Xbox 360
A month ago SquareGo was invited to an exclusive preview of Crackdown 2 at the Ruffian Games studios in Dundee. There wasn't anyway we were going to say no but with an embargo until today (23rd of November) we've been almost bursting to tell people what we saw and found out. Finally we can exhale and tell you some of the treats that are going to be in store. James Cope and Sean Noonan invited us to have a look around the "new" Pacific City with them as they described the new game's setting.
Three way fight
At the end of the first game genetically modified freaks were released through the city, some of Dr Czernenko's "super" soldiers escaping the final battle, and now ten years later a disenfranchised population have rejected The Agency and a group called The Cell has formed. The Agency has now regrouped and moved in to take back control and the fight will be a three way battle between The Agency, The Cell and Freaks.
One of the problems with Crackdown was that plot elements, clear to the developers, were often not fed to the player leaving them a little bit lost. Crackdown 2 will show how the world has evolved involving the player in the story whilst still retaining the freeform elements. They don't admit that this was easy but have used the environment as well as certain events to help these storylines come to the fore.
One of these is the differences between the day, where The Cell are dominant, and night, when the Freaks come out. These transitions are definitely part of the flow of the game giving the player different challenges at different times. The city is generally the same but has fallen into disrepair due to the events of the last ten years. Vehicles and houses have been armoured and now some vehicles have mounted weapons which can be used in co-op mode, yes the main plot supports a four player co-op, as well as providing challenges to players at certain moments of the game.
The look and feel of it
The next thing was the look of the city and trying to maintain some of the vibrant style and lengthy draw distances of the original. They were never quite happy with the cell shading of the original though and so have gone for much more depth and solidity. It looks damn fine too and the draw distance is even better than before. Watching the city move from day to night is wonderful as lights and neon start to come to life around you. What we have is familiarity but with a whole lot of new feeling and depth to the environment.
Bringing The Agent on screen James went on to explain how much they wanted him to appear as a weapon. He only grunts. He's heavier set and when we were shown a Freak Breach near the observatory, now totally changed by the fall of the city, we saw how many people he could take on.
New moves are the name of the game here and there are more hand to hand moves available; not just the roundhouse kick of the first game. Being able to throw items and better still pick up items to use as weapons as we were shown as a broken breezeblock was picked up and waved around adds to the fun. Traditional guns have seen an upgrade too with UV weapons being particularly good against the the freaks due to their problems with light. Guns like the UV shotgun and repulsor allow the player the opportunity to play about not only with the enemies but also aspects of the environment.
Being the most powerful character in the game in Crackdown was fun but in Crackdown 2 that safety net is away. Rushing to a roof to escape will see Freaks follow. Maybe it's only the cleverer ones but if you're low on health it will be the last thing you wanted to see. Crackdown 2 is going to be tougher on the player as the enemies fight smarter and create a much greater threat.
For friends, for fun
James wanted to stress is that the single player and four player co-op campaign moves away from the find-the-boss, kill-the-boss repetitive nature of the original. Therefore a single player or a group can achieve missions in many ways. Four players can work individually towards a common goal but could also deal with things like a single player, moving from objective to objective in order to complete. Missions have more purpose in the world but can be done in any order. An early mission example though is regaining a fuel supply to The Agency, a building left tantalisingly out of shot during the day.
Instead of a sandbox game they want Crackdown 2 to be a toybox game. They've created the toys for people to play with. They delivered Keys to the City in Crackdown so people could open this toybox and given the You Tube response these "Keys" will be available to the players in Crackdown 2 with even more to play with.
Take the magnetic bombs used to create a washing line of cars between buildings or the gas canisters that you can shoot the caps off. Yes they turn into fireworks, bloody dangerous ones, but fireworks all the same and then combining the two your canister is stuck to the floor in a wild jig showing off the impressive physics engine. Turning to night they threw numerous gas canisters full of the canisters, cars and grenades and then we marvelled at the fireworks display. There's going to be some impressive videos coming.
Going Underground
But where were The Freaks coming from? Underground, and you will be going down there into their lairs. One is under the cooling tower and others are hidden across the map. The oppressive environment will create a real sense of claustrophobia for the player with less chance of escape in what appear to be large areas. Yeah they'll be brimming with Freaks. This adds to the verticality of the game although when pushed later they'd not confirm if there would be flight.
A night drive gives you the opportunity to see the city in turmoil and add your own getting into a vehicle and driving over your enemies. Not something to be penalised for anymore, this was a 60% complete game we were looking at and the vast amount of detail and enemies were flowing well, really well. Add to this variety of enemy, mission and vehicle to name just three and Crackdown 2 looks incredible giving players massive gameplay variety.
We were itching to get a shot and a deathmatch in the refinery awaited us as well as another in the city square and finally in the living area. We also got a shot at the rather violent and crazy game of tag at the docklands. Controls here were smooth, weapons fun and chunky and although there was some ironing to do on the lock on facility SquareGo did itself proud in the continuing fights.
That's a wrap
In the end they asked us to go. They'd shown us all they could and SquareGo feels that we were all starting to ask them tricky questions they'd been told not to answer. We tried, we really did but in the end. Ah well.
Crackdown 2 is out next year, it's all we could get. You want more than peruse the screen shots or you could possibly come back tomorrow when SquareGo got a personal chat with James Cope and Billy Thomson talking to them about Ruffian Games, Crackdown 2 and asking some probing questions they answered... mathematically.