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Why you should keep an eye out for Crackdown 2

The Original

Crackdown was released exclusively for the Xbox360 in February 2007 and was an over-the-top open world, third-person, free-running, shooting, car-driving and explosive joy of a game. You played an insanely over powered superhuman ‘Agent’ putting the smack down on city crime, and destroying half the city in the process. The game was made from raw fun.

Originally developed by Realtime Worlds, it was the brain child of Scottish game developer, Realtime Worlds founder and co-foundeder of Rockstar North, David Jones. Amoungs other things David Jones gave the world such classics as ‘Shadow of the Beast’, ‘Grand Theft Auto’ and that crazy green haired army known as ‘Lemmings’.

A rocky road to a new beginning

In 2009 Billy Thomson and Gaz Liddon left Realtime Worlds to form a new development company Ruffian Games and for a while there was a fair bit of uncertainty over the future of a possible Crackdown sequel. One that was certain however was that people really wanted one, and as an early success and exclusive for the 360 platform, non-more than Microsoft were keen on getting it made.

As early as December 2008 rumours were rife that Ruffian Games was formed for the sole purpose of creating Crackdown 2. In response to this Realtime Worlds issued a statements claiming that they ‘continue to have ongoing discussions with Microsoft about a Crackdown sequel’. Those ongoing discussions however did not seem to go so well and at Microsoft’s 2009 E3 conference, Ruffian Games where the ones that announced that their project to be Crackdown 2.

The future

Expected for release in 2010, and again exclusively for the Xbox 360 Crackdown 2 is to be a direct sequel to Crackdown.

Once again the player takes control of an ‘Agent’ who roams over Pacific City which has, thankfully, once again become infested with urban-gang warfare. You will be assisting the Agency in the battle for Pacific City against its numerous crime lords. However this time around it seems that you have more then your local ASBO types to deal with, it seems Pacific City is now also infested with mutants. These mutants, born from the research facility in the first Crackdown, have over run most of the former Shai-Gen territory and completely over run the city at night.

Lets blow things up together

One of my personal favourite features of any game is co-op, and although missing at launch, 4 player co-op was added to Crackdown in an free update. However from the outset Crackdown 2 is said to support 8 player co-op. That to me sounds awesome :) Also the game will feature other multilayer modes including deathmatch.

Great interview from Gamespot with lots of in game footage.

Check out the new tailor

Slated for a possible release of 25th June 2010 I would say that Crackdown 2 is definatly one to keep an eye on.

Screenshots