'm sure, but given that for the entire game her only appearance is -during- the ending cutscene, and she speaks through radios in Cell strongholds to inspire them.. she's hardly an antagonist. You never see her or feel threatened by her. You just fight her masses of witless heavily armed lackeys.
The plot (What there is) is pretty much that the city is under siege by day from terrorists and night by mutants. No reason, it was on their list of things to do. Under 'Mutate another arm' and 'Get lunch' accordingly.
To remove freaks from plaguing sections of the city, you need to set off a beacon. From start to finish, this involves liberating three Absorption Units (Which absorb sunlight) from Cell per beacon. There's only four guys usually at a AU though. Then stand on a button for a few moments. Once all three are done, go to the beacon point. Go underground. Summon beacon. Defend beacon from angry mutants whilst beacon charges its sunlight attack. Sunlight boom. That's it. Do that nine times, and all freaks are gone. It's not even that difficult once you have decent weapons. The final ones get attacked by mutants the size of a house. Throw one cluster grenade and it's down. As well as everything else nearby.
The second part is 'Tactical Locations'. Aka, blocks of land Cell own. Again, go to the Cell symbol on the ground, activate, kill all Cell nearby, done. Repeat another 26 times.
I might add, after detonating beacons seven eight and nine, you are contacted by whats-her-name and she begs you to stop detonating them, pleading to your humanity and stuff, then gets cut off by Voice and he talks about communication problems, then cheerfully tells you to go detonate the next one. Do we get a moral choice to stop it and find her to see why it's so wrong? No. Detonate the things if you want to reach the end. No moral choice here.
Then go to agency tower, liberate the refinery from Cell for energy (Easy) defend the tower from mutants whilst it charges for a massive beacon blast, and that's it. Takes about five minutes, that last bit. Then you get a cutscene where whats-her-name attacks the power cores (That withstood the onslaught of -multiple- large mutants) with a single helicopter. Armed with two gatling guns. Alone. Voice then tells the Agent to take her out, and he jumps off a building, shoots her, and kamikazes the thing I think. End cutscene with the tower making a big boom. Credits. Then whats-her-name is shown in a lab with the hand of the agent that got cut off by the helicopter blades as she was falling.
It's just do the same stuff again and again. What takes the most time in the game is chasing the 500 agility orbs scattered on top of buildings throughout the city so you can level up your agility, so you can jump and run faster.
On that note, leveling. You have five stats. Agility, which affects running speed and jump height. Strength, and when higher lets you lift heavier things. Like lorries. Guns, unlocks better guns for deployment, explosives, ditto, and vehicles, again, better vehicle unlocked. All are raised from level one to five by simple practicing with it, except agility, where you have to get orbs. That is what takes up the game time.
I will admit though, leveling up my vehicle skill by drifting at speed in a super car through massive crowds of mutants swarming the highways and exploding their fragile bodies upon impact never gets old.
But once you're at level five agility you can reach the Agency heli-pad. And the rocket-choppers. Helicopters with overpowered rockets. My explosives went from three to five in no time just cruising along crowded roads of mutants blowing 'em up.
Sure, the leveling is okay. It's nice to have it. Sort of. Even though the tank is a letdown because it's flimsy.
Gameplay/Control
I don't like the controls. I'm used to them, but the damn thing is awkward. The targetting is awkward because it does what it likes and targets whatever is handy instead of maybe what you want to target, and the free running is picky. Sometimes you can run just fine, and then sometimes he decides he doesnt want to grab onto that ledge and just smear his face down the side of the building. The camera is a little clunky to use, being slow and unresponsive. The vehicle controls take a lot of getting used to, using right trigger for forwards and left trigger for backwards. And left button to fire. There's also one stronghold that you need to take from Cell where the game tries to be Assassin's Creed. And fails. It just ends up being highly irritating because of the camera going OH LOOK A BUTTERFLY.
Also, the helicopter is perilously fragile. To the point that even landing hurts it. Go slow, downwards, let it extend landing gear, slowly, slowly, land. Oh, but it still took a chunk of armour. Thanks.
Also, the civilians are pathetic. If you kill too many civilians/peacekeepers (Agency armed police that keep the peace) then the Agency will for a short time try to kill you. Which is highly irritating, given we're on the same side and have better things to do. It's not my fault if A) Civvies are stupid. I was -inching- my car fowards so slowly to get onto the main road past a line of civilians without running them over. They run in panic and fear. One steps infront of my car, I stop moving, and he dives terrified off to the side at speed landing on his side. Durr. B) Peacekeepers or Civilians are in the middle of massive crowds of Freaks. If there's a massive crowd, I'm going to use explosives. Obvious. C) Peacekeepers run into me. I had one point where I landed my chopper safely, wasn't moving at all, then a PK car rams into the side of me. Voice then scolds me for hurting them. Er. Yeah. And slightly unrelated D) Peacekeepers are allowed to run civvies over. I saw one speed past me and splatter multiple ones as I was trying to inch past without so many casualties.
Music
There is some. Honestly, it never leapt out at me and I can barely remember any music from the game.
Voice Acting
Voice is annoying. Agent has none. Civvies mostly go "AAAAHHHHH" Freaks mostly go "ARRGLLBLARGBLLARRG" And Cell mostly go "SHOOT THE AGENT". Oh, whats-her-name talks regularly on the radio. I listened once. She talked about laying down arms due to the freaks being a bigger threat and that they should work with the Agency. And then immediately after went on about rising up to tear down the Agency. Huh. Also, Voice mentions every achievement you get, in game, saying "You did such and such, well deserving of an achievement!" No but seriously he is annoying, constantly berating you. You die trying to take a tactical location because activating the attempt on the ground means you get pulverised by a bazillion guys with rocket launchers? He tells you "This mission has failed. Come back when you grow a pair!" Gee, thanks for motivating the recently dead guy.
Sandbox Elements
The city is a decent size, which is just as well. Buildings are usually tall and hard to get up due to controls, and 500 agility orbs are scattered around. Usually easy to find, until I expect you get to 450. It's mostly just one big game of doss about killing stuff. There is no storyline to go back to after spending some time buggering about powersliding through crowds of freaks.
Overall
Borrow it from a friend. Online is negligible now, and its replayability is okay given you can start a new campaign with your high level agent, but the only thing you'll want to do is kill stuff en masse. Once you're bored, it's shelved. The controls need improvement, the plot is near non existent, and there are barely any characters in the game, let alone to feel some connection to.
It's fun, ultimately. If you like explosions and killing stuff, it's fun. But only for a bit. When you want to get to proper gaming instead of dossing about.. there is none.
Silver16.
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