Crackdown 2

[ExtremeGamer]

Re: Crackdown 2

Had so much damn fun playing the original in 2-player co-op. I can't imagine how much fun it'll be with 4. Aside from Madden's Online Franchise, this is the most exciting E3 news for me so far. LOVED the original!

Agreed!!!

[Flawless]

Re: Crackdown 2

Ruffian Games

Hello and Welcome! We're Ruffian Games, recently announced as the developer for Crackdown 2. We've been busy bees working on this for a while in near Stalinesque secrecy. Thankfully the game has been announced at the 2009 E3.

That's all we can currently say about that (for now) but we don't want to leave you empty handed so there're a few other things we can let you in on. Ruffian Games is a brand new development team based in Scotland's glorious City of Dundee. Despite being less than a year old we've an aeon of experience and proven skill running through our team.

We've worked on many big titles in the past that we're sure you've heard of including Microsoft's Crackdown, Fable 2 and Project Gotham Racing. We hope you've enjoyed them as much as we did.

[luv_mist]

Re: Crackdown 2

I think I'm more at ease. However, the level of the guys that had a "hand" in producing those games could be anyone. I do like what I see with it. I can't imagine how they'd keep the graphics still popping well while keeping the core appealing enough. I wonder how the city will look. Oh, the thoughts of this game. I need to hurry up and get my game from my boy. It's killing me. So want to pop it in.

[AtlantaFalconFan]

Re: Crackdown 2

i forgot how this game plays ... is it like inFamous?

[mgoblue]

Re: Crackdown 2

Had so much damn fun playing the original in 2-player co-op. I can't imagine how much fun it'll be with 4. Aside from Madden's Online Franchise, this is the most exciting E3 news for me so far. LOVED the original!

I think I was in the middle of moving when this dropped, so I never picked it up...I'll have to see if I can get it used cheap. Sounds fun!

[ChubbyBanana]

Re: Crackdown 2

Had so much damn fun playing the original in 2-player co-op. I can't imagine how much fun it'll be with 4. Aside from Madden's Online Franchise, this is the most exciting E3 news for me so far. LOVED the original!

I never played much coop with the original, but me and a buddy were achievement racing with it, trying to beat each other to the highest achievement score. Was a heck of a lot of fun.

[SlimKibbles]

Re: Crackdown 2

Had so much damn fun playing the original in 2-player co-op. I can't imagine how much fun it'll be with 4. Aside from Madden's Online Franchise, this is the most exciting E3 news for me so far. LOVED the original!

I agree. Had a blast on co-op, at least with those friends who had the game, which honestly weren't many. I never traded mine in. Still have it. Hope to start the game over this summer and give it another go.

[The C]

Re: Crackdown 2

SO are we working for the agency again?

It seemed like the last game ended with a setting up of the agent vs the evil agency

[ANDROMADA 1]

Re: Crackdown 2

I loved the first one and will pre-order the second!!!

[luv_mist]

Re: Crackdown 2

If some of you guys are getting back into this, let me know. I'll be picking it back up from my friend so that I can start all over since my saves were K.I.T. Definitely loved playing that game. Never get to play many coop with friends because they stick with the regular stuff. This game truly was a gem.

[Flawless]

Re: Crackdown 2

Interview: Ruffian Games

How do you respond to David Jones’ remarks?

Peter Connelly: The bottom line is that, at the end of Crackdown, we were in negotiations to get Crackdown 2 moving. But logistically the business stars wouldn’t align, and we respected Realtime Worlds’ decision to move on to APB. They’re a strong team, a great company, and still a great partner. But we’re super fortunate to have found Ruffian, who are the right people to take the franchise forward and build its next great game. We’ve absolutely no animosity towards [Realtime Worlds].

How much of the original Crackdown team is working on the sequel?

BT: Close to half of our team worked on the original game. We’ve got core members from every discipline who worked on it, the majority of the design team, and, depending on whom you speak to, some of the best coders and most talented artists. But there are still guys at Realtime we want to be friends with, so we don’t want to get dragged into a slanging match.

Jim Cope: We still maintain a really strong working relationship with Realtime; they’re our neighbours in both personal and professional relationships, and we like that. But leaping to our defence, in a sense, we firmly believe we’re the right people to make Crackdown 2.

What’s the make-up of Crackdown 2? Is it a different game in the same city?

BT: From an environmental point of view, you probably would look at it as being an entirely new map. It’s still Pacific City but further on in the timeline. We’ve altered a great deal, and think people who enjoyed the first game are going to be really pleased when they enter this one. And we’ve made sure the gameplay’s altered significantly.

JC: It’s a really important part of what we think players identify with in Crackdown. The aspect of the city is part of the whole experience, and we need to maintain that familiarity.

BT: It’s something Jim says quite a lot and I think he’s spot on: the original environment in Crackdown is one of the key characters. We think bringing that character back and making it bigger and better is the way to go.

And the music?

BT: Obviously, we’re going to have really good music in there, but it’s hard [to talk about] because our audio director at Microsoft has got us a fantastic idea for how he wants to take the audio forward. It’s one of those things you can’t describe without giving it away.

JC: It’s one of those ideas where you instantly buy into it and start frothing at the mouth, and you instantly regret not thinking of it yourself. One of the things we find is unique with Crackdown is that there’s not this one identifiable attachment you have to it. You don’t have a lead character, in a sense, but all of these other things come out of the game in powerful ways, like the voice of the Agency, the areas you play in, and the whole freeform nature of it. We really want to preserve that. It’s what Crackdown’s all about – bringing all these sensory areas together.

Not everyone connected with the freeform nature of the original. Will the sequel feature more visible characters and interactions?

BT: One thing we’re not getting caught up in is dialogue-driven cutscenes. It’s not what we do and we’ve no business going towards that kind of thing. If we got dragged into the fight that’s going on between other games in this genre, I think that’d be a bad move. We’ll definitely have variation with the objectives and push forward with the freeform structure; we don’t just want ‘find-the-boss, kill-the-boss’. We made the first game and we know what was lacking. We’ve listened a lot to the community and the reviews. Obviously, we can’t take every comment on board, but we’re doing our best to address the biggest issues.

JC: A few of us found it difficult to deal with the fact that a lot of the freeform elements of the original were weak in certain areas. But we’ve learned from that. Billy won’t say this himself but he has an incredibly strong vision of what Crackdown 2 is. Moving the original on with that we believe was an incredibly powerful and important piece of DLC – that kind of evolution is something we’re keen to pursue.

Have there been any mechanical changes in the genre you’ve had to keep up with?

BT: If I’m being honest, not that much. We’ve improved the technology and we’ve probably got one of the better engines for long-distance vistas for both characters and vehicles. We don’t use depth of field and we don’t use fog. Control-wise, the mechanics are still right for the game we’ve got. We don’t want people to get right to the top of the Agency tower in the first five minutes; you’ve blown your money shot then. I don’t see the point in emulating games that aren’t moving towards our approach.

JC: One thing we’re pretty proud of is that people don’t look at it for the technology; they look at it for the game. It’s very easy to get lost in technical achievement. We have to make technical leaps to benefit the gameplay, but we only think in terms of the player.

There seemed to be an infected or zombie-like element in the teaser trailer. Many games use that as a cover for poor AI or limited action.

JC: I’ve publicly put on the site before that I think our trailer completely won E3. It did a fantastic job. I share the concerns about the infected thing, but we had those elements in the first game. It’s right for people to theorise and expect, but we’re not going to support one theory over another – we’re just excited that there are so many opinions.

BT: It’s hard to say without giving everything away early on, but it’s about how well the AI get around the environment. And it’s looking pretty good right now, I’ve got to say.

[CaptainZombie]

Re: Crackdown 2

And the music?

BT: Obviously, we’re going to have really good music in there, but it’s hard [to talk about] because our audio director at Microsoft has got us a fantastic idea for how he wants to take the audio forward. It’s one of those things you can’t describe without giving it away.

Could this mean some kind of last.fm integration.

[greenegt]

Re: Crackdown 2

Really looking forward to this one.

[luv_mist]

Re: Crackdown 2

In all honesty, I thought this was going to another studio with no sense as to how they'd mold it. After reading that, I'm even more syked for this than any other game except for Mass Effect 2. I honestly want to see how this molds. I need to get my first one from my boy. I feel like exploring like a superhero. I wish times weren't so hard. I'd definitely be more supportive of more gaming companies. You guys think they'll have DLC in this one more regularly? I think they could have really given more things to Crackdown to keep that game going for a few more months beyond the gameplay. Really disappointed that they didn't put out more.

[Flawless]

Re: Crackdown 2

Crackdown 2: Get Ready for a Beat Down

Though time has passed and Pacific City has changed, it won't be completely foreign to players. The Agency Tower remains as does the memorable voice of the Agency Director. "As we said, we really wanted to retain this feeling that Pacific City is something that players will feel a connection to," Cope told us. "We want to have that sense of revisiting old areas, the sense of déjà vu in a way, but it's going to be a completely new place. To the player's point of view, it's a completely new environment, but it will have elements that they will recognize and [...] that will be the case in terms of its scale and its presence... it is a familiar place, but very much changed."

When asked if that meant we'd be exploring the subterranean areas of Pacific City, Cope coyly answered: "Crackdown really brought vertical gameplay to the forefront of a lot of people's mind and I think as well as going up we should look at height in other directions."

Even though Ruffian is "doing a lot of work on rendering and lighting to push the bar up" on the visuals, Crackdown 2 is "retaining the vibrancy and comic stylings of the original." But more importantly, their new tech is "increasing the capabilities of the systems that [allow] us to have thousands of characters and activities in the world, it will play a significant part in gameplay and be integral to the online experience."

As the trailer indicates, you once again play an agent. However, this time three of your friends can join you online as you hunt down the bad guys. Four-player co-op is "a really exciting thing for us," Cope said, adding that "it's developing really well." And, of course, with an additional two players you're going to need some deeper customization options to distinguish one another. "There are particular reasons why they've developed [the new look.] Like on the Agency armor you can see the cell motif, the hexagon motif [from the beginning of the trailer] come back again. That links the bloodcells with the veins [of the city]. That's the thing that we're trying to carry through."

Though you won't continue on with your powered-up character from the first Crackdown, something Cope felt would be a "cheap mechanic," there is a reward waiting for those who played the original. "We definitely want to acknowledge and reward returning players but prefer to keep exactly what we're planning under cover until the game's release."

The reasons for starting you at level 1 again is so you can build up to something even better. "I think it would be rude not to [add new powers]," Cope said. "We want to maintain a lot of familiarity with the first game, but we also want to evolve it. I do still think that the Crackdown 1 DLC was a huge evolution over the launch game. We're very keen here to continue in the path that [the DLC] had set. It's really about expanding on the gameplay and the arsenal of things available to a player. That's something we all believe in strongly."

New powers and weapons are great, but those weren't the lacking elements of the original. The mission structure was little more than stumbling across bosses, killing them and moving on. "We completely understand some of their frustrations with the gameplay, like the repetitive mission structure and things like that," Cope said. "It's something we feel as gamers as well as game developers is frustrating as well. City exploration and enjoying the freedom of Crackdown is a very important part of the experience. Naturally, we want to encourage players to explore the city and find new and interesting things to do in it. That said, fans can expect a progression to their objectives from Crackdown to Crackdown 2 that extend beyond just find the boss, kill the boss."

Agility and Hidden orbs are returning. How these have "evolved" is unknown, but Cope assures us that finding them won't prove as frustrating as in the original. "One of the things that annoyed people the most that we never clued them in on were orb locations. We've driven a lot of people mad, myself included." One helpful tool might be the binoculars spied in the trailer. "We always had the idea of telescopic vision... Where we go exactly with that we will retain for a little while long. I think players are going to have a lot of fun. And we believe strongly that we don't add frivolous things in a game. We make sure things have a purpose and a value."