After a recommendation on a previous blog post, I decided to pick up Crackdown 2 and give it a go. When I first started playing, I noticed immediately that the game took place in the exact same city and all of the game models were the same, not a huge problem though.
The plot was just beyond weird, it started out with you as an Agent going through the city and then you're introduced to the Mutants. Basically, the mutants have taken over the city and rule it by night, the only way to destroy the mutants are to visit different stations to enable them, and when 3 of them connect you are to protect a beacon until it is fully charged and releases its power destroying all mutants in that district. Mutants were also in the first game, but they are in the game for like half of a second, but they aren't in any strong numbers.
The occurrence of the mutant is basically being blamed on a terrorist organization called "Cell," and these people are basically just dudes with guns in the game, you don't really learn much about them at all. During the entire game, you really don't learn much at all about them, which was kind of lame since I kept doing the same shit over and over again. Near the end of the game, their female leader Katalina Thorn attempted to contact me on the headset, and said that I was a pawn or some shit, but I don't even fuckin know who was bad or not. I assume the game wanted the Agency to be bad and Cell be good, but since the game also tried to force a plot twist on you it was impossible to really tell good from bad. Basically, Cell released the virus which turned a shit ton of people into Mutants, and the Agency wanted to kill the mutants and take back the city, which sounds worse to you?
Agility
Just as before, this traits is what causes you to run faster and jump higher. This trait has basically zero change from the first game, there are still the 500 agility orbs and rooftop races that help increase this skill. The one addition to this, is that once you reach level 5 you can do a "Wing Suit" which is basically a suit that allows you to glide through the air, there are certain rings that you can maneuver through, but I honestly didn't care enough to even try to learn those controls. As before, this is definitely the easiest trait to level up, since you're constantly jumping around on top of buildings and suck, it's impossible to avoid the green glowing orbs.
Driving
In my opinion, this is the skill that they increased the most when it came to the sequel. Just as before, you can drive and steal cards just like in any GTA game, but I hardly drove cars in the 1st game because it was basically useless. In this game however, any time you die you are spawned at a destination of choice with a vehicle, unlike the 1st game where you could only get Agency vehicles from the Agency Tower. Driving was much easier and people were also a hell of a lot easier to hit. You couldn't believe how frustrating it was to try to run someone over in the 1st game, it was impossible to get that skill up to its peak. This game at least lets you have fun with the vehicles, and you will most likely be driving around a lot more than you did in the first game.
Explosives
Grenades in this game wasn't exactly the most fun thing to do. In the previous game, I was using them all of the god damned time, but this time your skill doesn't affect the blast radius or strength of a grenade, all leveling up does is unlock other grenades. Now let me tell you, the grenades that you unlock really aren't that great, the best grenades there are, are the ones that you pick up off of fallen enemies and bring them back to a drop zone to unlock them.
Fighting
This trait just wasn't as fun in the sequel, maybe because they really didn't do anything to improve on it. The moves are all the same, the build up is all the same, zero improvement. The stronger you get, the faster people die when you kick them and you can pick up and throw larger objects.
Guns
The improvement on the guns skill isn't exactly an "improvement". Just as the grenades, your skill has no affect on your aim or strength of the weapon, all it does is unlock other weapons when you get to a drop zone. The weapons were pretty cool though, if you play it I recommend trying out the Harpoon Gun, that thing was awesome.
If you're a fan of the 1st game, you might as well pick this up to at least give it a try, but don't expect a fantastic game that will blow your mind like the first one.
