Crackdown 2

I got bored of Crackdown 1 really quickly. Just the storyline, I mean, the idea of it was awesome and the game mechanics were solid, but the storyline was boring and not much fun.

The demo is terrible. Can't believe they took a game that was dated and mediocre when it came out, downgraded the graphics, reused the city with some zombies tossed in, and are calling it a $60 "sequel." This should have been a $12 DLC.

Watch the developer interviews they have on the 360 page. They will creep you out.

Saints Row 2, GTA IV, Red Dead Redemption, Infamous, Just Cause 2, etc are awesome. Crackdown definitely isn't in a class with those games. I wouldn't even put it in a class with Assassin's Creed, Just Cause 1, and Prototype. The problem with Crackdown is that there was already a game that did everything it does better, and on older hardware. When I played it I couldn't help but feel that it was a downgrade from Spider-Man 2 on the original Xbox. The web slinging is similar to but much better than agility orb jumping. And whereas Crackdown's combat is lame, Spider-Man 2 lets you give thugs piledrivers off the empire state building. It was a nice filler game since the 360 lineup was thin, but that's all it was. Sorry that the sequel couldn't even live up to that standard and they ripped you for $60. I was thinking about getting it myself and might have made that mistake had I not played the demo. It's sad when they get so lazy that they can't even meet modest expectations.

If you want the ultimate sandbox experience, I recommend going all-in on a high end gaming PC. I've got a pair of heavily overclocked GTX 480 along with a 4ghz i7 and GTA IV was just mindblowing, like a totally different game from the console versions with a few mods, all sliders maxed, and a smooth framerate at 2560-1600. Just Cause 2 is similarly stunning.

Why? It's the same hardware and the 360 was maxed pretty quickly due to the ease of development. It's not like they were handicapped making it and we both agree that they weren't being bleeding edge innovators with regards to design. Calling unfairness would be more relevant if those games were only superior on the technical aspects. But Crackdown's story, vehicles, gunplay, and missions were all pretty bad and the only thing that saved the game was agility orbs. I think a comparison to San Andreas only makes Crackdown look worse since San Andreas was built on inferior hardware but is the better game by far with much better production values and a detailed city that has a lot more to do.


Nah man. I've been playing games ever since my parents bought me an Atari 2600 and River Raid on clearance when I was like 4 years old. I dabble in almost every single genre, everything from Romance of the Three Kingdoms menu-based strategy games to Steel Battalion with its dual joystick, triple foot pedal, 40 button controller. Since I've played the vast majority of great games, I don't find it difficult to tell how good a game is even if there aren't similar games released around the same time to judge it against.

This gets me into arguments all the time. For example, people will say that Lost Odyssey and Tales of Vesperia are great RPGs, I'll rightly point out that they're crap, and the traditional response is "No they aren't, they're the BEST jrpgs on the 360." To me that doesn't mean much since I won't give a game a pass just because it was released into a vacuum. Instead I'll compare it to what came before, after, and even on other systems. I may play it and even enjoy it since there's nothing better to do, but I'll still be critical.

If later releases diminish a game's standing much, then it wasn't very good to begin with (except in special cases like Burnout where the game is built on spectacle and later games will surely trump it, or sports games where continuous improvement is expected). In fact, a great game's status should only be cemented by the passage of time. Just look at Ace Combat 4. I thought it was a masterpiece the first time I played it, and that opinion is vindicated now that 10 years have passed and no flight combat game surpassed it.

Fuck, this is way too much effort being expended to discuss Crackdown of all games.