This is not a rant aimed at you, Aaron, I'll clarify first. In fact, I'll have a good rant in blog format later and possibly post it here too.

What I do want to say, though, is that I'm a little disappointed at the reaction to Crackdown 2. Yes, it is very similar to the first game. Yes, there perhaps should have been more evolution. But it's not a bad game, as most of these reviews seem to be making out. In fact, it is a fun game. It is shallow and mindless, but that's all it was ever intended to be. How many other sequels have we seen that bore an uncanny resemblance to the original game, and yet they still went on to be praised highly? Quite a few, I'll wager.

I think a lot of people are coming to it with... not "unreasonable" expectations, but... oh, I'm not sure of the word I want to use. I think a lot of people are approaching it in the wrong way. Do I mean that? Is there a "wrong" way?

Regardless... I like Crackdown 2. A lot, actually. And I will be explaining why in a blog post later tonight. :)

Right off the bat I'm put off by the opening that paints any of the more positive reviews of the game being from lesser known sites and includes the suggestion that they're only a better review because those lesser known sites got the game early.  It's further driven home by the notion that the more "reasonable" scores were ones that matched your personal opinon.   Disappointing.  Could I not just as easily lump all the big sites into the "jaded" category as the reason for their lukewarm reception?  Would that be fair?

I have to agree with Pete's take on the game.  I'm not really sure what people were expecting.  I definitely have some issues with some of the design decisions in the game, but have had a blast playing with friends thus far.  And honestly, that's what Crackdown was always about for me.  Running around with friends, 2 more than before now, getting orbs, and doing crazy ass stuff. 

When I say "reasonable" I mean "more in line with what I think the game should score."

Perhaps the "lesser-known sites" comment I made could have used more context, but I didn't want to distract from my main point. I certainly didn't say that's the "only" reason a site would score the game higher, but to me, that's one of the main reasons.

To both of your points about expectations. People expected something that was worth $60 and made use of the extended amount of time between games. Crackdown 2 doesn't get the job done. Collecting orbs gets tiring after a few hours, the campaign is dull and unfocused, the announcer's annoying, the city isn't different enough, many of the changes do nothing to make the game better, the graphics are dated, and it brings nothing new to the table. I think it's a textbook example on "how not to make a sequel." I'm happy you both are enjoying the game, but I don't understand how your expectations could have been so low that you're pleased that you spent $60 on an expansion pack.

My word isn't the definitive word on anything, which is why I encouraged comments at the end of my story. I love to hear what others think, and I appreciate both of you taking the time to share your thoughts on the game.

I've been worried about this game since Shoe's interview with someone from the game's development team. All of these negative blurbs don't make me feel much better, even if my good friend Pete feels bettter about it :)

Glad to see the Bitmob community fighting back against all the Crackdown 2 hate. I'll be buying this game tomorrow and I fully expect to love it.

I'm actually pretty amazed at how universally detested Crackdown 2 has been by the entire Bitmob staff. Side-by-sides, interviews, podcasts, this very article, does anyone have anything good to say?

Chase: The side-by-side really wasn't done from a negative perspective. I just wanted to show people how things had/hadn't changed and let them decide.

I appreciate the opposing side of the discussion quite a bit. It helps me to better understand the gaming community as a whole, and sometimes it convinces me that my initial reaction to something was wrong. I didn't think much of Red Dead Redemption at first, but peoples' positive attitude toward the game encouraged me to give it another shot. While I have yet to finish (been busy lately), I've begun to enjoy the cowboy experience quite a bit.

Arron: See...reading that response and your list of complaints I'm not sure what joy you found in the first Crackdown let alone going in for a second time.  I don't find orb collecting boring.  In fact now that I can run around and do it with 3 other friends it's even more fun.  I LOVE the fact that the city is the same.  After spending 30+ hours in Pacific City in CD1 I get a huge kick out of seeing the world as it's been destroyed  and how it has changed. 

I do have some issues with the game.  I think it feels kind of empty.  I think it is bland looking compared to the neon explosion of the first game.  I find it difficult to locate friends since everyone is the same symbol/color on the HUD map.  I do miss the mission structure of the first game and being able to approach them from different angles.  However, all of those combined haven't been enough to undo the enjoyment I've had thus far. 

What's "worth $60" though? It's a brand new game. They rewrote the whole game engine to support 4 player co-op and 16-player PVP. The whole world had to be rebuilt. There's new models. A huge increase in the number of baddies on screen. They had eight months to turn this project around and nearly killed themselves in the process. Eight months!

OK, it's not technically perfect. The graphics aren't great compared to, say, Assassin's Creed 2. But they do the job. They're not BAD, as some sites seem to be making out. Have you SEEN that draw distance?

I'm getting into the territory I want to post about now, so I'm going to restrain myself from ranting any further. :) I think there should be some open discussion about this game, though, as I actually feel pretty strongly that it's being treated quite unfairly.

I don't think it does Crackdown 2 any favors that the last open-world game was Red Dead Redemption, which was in my opinion the best open-world game (both technically and otherwise) ever made.

Pete:  "Worth" is another great issue.  I loved Dead Space but probably spent less than 20 hours total on the game.  I'll probably have that covered in CD2 Co-op alone by next week.  For me, the "worth" is not even a question.  I also agree about the discussion.  I do an Xbox podcast and we're a week and half out from the next show and I'm absolutely chomping at the bit to get our discussion ball rolling for this game and it's reaction. 

Pete and Jeremy: I don't think the co-op adds much, if anything to the game because I'm still playing a game with all of the problems I mentioned before. Also, there's no chance they made this game in eight months -- it was revealed on June 1, 2009. Even if they did, that's not an excuse. What the heck is the hurry to rush this game out the door?

 It sounds like I'm in one end on the "more of the same sequel" argument and you guys are on the other. I do love discussing it though. Thanks for being cool about it!

I can call you an asshole if you'd prefer. :)

I beg your pardon; I misquoted the development period. It was an eight month CRUNCH period, as opposed to total life cycle. The whole thing, including pre-development stuff, was done in a year. But the majority of the work was done in eight months.

I'll add that I went to interview the devs, so this is straight from the horse's mouth. Ruffian were very honest about it. They know the game has flaws, but the simple fact of the matter is with the time they were given, there wasn't time to fix everything they wanted to.

Aaron:  Agreed.  I totally fall in the camp of being ok with "more of the same" in terms of this franchise.  (Which is odd because I would hold it against a lot of other games.) I think maybe because even with the first one the "story" was never really the focus.  I would buddy up and we'd run through the boses in a single play session.  Multiple times.  So the missions were never really my leading factor.  In fact, once the Keys To The City DLC came out, it just became about messing around all the time.

I do agree if someone has issues with what the game offers then co-op won't do anything for them, because as you say, it doesn't add anything gameplay wise.  But I also think it's as simple as if someone doesn't like the orb collecting even at the 10 minute mark then they probably just shouldn't play the game. :)

It's simply not true that this game was developed in a year. It came out 13 months after the first trailer was shown. http://www.perezstart.com/microsoft/xbox360-microsoft/e3-2009-crackdown-2-announced-2010-release-date/5890/ (Obiviously it was in development before the trailer came out, even if it doesn't show gameplay.)

I don't think the development time is an issue. Some games that have taken a lot longer to develop haven't been good, either. For example: I was a consultant on Backbreaker. Now, legally, I'm not sure what I'm allowed to say about my involvement (I signed a very, very long agreement before I started, and I prefer to err on the side of caution.), but I can say that the game was in development for a very, very long time and it just didn't end up being a good game. I admit that and don't offer up any excuses for it.

I don't prefer you call me an asshole, but I'm used to it. I kind of enjoy the civilized discussion more. :)

Jeremy and Pete. Maybe we can get together for some co-op at some point this week or weekend. Perhaps there's an interesting article in such a venture. What do ya think?

For what it's worth I thought I heard something about Crackdown having a 5 year development cycle and for Crackdown 2 it was 18 months.

Aaron: Great idea. That sounds like a fine plan.

For all it's worth, sometimes the review blurbs don't tell the whole story.

If you take for example the 1up review blurb it has a score of 67 and says "There's no question that Crackdown 2 is a mere shadow of the first game, which stands as an absolute classic. The sequel feels more like an ambitious user mod than a true follow-up."

But if you click on the review, you will find out that the actual score for this game in 1up is B- (poorly translated into 67 in Metacritic), and the opening sentance says something very true:

To my knowledge, there's only one game in the world that lets you team up online with three friends playing as super-powered SWAT agents, make a rendezvous by leaping over skyscrapers, pile everyone into (and onto) one car, tear down the street at 100 mph (rendering a road-clogging zombie horde into a messy green spray), then crash that car into a terrorist hideout in an explosion that rips through most of the bad guys inside. That game is Crackdown 2, and for that reason Crackdown 2 is ridiculously fun. "

So there might be better games out there, and the game does look a bit rushed (project schedule was 15 months, but development time was actually 12 month according to Ruffian). But it does something that no other game in the genre does, so if you liked the first Crackdown (which sound like you don't from your criticism of the second game) this is the game to get.

Wow. Trying to start a new thread of thought in response to a post becomes impossible with all these comments preceeding yours. :)

@ Pete Davison - You acknowledge that peoples' expectations of Crackdown 2 weren't unreasonable...what were those expectations? I'd argue that they were general expectations that anyone has for a sequel: that the sequel bring something new to the table. That the sequel justify its existence by showing how it improves upon the original. Otherwise, it's just a cheap cookie-cutter-press title, and at $60 a pop, that's not acceptable to the average gamer; so when Crackdown 2 turns out to be so similar to the first game, I think people are understandably dissapointed.

@ Jeremy Meyer - I'm the EIC of an indie site, and write for another one. I think that indie sites are grateful whenever they receive review code at all, much less pre-release review code. They have every motivation to be kind to the publishers who give them that code. That's the reality of video game journalism.

Ever wonder why the video game press doesn't seem to be as harsh on titles as they might be, if they turned a truly critical eye towards the games? Access is what justifies the existence of the gaming press at all. If Kotaku suddenly was denied interviews with Bobby Kotick and studio insiders, and not given passes to E3, the site would die. Same for any of them. Video game journalists have to work hard to legitmize themselves and their sites, and then they have to protect that access or go out of business. So, if I were to receive review code for the site where I'm the EIC, and our reviewer brutally savaged the game, I'm pretty sure my site would never receive review code from that publisher ever again, because why would they bother? How does it serve them?

I'd have a tough decision to make in that case: let the review run as-is and threaten access we worked hard to achieve, or ask the writer to tone the review down, or edit it myself to make it critical but less harsh, potentially kinder than it really ought to be from any fair assessment?

The fact is that the video game industry has the enthusiast press by the balls, and there's nothing the press can do about it short of banding together and going on strike until the publishers play by a new set of rules which establish and maintain the journalists' integrity...and were that to happen, I think the publishers would just turn to the gaggle of indie sites out there who would be more than happy to sell out in order to make a modest, full-time living just writing about video games.