The first Crackdown became something of a sleeper hit when it launched in 2007, due in large part to the inclusion of Halo 3 beta codes with the disc.  Once people actually got around to playing Crackdown, though, they found a genuinely fun, over-the-top open world shooter with a unique look and engaging online co-op play.  Crackdown 2 won’t have the benefit of an early look at one of the most anticipated games of all time, and will have to rely on its own merits.  At the Crackdown 2 booth at PAX East, patient gamers were lined up to get a ten minute preview of two of the game’s multiplayer modes; Rocket Tag and Team Deathmatch, and we were lucky enough to get our own hands-on look at one of the most colorful and hectic multiplayer experiences of the show.

Pulling up a futuristic-looking chair and a helpful Microsoft rep, I jumped into a Team Deathmatch session.  Visually, Crackdown 2 is even more cartoony than its predecessor, swapping the previously semi cel-shaded presentation for a purely animated look.  The Agents’ battle armor was extremely cool looking, featuring a look that, while vaguely reminiscent of Spartan armor, had its own feel and aesthetic.  Similarly, the environment featured a very flat-colored look, and lacked detailed shadows in corners.  This isn’t a knock on the graphics, rather an observation of the game’s visual fidelity. Everything fits together visually, and the clean lines and bold color palette of the character models carry over to the environmental elements.

The level on which we played was a shipping yard of some sort, complete with huge stacks of shipping containers and three massive cranes.  Of course, with Crackdown agents’ superhuman leaping abilities, these towering obstacles were easily overcome.  Scattered among the crates and equipment were all manner of perks, ranging from speed to defensive boosts to rocket launchers and almost unfairly nasty proximity mines, and grabbing them was a high priority.  The game’s lock-on feature, activated by holding down the left trigger, made it so that machine guns could eventually take out opponents, but against more powerful weapons, the default load-out was almost pea-shooterishly ineffective.

With 12 players on the field, the relatively small play area felt extremely frenzied, and deaths weren’t just frequent; they were constant.  Agents flew through the air on impossible trajectories, propelled by jump-pads that allowed access to the highest perches on top of cranes.  With everyone on different and constantly changing levels, the combat was more vertically oriented than in most shooters, and it added to the feeling of chaos.  Pressing the B button would execute a melee attack, but unlike most multiplayer shooters, one swing with the butt of your rifle didn’t instantly kill an opponent.  The one time I was able to land a melee strike, it knocked my opponent down, but left him alive.  I presume that my next blow would have finished him off, but both he and I were rudely interrupted by an exploding rocket in our faces.  While in the air, holding B performed a powerful ground pound, which acted as a melee attack with a relatively small area of effect.  Combining this attack with the ability to glide in the air by tapping the Y button made for an interesting tactic for attacking from above.  At least one vehicle was available on the board; a speedy and presumably agile buggy with little shielding.  I say presumably because I only saw the vehicle for a second as it charged directly at me.  Then I blew it and its driver into tiny, tiny pieces with a rocket launcher.

I never got a chance to play the other mode, Rocket Tag, which, by all accounts, is frantic enough to make Team Deathmatch look like a meeting of the congressional oversight panel, but it’s essentially a game of tag where one player tries to hold on to a glowing yellow orb while everyone else blasts the hell out of him with rockets.  The Microsoft representative also talked about the four-player co-op mode, but sadly, it was not on display at the event.  What I did see, though, impressed me.  Crackdown 2 may not be the most polished online combat I’ve seen, and with its animated look and frenetic pace, and the preposterous abilities of the Agents, it can’t be taken too seriously, but it’s pure fun, and should offer plenty of adrenaline-fueled online action when it’s released on July 6.

Crackdown 2 is due out July 6th, 2010 for the Xbox 360.