Crackdown 2 Continues to Put the Crack in Crackdown

Ruffian blew up CTU!

I say that, because I suspect the developer took notes from the 24 school of storytelling to develop its follow up to Crackdown.

FOX's Keifer Sutherland joint, now in a graceless final season, was last decade's unrivaled success - an action film on TV. Its writing team, who had created lightning in a bottle with an explosive first season, made a bold decision in how they would continue the series: new settings, guest stars and twists, but at the heart, the same old story in which renegade agent Jack Bauer protects his nation with Machiavellian gusto.

Crackdown 2, set in the same Pacific City as its predecessor, but ten years later, has aged. Time has produced new skyscrapers and wrecked familiar landmarks and the equivalent of its CTU, The Agency, is dethroned from the dominant role it had taken at the end of Crackdown. In its place - a new powerful gang.

But you're still the equivalent of Jack Bauer, an unstoppable superhuman with the capacity to improve your skills by driving, fighting, jumping and blowing up stuff. This is the Crackdown you know, just with a couple new, interesting spices.

The best new flavor being drop-in, drop-out co-op. At our demo, a PR cohort and I decimated Pacific City piecemeal, spraying the streets with bullets, tossing school buses and deploying new explosives. A new bungie cord mine that connects multiple objects together then explodes was particularly useful. To demonstrate, my partner in crime-fighting bound a lamp post to a car door, picked up the post and swung the bungied door like a mace, flaying enemies across the street with an explosive thwack.

Some of the original's features have been replaced. Gone are the mob bosses. In their place - Horde mode-like scenarios that pit your hero against swarms of reanimated monster zombies that when exterminated explode into fire and dust.

Other features are tweaked. As you jump across the city, expect to find stray agility orbs that flee from your pursuit, their collection requiring a swift foot.

At the end, I came away from Crackdown 2 the way I left the second season of 24: More action, bigger explosions, flashier weapons and the same, great core idea. More Crackdown? That's all I ever wanted.