Zero Punctuation: Crackdown 2

[Meggiepants]

Legitimate complaints all.

But I still found mowing over hundreds of freaks in my Agency SUV to be uniquely satisfying. The people in games like Saint's Row run away from you if you try to do this. The freaks just get angry and surge, making the squishy mess all the more satisfying.

I do wish they had given us a new city to play in. And the loss of the bosses was a bad idea. I don't know why they did that.

But I still had fun playing it.

 

[Pendragon9]

He didn't like Lost Planet 2?

Bummer. Oh well. Guess it's an acquired taste, like Crackdown2.

 

[sfried]

I...didn't get the allegory with Kookaburras and your mom joke.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

...did Yahtzee actually use the phrase "the Earth Mother's most exotic sex aid"?

Good show, old bean. Good show.

T-shirt giveaway is live for breaking 100,000 Facebook fans! http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102266-Zero-Punctuation-Celebrates-100-000-Facebook-Fans-With-ZP-T-shirts-Giveaway

If I didn't hate Facebook with the fiery passion of a thousand flaming suns, I'd be ALL over this.

 

[merman]

As has been mentioned, Ruffian Games is a new company. So the comment about level design was a little harsh, and from what I've read there are a lot of new ideas in there. The original probably benefitted a great deal from having the Halo 3 beta with it.

 

[valiantcid]

Is it just me or is the "More like letdown 2, amirite?" taken from ENN's Chad X, because if so... that's awesome.

 

[L4Y Duke]

Actually, Dick Smith here is selling Crackdown 1 for $10. I haven't gone for it though, as frankly without online, after you've completed the game there's nothing much left to do for those who aren't totally obsessed with finding all the orbs.

I wonder if that's the same over in Australia

 

[OceanRunner]

Yahtzee hit every nail on the head with this review. When they make Crackdown 3 (which I assume Ruffian will do, having seen the ending), they had better set it in a new city, not bring back the Freaks, and bring back a variety of unique criminal gangs.

 

[mklnjbh]

Did anyone else get a weird scratchy bit to the sound around the jacuzzi analogy?

 

[Waif]

Strangely, the content of the new Crackdown still appeals to me. Particularly the multi-player, though I don't know how multi-player works in this game, and I have yet to even play the first Crackdown. I like multi-player games, only because it enhances my experience with the game itself. Though this is just how I feel about multi-player in games. In any event, great video ^~^!

 

[FallenMessiah88]

I never got to play the first Crackdown. I did try to get a hold of a copy though. And now that there's a sequel i thought i had a lot of catching up to do. However judging by this video i should probably just stick to the first one...at least for the time being.

 

[willgreg123]

Anyone else get phone interference or is my phone trying to make me feel lonely by tricking me into thinking someone is trying to call me?

I heard it too.

 

[Kristoffer Sivertsen]

The cellphone prank was fun^^

 

[letfireraindown]

yet again, Yahtzee makes me interested in a game that came out before i had a 360.

 

[megalomania]

I ain't had time to read everything so I apologize if somebody else has mentioned this however - the map shown depicting the 'pacific' (assuming it is America (which it always is in gaming)) was the East coast of America i.e. Atlantic. It also looked suspiciously like the Atlantic north-east!

 

[Misterian]

Wow, I personally doubted Crackdown games in general would be fun, from what I intitally gathered, Yahtzee, I thought Crackdown would be too easy and boring.

It might seem wierd, but your recommendation on the first Crackdown completely changes that. And I'll also take your advice on avoiding Crackdown.

And to be honest, Fable 2 and Soul Calibur 4 were the ONLY games I played and disagreed with you on, but other than that, I played games you reviewed only to find you being completely right about them.

 

[solidstatemind]

RE: the weird sound:

It's not really cellphone interference... well not directly, anyway. It's actually Bluetooth interference. [ ... ]

I strongly doubt this is correct.

Cell phones have been generating that characteristic RFI buzz for years, long before Bluetooth achieved wide adoption. Further, Bluetooth operates over the 2.4GHz band, the same bands as 802.11[bgn] wireless networking. If transmissions over the 2.4GHz band were causing that buzzing, we would have noticed it the moment we put a Wireless Access Point in our homes.

I often hear this buzz right before I receive a call or a text. My personal guess is that there's a common transceiver component that everyone uses (because it's cheap and it "works") that spills a lot of noise into a band that amplifiers can pick up at close range. If the Federal Communications Commission were actually fulfilling its charter, this sort of thing would have been investigated and fixed by now.

Believe what you wish. I can't change your mind. Note, however, that your 'deduction' (which is flawed because Bluetooth uses frequency hopping - at 1,600 hops per second- to hop over the entire 2.4 GHz band. 802.11b, on the other hand, uses direct sequence and only occupies approximately one third of the 2.4 GHz band. As a result, Bluetooth hops all over 802.11b transmissions) is no more valid than me saying, oh, that I have studied this artifacting problem for a major company, specifically in regards to when this phenomena is experienced using bluetooth hardware, and not just cell phones-- at least in this forum. We're not really presenting scientific data here.

It was more of an interesting aside anyway. If it's that important to you; fine- you're 'right'. It's not worth arguing about. Personally, I'll say no more on the subject.

What he said. I used to get that interference sound when I was in college back in.. erm... 94 or so. It always preceded a call or a text message.

See above. Although I find it interesting that you were using SMS in '94... talk about an early adopter.

 

[AceDiamond]

So basically Yahtzee spends time complaining about sequels that are too samey (whether that's deserved or not is entirely different) yet now rails against Crackdown 2 for taking place in the same city give or take the breakdown of all social structure in the attempt to tell some semblance of a story, and also changing up gameplay mechanics and introducing multiplayer that isn't just a co-op romp. Stillwater in Saints Row 2 wasn't all that different from Stillwater in Saints Row 1 and yet he thought that was an impressive game. Can't have it both ways. Simply can't. And I didn't even like the direction the game was headed in with Crackdown 2, I was hoping it was going to actually continue from the cliffhanger of sorts from Crackdown 1, but now I've warmed up to it if only in a futile attempt to spite Yahtzee and his constant hypocrisy, like his constant derision of multiplayer. We get it, you hate people. Tough shit, multiplayer gaming is a lucrative business as evidenced by the constant bombardment of ads for GODDAMN STARCRAFT II.

 

[silversnake4133]

Har, you have a text message. XD Great job as always.

 

[Squilookle]

I'm one of the biggest supporters of the whole 'don't have multiplayer at the cost of singleplayer' train of thought, but in all honesty I love Unreal Tournament anyway, because they worked SO hard to put the best bots in the business in there for the singleplayers out there, and made sure absolutely everything could be played offline as well as on. I have never played UT2004 against human opposition but to this day I still have an absolute ball with it because the bots are fantastic.

I suppose what I'm saying is a less than perfect singleplayer can be excused if the multiplayer has addictive terrific AI bots that keep you coming back... you know... years later (mmm Perfect Dark)