Crackdown 2 is a game of the likes I have never played before. It has an incredible structure, but at the same time, it is completely open to the player to decide what he/she should do next. You are given a MASSIVE world to explore and conquer, with abilities to make you come back for even more. The only downfall to it is repetition.

That is the only issue I had with Crackdown 2, the repetition. If you look past that and look at the game as a whole, it is beyond brilliant. The controls were by far the best thing, nice and loose when the time calls for it. Controlling a vehicle is an easy concept and even easier to administer. However, my overall favorite aspect of Crackdown 2 is the abilities. I will admit when I finished playing the game, I had three out of six maxed out. I spent most of my time killing zombies with vehicles, and no, not by driving them. I had a major tendency to run out in the middle of the road and punch an enemy car, pick it up and go bowling. I also loved explosives, more specifically the UV grenade.

The controls are very twitchy at best. Well, I should say the movement is twitchy, and the buttons are tight, if that makes any sense. Although I played the demo for it on Xbox Live, I was kind of cautious going into it, as I did not like how tight the controls were in the demo. Thankfully, the development team fixed it and made it really worthwhile. The control layout does make it really simple to figure out what button does what. I did, however, have a bit of trouble in the beginning because I am usually solely a first-person shooter player. The enemy AI is lacking, though, I have to say. Granted, zombies are supposed to be idiots, but when I have a hoard coming after me, and I do a ground pound, it is game over for them. I would have liked to see some improvements for the AI most of all.

Now, I love the voice acting of Crackdown 2, but I also got very annoyed very quickly with the “narrator.” He may have been my superior officer, but dude, come on! Lay off for a moment. If I want to break away from the main story arc and go blow some stuff up, then I am going to use the freedom the developers gave me. I don’t care there is a stronghold a couple blocks down that needs attention; all I care about right now is throwing this giant truck at some undead people! In all seriousness, the voice acting was pretty good; I just had the small issue of being annoyed by the constant reminders.

Graphically, though, the game is best described as a Dreamcast-era game ported to a next-gen console. Though some things did look awesomely fantastic, such as explosions, which I seem to have seen a lot of.

In a nutshell, Crackdown 2 is a rent to buy; by that, I mean rent first to see if you enjoy it, then if you do, go ahead and buy it. In the real world, I am a game designer, but when I get home from an overly long stressful day, I want to blow some stuff up, and this game catered to that. If you find yourself overly stressed, or you just need to vent, Crackdown 2 is for you. If you are not a fan of run-and-gun type of games, I suggest you go play something else.

Overall, Crackdown 2 is fun, with and without friends. There may be not a great amount of missions to conquer, but if you get together with a buddy online, I think you will find there is a great amount of chaos to cause.