14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft Game Studios and Ruffian Games have announced that Crackdown 2 will be coming out on July 6 in the United States and three days later in the United Kingdom and, presumably, in the rest of Europe. The videogame will be exclusively released on the Xbox 360 and its main selling point will be the ability for four players to engage in cooperative play.
Crackdown 2 is a sequel to one of the most interesting videogames of 2007, which was partly promoted to greatness by the inclusion of a Halo 3 beta key in the package.
Original developer Realtime Worlds is now working on the All Points Bulletin MMO, which is set to also be launched this year, and development duties for the sequel have been handled by Ruffian Games, a developer that seems to have been created specifically to provide a second game in the series for which Microsoft holds all the rights. Crackdown 2 will offer the same freedom of movement as the first iteration, with the player-controlled Agent acting again in the interest of the shadowy Agency in the confines of Pacific City. The team has kept the central concepts of the initial Crackdown, with the player having huge amounts of power right from the beginning and being able to fully destruct the world around them as they tackle missions and fight hordes of mutants and humans.
After mutated humans overran the streets of the city, the Agency initiated a project, called Sunburst, which would destroy them all and the Agent needs to assault the territories of human gangs and mutants in order to get the components. The main narrative allows for a lot of diversions, the player being able to get into brawls and chases that are not necessary but certainly fun in the huge sandbox of Pacific City.