Beautiful, expansive worlds with a plethora of enemies, tools, and diverse characters with whom the player character can interact aren’t just for open world games.  Different areas to run around in, a wide range of environments, several missions giving the player excuses to return to some of those nifty environments, these things occur in linear games as well. Rage is, yeah, linear, but linear is no STD-infested harlot ruining each game it can get its hands on, linear is capable of healthy relationships as well.

Initial details and footage of Id’s latest project, Rage, hinted at a massive post-apocalyptic world where the player could roam about freely, shooting mutated things in the face as they went.  Id said they wanted to try something different, add some more modern mechanics to the formula they use for the genre they know best: first person shooters.  As such, Rage was given a dose of open world and a dash of minigames along with a surprise racing ingredient.  The expectation was a grand souffle, or maybe a cake, or perhaps some other sort of extravagant and large meal filled with deliciousness, but Rage didn’t turn out as expected when the oven timer went off.  Rage is linear (oh, gosh, I said linear!), the minigames are lackluster, the races were decent diversions at best and the vast, open world was really more a rather well-cordoned off museum tour complete with aggressive museum goers in buggies firing missiles.  All the levels were well crafted step-by-step affairs with plenty of scripted environmental hazards conveniently shutting off exit routes and firefights breaking out, each presenting a slightly different challenge than the last.  Plenty of areas encouraged players to take advantage of the various tools and different ammo types that were provided and… why… wait what part of this linear experience was the bad part again?

Linear used to be everything, and now more open world games came out holiday of 2011 than ever before in entire years.  The industry is moving on on the development side, perhaps, but if all the ridiculous support for all things nostalgic has taught me one thing it’s that people like old things still.  And beyond that, linear isn’t even old, it’s just hidden in smoke in mirrors like the massive set pieces of games like those of the Assassin’s Creed (a largely open world game) series, or the scattered and directionless nature of games like the The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (a very open world game) which give players the option to run around and do what they want, but the moment they’re off in a dungeon somewhere they’re really just… going down hallways into rooms. Just like in Rage.  Oh no, hallways, corridors, rooms!

The debate on Rage shouldn’t be about whether or not it’s an open world game and it shouldn’t be judged for being a bad open world game (because it’s not an open world game).  Rage is a linear first person shooter.  Yes, it’s more expanded than in the days of old, giving players that guise of “openness” by having them drive around in canyons over and over, and suspiciously providing exactly one quest for each and every area suggesting players go back and get something only to find the area has changed ever so slightly.  Anything but the quests wasn’t really worth doing for most and for good reason, the game was in the missions, it was in finding reasons to shoot more things.  The variety in the AI (who admittedly was far too keen to stick their head out from behind cover) in tactics, the different ways a combat situation could be approached thanks to the engineering system, the impressive draw distance and environment design (though it couldn’t be explored), these are all things Rage did well and perfectly reasonable excuses to buy and enjoy a first person shooter.

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Take-Two is laughing all the way to the bank with Red Dead Redemption, which has led the company to it’s first profitable year without a major GTA release. The company saw net revenue for its fiscal third quarter reach $354.1 million, up significantly from the $94.9 million reported last year during the same time period. Leading the profits is Red Dead Redemption, which has shipped 6.9 million copies worldwide since the May release.

Take Two sees this as proof that they are not dependent on the GTA brand. “While there’s understandably interest in the timing of our next Grand Theft Auto title, we’ve shown our business is much more than that iconic brand,” said company Chairman Strauss Zelnick earlier this afternoon. “In addition to Grand Theft Auto, our portfolio now includes Red Dead Redemption, BioShock, Borderlands, NBA2K, Midnight Club, Sid Meier’s Civilization, and Carnival Games. Each of these titles ranks among the industry’s most successful properties and each of our labels is contributing to our success.”

Of course, the studio also just released Mafia II, and hasn’t yet commented on it’s earnings from the game other than to say that they expect it to be profitable.

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Crackdown was released in early 2007 to generally positive reviews. Players had a blast bounding over rooftops, throwing cars off of bridges, blowing up everything they saw in glorious mega-explosions. Now, over three years later, developer Ruffian Games has re-released the popular platformer fo- Wait, this is a sequel? Seriously? Oh. My bad, everyone.

Ruffian has taken the old idiom “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and turned it into a cautionary tale. As it turns out, even if it isn’t broken, sometimes you should still attempt to fix it. It’s true that when making a sequel, you want to carry over all of the successful elements of the preceding game. But if you don’t significantly add onto that formula, there’s no real point to making a sequel, which is something that Crackdown 2 suffers from.

Crackdown didn’t have much of a story so it’s no surprise that the sequel shares the same lack of plot. You again are an Agent of The Agency. Pacific City is once again overrun with crime. Also zombies. And your handler is still one untrustworthy creep. But it’s not the complete lack of plot that’s odd. Because there is a little bit of a plot, strewn about the city in the form of audio logs. You can find these and listen to them to hear little tidbits of Pacific City’s history. While the inclusion of audio logs isn’t new to videogames, they’re usually used to provide supplementary material. In BioShock, they exist alongside the narrative and serve to flesh out the city of Rapture. In Halo 3, terminals filled in some backstory. In Crackdown 2, the logs are the only instance of story in the entire game, save for the short opening and closing cutscenes. Basically, you have to scour the game world to find the plot. And what’s worse is that there seems to be four separate stories to keep track of – all dealing with different aspects of the city. By the time you’ve found an additional piece of one of the stories, you’ve completely forgotten where the last left off.

From what I remember, I think the head of the terrorist organization Cell is a zombie reporter who blew the whistle on The Agency. Or maybe I’m smashing all of them together, I don’t know.

It could be argued that story – not the story, but story in general – is supplemental to Crackdown 2. Do you really need to understand your character’s motivations for harpooning a criminal to a rusty pick-up truck and then throwing the truck into the ocean? Or what about when he climbed atop a car, stuck that car to a helicopter via magnetic mines, and then rode it into the sky? Why would he do such a crazy thing? Because it’s damn awesome, that’s why.

The biggest addition to the “story” is the addition of full-fledged freaks. I say full-fledged because they were introduced in the first game, as experiments of the Shai-Gen Corporation, but you didn’t see much of them. Now they flood the streets at night, attacking everyone in their path. They’re essentially zombies, which is a bad roll of the dice for Ruffian. Videogames have been completely oversaturated with the undead as of late and gamers are finally starting to get sick of them. But the freaks are a product of what little plot the series has, so Ruffian was just following through on what Realtime Worlds had started, not necessarily trying to cash in on the craze.

I can't see shit through this helmet. Did I hit em?

The core skills from Crackdown have been retained – strength, agility, firearms, explosives, and driving. There seem to be six skill levels on the meter, but I’m not sure if level six is truly more effective than level five from the first game or if it’s more of a “this one goes to 11″ type of deal. The weapon and vehicle unlocks top out at five and that’s also when you’ll gain the ability to glide. I didn’t get to spend much time gliding, but when I did I looked like a retarded Rocketeer. It definitely takes some time to get used to.

If you manage to pry yourself away from goofing around and focus on the actual objectives, you’ll be doing one of two things: assaulting Cell strongholds or activating Absorption Units so that you can assault underground freak lairs. Actually, I don’t think you have to take back the Cell strongholds to complete the game, but doing so gives you additional locations to call in weapons and vehicles. This is where the repetitiveness begins. Whichever task you’re performing, the objective is simply to kill everything in sight. To take back a stronghold, kill Cell until an Agency chopper can arrive. When clearing out a freak lair, kill freaks until the Agency beacon can detonate. Do these things over and over again until you beat the game.

There are also optional freak breaches, which sounds hilarious, I know. Freaks will occasionally breach the surface. When this happens, your job is to assault the freak breach until an Agency chopper can bomb it closed. See the pattern here? These are entirely optional, but also entirely unappealing. Why would you go out of your way to do more of the same?

Games can get away with monotony as long as the gameplay stays fun throughout, which sadly isn’t the case here. It’s definitely fun for a length of time – and I mean really fun – but that length of time is criminally short bursts. If you put the game down for a certain amount of time it will be fun again in the future, but eventually it will overstay its welcome completely.

Demi, what have you done?!

Another problem with the Cell stronghold/freak lair gameplay is a lack of any feeling of progression. The first Crackdown had its own problems with tedium, but the way you dismantled gangs before going after the gang leader was both fun and semi-strategic. Here, the only way you know you’re making any progress is pictures on the map and statistics on the pause menu. Pacific City is no different when you first start the game as it is when you’re on the cusp of beating it.

There are improvements made over the first game. Your arsenal, of both weapons and vehicles, has grown substantially. You now have access to plenty of shotguns, machine guns, SMGs, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, and humongous weapons that belong on turrets, but you can go out into the field and just lug them around. There are plenty of explosives, including the aforementioned mag mines. Multiple mags will stick together, which does nothing when throwing them on solid fixtures, but when they’re stuck to cars and corpses there’s fun to be had. Our own Demi Adejuyigbe has a nasty habit of calling in Agency choppers and then sticking them to the ground, which gets us all yelled at by the Agency handler.

As for vehicles, not only is there plenty of Cell and civilian transportation, but the Agency alone gives you the standard cruiser, a buggy with a mounted machine gun, the speedy supercar returns, an SUV that can jump in the air, and a tank that you can unlock at level five. So yeah, when it comes to guns and cars, Ruffian delivered.

RAGE QUIT WARNING

I’d like to take a brief departure from the main review for a moment to share a couple things with you. I’m an angry person, and sometimes I get mad at videogames. I got mad at Crackdown 2 more than a few times, and here are the reasons why.

I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!

I understand that your Agent is wearing half a ton of armor, but is it really that hard to get back up after you’ve fallen down? We’re talking about a super soldier who can punch a car in the face and send it flying backwards, but as soon as an explosion or a freak knocks him on his ass, he just lies there and contemplates giving up entirely. Seriously, it takes the better half of ten seconds to get back on your feet after you’ve been knocked down, which quickly adds up when it happens over, and over, and over again.

The dreaded building lip

Just like the first problem, this is another glorious holdover from the previous game. One of the coolest things to do in Crackdown 2 is take a running leap off of a high rooftop and sail to another, but far too often a concrete lip probably a half-inch tall will throw the whole thing off. They run around the edges of far too many surfaces in Pacific City and they’ll catch you and cause you to stop running at the last second before you leap, which results in you jumping straight up instead of forward. Since you’re already holding forward on the joystick, you’ll start to go over the side of the building, and if you aren’t quick enough to reverse direction and guide yourself back to the roof, you’ll plummet to the ground below.

Enough with the explosions

The rocket launchers in Crackdown have a pretty high rate of fire. That’s awesome, right? No it’s not. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You clearly haven’t been on the receiving end of a non-stop barrage of explosions that prevent you from doing pretty much everything except blindly shooting everywhere or jumping off of whatever roof you’re currently on to take your chances with the ground below. I’ll all for a challenge, but being trapped inside one continuous explosion is ridiculous.

You forgot to put the seat down, Agent!

Thanks a lot, Agent! Now my guests are going to think I’m a slob, Agent! I’m having close friends over, Agent, and I’d like them to remain friends. And why were you in my bathroom anyway, Agent? That’s my private bathroom, Agent, and it’s reserved for my personal use. You forgot to put the seat down, Agent! Thanks a lot, Agent! Now my guests are going to think I’m a slob, Agent!

STOP TALKING TO ME!!

Alright. I feel better. Now let’s get back to wrapping up this review.

The Nintendo Power Glove is unlocked at strength level five.

At first it was a little disappointing to be back in Pacific City, but it is undeniably cool to see the city in its current war-torn state. It doesn’t look as colorful and lively as before, but that’s the point. The city is within an inch of its life and its drab, dystopian look reflects the current state of affairs. Recognizing proud structures that are now piles of rubble is nostalgic in all the right ways.

One thing that is completely new about Crackdown 2 is the competitive multiplayer.

Rocket Tag is great if you’re hopped up on meth and don’t own Blur or Split/Second. In Rocket Tag, one person has gets the orb, becomes it, and everyone tries to tag that person. With rockets. Tag, you’re dead. It’s a mixed bad, because half the time you’ll either be raining hellfire down on whoever has the orb or running for your life from incoming rockets, both of which are extremely fun and exhilarating. The other half of the time you’ll be caught in an endless chain of explosions and it’ll be difficult to do so much as move. If you’re looking for quick, frantic fun, Rocket Tag provides. But like the main game, it works in very short bursts.

Team Deathmatch is where the fun is, though there isn’t that much. Deathmatch is also fun, but not so much as being on a team. For the most part, the Crackdown formula works well for multiplayer and Team Deathmatch is possibly more fun than the entire single player campaign, though that isn’t saying much. You can lock-on to enemies but you can’t sub-target, which is great, because that would make it far too easy. It actually works a lot like Grand Theft Auto in that you automatically target the center of mass and move your reticule around from there.

When I said the formula works well for the most part, it was because the action is still frantic and there were more than a few times where I died not knowing who or what killed me. This is not a game for strategy. This is where you stay on your toes and blow the shit out of every enemy you see, the second you see them. With no room for tactics, it can get old pretty fast. Also, if you see a helicopter, you lose the game. At least I think that’s how it works.

Multiplayer ultimately feels tacked on, but the core Crackdown formula is fun enough that it isn’t total garbage. You won’t be putting down any of your favorite multiplayer shooters, but if you have the game, it’s worth a spin. Just be prepared for a pretty shallow experience.

Crackdown 2 is an absolute blast when you’re just screwing around with friends. But as soon as you start to take it seriously, it falls apart. Any problem you had with the first game, unless it was a lack of weapons and vehicles, you’ll have again here. And taking on Cell strongholds and freak lairs just isn’t as fun as waging war on the gangs the first time around. Ruffian took everything that worked, everything that didn’t, and didn’t add nearly enough of their own.

The Rundown

+ Just like Crackdown
+ Unparalleled, mindless, open-world fun
- Just like Crackdown
- Zero depth
- Painfully repetitive, right down to the handler’s dialogue

Crackdown 2 was developed by Ruffian Games and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360, The game released in the United States on July 6th 2010 with a retail price of $60.00 USD (Xbox 360). The copies used in this review were for the Xbox 360 and provided to us as digital downloads by Microsoft. The main campaign was played to completion for the purpose of Dylan’s review. However, considering this title allows for four player co-op, here are the opinions of the three others who tagged along at various lengths.

Second Opinion

Stephanie Gutowski

I constantly crave story-driven, cinematic games. That’s probably why I never picked up the first Crackdown or any other sand box game. Crackdown 2, however, had just enough intrigue to keep me interested. No, I don’t think there’s much complexity in the plot (it’s about as basic as it gets: The Agency is good and Cell is bad), but that’s not what this is about. Open worlds are for blowing up your friends and playing tennis with their cars. This is going to be the game you play when you’ve got a few buddies online and you’re hankering to blow up a helicopter. Sure, it’ll get old after a while, but the first few times are completely worth it.

I’m also a huge fan of the aspect level system, where your abilities evolve based on how you fight. There’s a huge difference between agility level one and two and it makes all your effort seem worthwhile when your progression actually rewards you with greater running speed and better jump capabilities. It just seems like after you finally ding level two in all your skills, the leveling slows to a crawl. Sure, you can dive back into the main story missions, but that’s only so entertaining. Especially when a lot of your objectives involve infiltrating Cell strongholds, activating a beacon, and running away. Rinse, repeat, go to bed. The repetition really starts to wear on you during the solo experience, but a couple of friends can make this much more entertaining.

There’s just enough content in here to keep you going, if only to see what new abilities levels four and five have in store for you. I see this as a decent single-player experience, but the real fun is in the co-op.

Third Opinion?!

(Everyone’s a critic)

Demi Adejuyigbe

The game has you detonate nine beacons that destroy “freaks” around the city, and when you try to plow through these detonations, you start to feel like it’s more of a chore than anything fun you would do out of pure will. Around the time you detonate the fourth beacon, you’ll find yourself realizing that you’re doing the same thing over and over, though Ruffian tries to trick you into thinking things are different because the Cell soldiers and freaks are getting tougher – this isn’t the case. While they may seem like they’re getting more difficult, they’re actually just getting upgraded with a few weapons from your previous arsenal, and in fact are still pretty easy to get rid of.

Crackdown 2′s multiplayer experiences, while complimentary to the single player mode of the game, feel as if it’s the main course. Sure, the two are technically one and the same, as any single player game can become multiplayer if another player jumps in, but playing the game co-operatively actually opens up a variety of new things you can do together that would be near impossible to achieve alone. The game even encourages you to play co-operatively with Xbox Live orbs that can only be gained with another player, but Crackdown 2 doesn’t really make you feel like grabbing these orbs is at all necessary.

I’ve always said that graphics aren’t integral to how good or enjoyable a game is, but with Crackdown 2, they don’t seem to have changes at all. The faux-cell-shading style remains, but the explosions look much less grandiose and impressive than they did in the first game. An explosion is essentially now a puff of black smoke surrounding a cloud of orange. You see the same three styles of cars in different colors every few seconds. There’s not much variety amongst enemies, and buildings, while actually different, all start to blend together after a while.

Unfortunately for anyone who hopes to enjoy some four-player co-op in the game, the co-op experience of the game is possibly the buggiest multiplayer experience I’ve had on Xbox Live. As is to be expected, whenever you are in an area of incredibly heavy fire and explosions, you start to experience a frame rate slow down that makes it difficult to move or see where you are moving.

Believe it or not, that’s the least of Crackdown’s bugs. The first time I jumped into a game with four other editors, we ended up in a Cell stronghold where for some reason, sniper rifles began to generate instantly – forever. I’m not sure what triggered this bug, but when we ended up in an area where you have hundreds upon thousands of rifles generating every second, the game slowed down to a speed of 4 FPS. It was literally impossible to move without extracting and landing elsewhere, far from the stronghold. We also encountered bugs where cars would end up in different parts of the city while we drove them, and players would get stuck mere inches off of the ground, unable to move anywhere.

This machine gun mounted buggy has got plenty of Crackdown 2 bugs to keep it company.

That’s not to say that the co-op play in Crackdown 2 isn’t a metric ton of fun. The tools Ruffian Games gives you for enacting inadvertent mischief in Pacific City are incredible, and honestly, some of my favorite weapons in video games to date. From the very second you start the game, you are given access to a magnet grenade that has the ability to pull together any two items in the game, and this can be used to creatively kill enemies … or friends.

Leveling up a bit also gives you the UV shotgun, which is probably the best gun I’ve used in any video game since Half-Life 2′s gravity gun. It allows you to propel any item or human in the air i.e. Half-Life’s gravity gun, but when you have an open world, magnets, explosions, and large cars (and helicopters!) that you can throw at your enemies, the possibilities are endless. Hell, I recently detailed two of the ways that I had fun with the helicopters in the game , and I’ve already found more.

I wish Crackdown 2′s assisted targeting mechanic would allow you to target your friends, though. As weird as it sounds, some of the most fun we had in four-player co-op play was when we wailed on each other, blowing each other off of rooftops and playing UV Shotgun Tennis with Stephanie — which you can get an achievement for (even if you don’t have access to Stephanie). And speaking of achievements, many of them are easily attained, though some are near impossible to grab without a friend. I had already grabbed most on the demo, but the achievements in the full game are much more focused on plot advancement. (Despite the secondary plot that Crackdown 2 tries to shoehorn in).

It’s too bad the game doesn’t try to make you accomplish these achievements together. As it stands now, if you jump into a game where someone else is completing objectives while you’re idle, you will still get credit for them. While I’m not sure how difficult it would be to ensure that these missions are done together, leaving something like this out of the multiplayer kind of defeats the purpose of co-operation.

I'd love to hit you with a mid air punch, but I'm unfortunately incapable of performing melee attacks while jumping.

Aside from the co-op, Crackdown 2 also features 3 different multiplayer modes in which you can fight with up to 16 players, but these matches aren’t as enjoyable as you’d think. The first game I jumped into was Rocket Tag, which was fast and frenetic, and very reminiscent of Unreal Tournament. I hated it. The speed at which you run and shoot meant that explosions went off literally twice a second, which made it hard to keep up in the maps. That is, if you can play it at all. It’s just as buggy as the main game, and trying to connect and stay with a game is probably the hardest thing to accomplish.

The two Deathmatch modes, while better than Rocket Tag, lose their excitement early on. The Deathmatch formula isn’t messed with much, and the addition of speed makes it both hard to kill your enemies and easy to die. When you die every few seconds (and you most likely will), you’ll start to hate the game you’re playing. Plus, the mix of high buildings and low grounds makes Deathmatch absolutely terrible. You start to shoot somebody as they’re running and they can instantly move behind a building and disappear out of sight. After a few times, you’ll start to get annoyed with the not-so-multiplayer-friendly world design.

The one thing I’m sure you’ll hear about Crackdown 2 is how repetitive it is- and it is. It’s incredibly repetitive, to the point where you will think “Wait, haven’t I cleared this area yet?” over and over. If you’ve played the original game, going back to the same city will feel just like you’re playing the original game with an expansion pack.  Sure, you’re getting flashier weapons and skills, and a new underlying “plot” (and I use the term in the loosest way possible) but unless you skipped the first game, Crackdown 2 will just feel like a shell upon its predecessor.

I feel like I have to reiterate this again, as I’ve mostly criticized the game, but the game is a lot of fun. While it has a bunch of glaring faults, it’s hard to cast dispersion on a game that honestly, I have and am enjoying quite a bit. That said, if you are hankering for some fun (but currently buggy) co-op multiplayer, you should probably pick up Crackdown 2- especially if you can get it less for the $60 retail price.

Oh, and fuck those agility orbs.

What? A Fourth Opinion??!!??

Chad Lakkis

Would you like to blow shit up with me? If you answered yes, then read on.

I must say, as the resident Crackdown 2 homer in this group, I love Crackdown for what the game truly is at it’s core — a great way to pass time with a long distance friend (or friends). Of course these friends don’t have to be “long distance,” but it’s my opinion that the game is at it’s best when you’re running around mindlessly in a giant virtual sandbox, collecting orbs, talking shit on your headset, and blowing up a bunch of friends you aren’t able to see every day.

The reason I stress the long distance aspect, is partly because I got into the first Crackdown right around the time my friend moved to the west coast, and it was a great way for us to stay in touch. It was very much like an interactive phone call, and the mindlessness of it all is what separated it from it’s competition. You might be thinking “how the hell is something being mindless a good thing?” Well, when all you want to do is enjoy the virtual company of some friends, the best way to do that is to be in an environment conducive to doing so. The fact that nothing in Crackdown or Crackdown 2 really poses a threat to you is a positive in my book. Sure it would be nice to occasionally have the “raid boss” of sorts, that if encountered, would demand the full attention of your co-op party, but outside that the game is little more than a means to level your character, taunt your friends, and run away before they get you back.

You want examples? No problem.

No actual Stephanies were harmed while playing this game.

One of the first things I did the moment I got into the four player co-op with Dylan, Demi, and Stephanie, was seek out the amusement park. I then challenged Dylan to climb to the top where I was already perched. And after he did, I kicked him in the face and knocked him down for shits and giggles. Conversely, one of the first things Dylan did in the game was drive the pickup truck I was standing in the back of into the ocean, ejecting himself at the last possible moment. Why? Because we could. It’s events like this in a game like Crackdown (1 and 2) that could never be scripted, and it’s why any attempt at a plot is darn near futile.

While fun in its own right, the multiplayer addition to the game attempts to build on the co-op aspect that made the original Crackdown so much fun. However adding a bunch of strangers to the mix waters down the close-knit feeling, and turns it into a much more generic experience. The fact that it uses the same world map you use for campaign mode doesn’t help either. A little multiplayer specific map variety would go a long way here.

Overall, the ability to play co-op with four friends in Crackdown 2 (as opposed to two in the original), is probably the biggest non-multiplayer addition to the game. There is an added emphasis to plot and presentation, and the world itself does get a bit of a visual overhaul, but none of these aspects alone truly set the sequel apart from the original. The game is also a bit buggy at times, though I’m sure the developers will work hard to fix any and all bugs the game currently contains.

In short, if you’re looking for a great way to pass some time with two or three of your friends, and are open to the notion of blowing up a few multiplayer agents in the process, Crackdown 2 is at the very least worth a rental.

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It’s no secret, Asssassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is out to impress, and has definitely shook off whatever initial enigma some may have had. This is not an “out to milk your pockets” franchise.” Instead Creed has blossomed into a more robust, stand alone experience, that’s set to build upon a great series while improving it as well. And as with Assassins Creed II, another ending leaving more questions than answers seems to be in store for us all.

Shortly before he left Ubisoft, Patrice Désilets, the Creative Director behind Assassins Creed: Brotherhood freely divulged information regarding the end of the upcoming title, stating:

“The other day I was recording the ending of ‘Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood’ with Desmond, with Nolan North. He was reading it and then he was like, ‘Credits?! You mother f***ker! What do you mean credits?!’ And I was like, ‘Well, it ends there.’ [Patrice makes the sound of Nolan grunting in frustration]. He’s really into it, which is great.”

Great to be into it yes. Not so great to be left hanging by it. What are your thoughts on being faced with yet another Assassin’s Creed cliffhanger? Sound off in the comments section.

[Source: MultiplayerBlog]

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In a world shrouded full of mystery, deception and gruesome assassinations, it is reassuring to know that the game developers know how and when the stories will tie up and finish. If you’re wondering “what is this guy on about?” then I am happy to inform you Ubisoft, the developers of the Assassins Creed series already know how Brotherhood, the latest in the series, will pan out. They also have character development planned, with Associate Producer Jean Francois Boivin saying;

“Ezio is a little bit older, a little bit wiser, he’s still a ladies’ man, but we’re going to see him; well not settle down, but find somebody he really really likes…”

As for Desmond, Ubisoft has a proverbial list of places they would like to see him go. With a very tight lipped Boivin saying;

“We have a couple of ideas where we want to go; actually we’re very very sure where we’re going, I’m not going to hint at ANYTHING, anything at all. I’m sorry, but we know exactly what we’re doing with this license for sure.”

I guess that confirms that they’ve already started work on future titles, but it is encouraging to know we can look forward to more beautifully told stories like those appearing in previous games.

[Via IncGamers]

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Both Assassin’s Creed and its sequel have been two of my favorite games in the past few years, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the third installment, Brotherhood, was on the top of my list of games to see at E310.

At the Ubisoft booth on the E310 show floor, we were shown a demo for the single-player campaign portion of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. The story of Ezio continues in Brotherhood, but this time around he’s no alone. Ezio has risen to become the leader of a guild of assassins in Rome.

Sure, you can still go free-running, rooftop leaping, and assassinate all you want, but you’ll also have to spend time recruiting other assassins to your guild, training them and sending them out on missions. Once successful, you can give out experience to your assassins to get them upgrades and bonuses.

The demo was really cool with great action scenes of Ezio, even one with him riding his horse inside of Rome (in the previous games the horse waited at the cities entrance) and a badass turret scene in which he was blasting foes with canon balls.

The single-player was dope and I’m really excited for it, however, the best part of the Brotherhood showing had to be the multiplayer, which is new to the series. I didn’t get a chance to play the single-player mode, but you’re damn right I got my hands on the mulitplayer.

The only multiplayer mode available to play was Wanted. Everyone who’s playing picks their character and their perk loadouts. Some examples of perks are using a disguise, having throwing knives, smoke bombs, a hidden gun and sprint boosting, just to name a few. Once the everyone is ready and the game starts, everyone is each assigned a target to assassinate. This means as a player, you are both the hunter and the hunted as an unknown player is out there after you as well.

This is basically the new Assassin’s Creed multiplayer, at least the one mode that was shown, but there will be more game types in the final game. The city is still full of people while you are playing and you’re given an image of your target and a meter/radar that gives you a sense of which direction your target is and how close you are. Points are awarded for killing your victim, and evading or killing the assassin hunting you. As your online rank advances, your assassin can gain new abilities, like disguise, to become either more deadly, or more elusive, depending on your play style.

This is basically the new Assassin’s Creed multiplayer, at least the one mode that was shown, but there will be more game types in the final game. The city is still full of people while you are playing and you’re given an image of your target and a meter/radar that gives you a sense of which direction your target is and how close you are. Points are awarded for killing your victim, and evading or killing the assassin hunting you. As your online rank advances, your assassin can gain new abilities depending on your playing style.

I can’t wait for Brotherhood! The multiplayer is going to be hella’ dope and some serious fun. I’m curious as to see what other online modes there will be. Lookout for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood when it launches November 16 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

• Assassin’s Creed Brootherhood Ending, Prepare For Wall-Punching WTF Moment
• E310: Ubisoft Keynote Impressions
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In the event that you missed director John Hillcoat’s short film about Red Dead Redemption, you can check out the completely in-game created work below. Let us know what you think of it in the comments section.

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The US isn’t the only place being inundated with rumors, screens, and press releases as E3 2010 approaches. A recent Japanese press event has produced a crap load of new Crackdown 2 screens (dubbed Riot Act 2 in Japan).

In them, you’ll see lots of multiplayer footage from modes like Rocket Tag, Team Deathmatch, and Deathmatch. The one thing almost all the screens have in common — none of them are in English. Enjoy.

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• Crackdown 2 DLC Already Incoming?

Crackdown 2 developer, Ruffian Games, gave us an update on the status of their open world sequel by issuing the following commendatory tweet a few short hours ago:

“#Crackdown2 has passed cert, thanks for the fantastic work by all. Load up those trucks, Agents. We’re heading out.”

The original two player co-op in the first Crackdown was fun as hell, so I’m personally looking forward to “blowing shit up” online with a few friends courtesy of Crackdown 2′s beefed-up four player co-op capability when the game hits stores on July 9th, 2010.

• Ripten Review: Crackdown 2
• Crackdown 2 Screens Big In Japan
• Crackdown 2 Achievement List Unlocks
• Crackdown 2 Web Comic Prequel Explains Mutant Menace Origin
• Microsoft Contest Offers Early Bird Crackdown 2 Demo Access
• Assassin’s Creed Brootherhood Ending, Prepare For Wall-Punching WTF Moment

I don’t consider myself much of an “achievement whore”, so it takes a certain type of achievement to even remotely garner my attention. And the types that do entertain me are so far fetched, random, and down right destructive, that the sheer enjoyment gained from actually pulling them off far outweighs the “achievement unlocked” notification that pops up onto the screen.

So when I saw the list of achievements for Crackdown 2, a title that openly asks you to “blow shit up” with it, I knew there had to be at least a few off-the-wall instant classics. Luckily, Ruffian Games didn’t let me down.

Here are a few of my favorites:

• Mosh Pit
  Land 20 successful hand-to-hand attacks in a chain. Under 3 secs between attacks to chain them. 10
• Yippee-Kai-Yay
  Drive an Agency SUV into an airborne helicopter. 10
• Scarface
  Use the minigun to amass 20 enemy kills in a 10 second period. 10
• Pebble Dash
  From the top of full-height Agency Tower, leap into the chimney stack and live to tell the tale. 10
• Bomberman
  Create 30 explosions in 60 seconds. 10
• Car Jump
  Leap from one fast moving vehicle to another. 10
• Chopper Stomper
  Leap from an airborne Agency helicopter and using a Ground Strike, kill at least one enemy. 10
• Open up a Can
  Kill 5 enemies with a single gas cylinder. 10

Call me lazy, but if I can get it done quickly with a large amount of bang for my buck, I’m down. However, if I’ve got to run around town performing tedious collection tasks, there’s just no way in hell I’m going to bother. You can view the full list of Crackdown 2 achievements below. Let us know what you think of them in the comments section.

• First Hurdle
  Survive Agent Diagnostics and earn deployment into Pacific City. 20
• Get Connected
  Locate and activate an Absorption Unit, alone or with another Agent. 20
• Plugged In
  Locate and activate every Absorption Unit in Pacific City, alone or with another Agent. 50
• Big Bang
  Oversee the deployment and successful detonation of a Beacon, alone or with another Agent. 20
• Hope Springs Savior
  Detonate every Beacon in Hope Springs, alone or with another Agent. 50
• Green Bay Savior
  Detonate every Beacon in Green Bay, alone or with another Agent. 50
• Unity Heights Savior
  Detonate every Beacon in Unity Heights, alone or with another Agent. 50
• Light Bringer
  Detonate every Beacon in Pacific City, alone or with another Agent. 20
• All Under Control
  Secure all Tactical Locations within one Cell stronghold, alone or with another Agent. 20
• Location, Location, Location
  Secure every Tactical Location in Pacific City for the Agency, alone or with another Agent. 50
• Pest Control
  Clear out and close down a Freak Breach, alone or with another Agent. 10
• The Closer
  Close down every Freak Breach in Pacific City, alone or with another Agent. 20
• Tower Power
  Complete the final phase of Project Sunburst at Agency Tower, alone or with another Agent. 20
• Tellin’ Stories
  Collect and listen to an Audio Log. 10
• Closed Book
  Collect and listen to every Audio Log in Pacific City. 20
• In Plain Sight
  Find and collect a Hidden Orb. 10
• Sixth Sense
  Find and collect every Hidden Orb in Pacific City. 30
• First Rung of the Ladder
  Find and collect an Agility Orb 10
• King of the World
  Find and collect every Agility Orb in Pacific City. 50
• In the Net
  Catch an Agility Renegade Orb or Driving Renegade Orb. 10
• Renegade Runner
  Find and collect every Renegade Agility Orb in Pacific City. 20
• Renegade Racer
  Find and collect every Renegade Driving Orb in Pacific City. 20
• Speed Demon
  Complete a Road or Rooftop Race 10
• Street Racer
  Complete every Road Race in Pacific City. 20
• Rooftop Racer
  Complete every Rooftop Race in Pacific City. 20
• Wingsuit Racer
  Glide through every Wingsuit Stunt Ring in Pacific City. 20
• Stuntman
  Jump a vehicle through every Vehicle Stunt Ring in Pacific City. 20
• LIVE and let LIVE
  Collect every Online Orb in Pacific City. 10
• Who’s the Daddy?
  Develop each of your skills to their maximum levels. 50
• Solid Block of Orbsome
  Find and collect every Agility, Hidden, Renegade and Online Orb in Pacific City. 50
• Jack of all Trades
  Complete one of every objective type in Pacific City. 20
• Pebble Dash
  From the top of full-height Agency Tower, leap into the chimney stack and live to tell the tale. 10
• City Glider
  Wingsuit glide through the airspace of all islands in Pacific City without touching down. 10
• Squad City Glider
  4 Agents, Wingsuit-glide through the airspace of all islands in city within 30 secs of leader. 20
• Open up a Can
  Kill 5 enemies with a single gas cylinder. 10
• Co-op Keepy-Up
  Pass a vehicle back and forth between Agents 3x using UV shotguns. Vehicle must not hit the ground. 10
• Yippee-Kai-Yay
  Drive an Agency SUV into an airborne helicopter. 10
• Strike!
  Kill 25 Freaks with thrown objects or vehicles. 10
• Victory Roll
  Alone or with another Agent, kill an enemy with a mounted turret while airborne and upside-down! 10
• Mosh Pit
  Land 20 successful hand-to-hand attacks in a chain. Under 3 secs between attacks to chain them. 10
• Scarface
  Use the minigun to amass 20 enemy kills in a 10 second period. 10
• Zero Factor
  Use a UV weapon to amass 20 Freak kills in a 10 second period. 10
• Street Sweeper
  While driving a vehicle kill 5 enemies in a single power slide. 10
• Pin Cushion
  Use Harpoon Gun to pin 5 enemies to a single vehicle. 10
• Bomberman
  Create 30 explosions in 60 seconds. 10
• 25 Ways to Die
  Find 25 unique ways to destroy your cloned body. 10
• Car Jump
  Leap from one fast moving vehicle to another. 10
• Chopper Stomper
  Leap from an airborne Agency helicopter and using a Ground Strike, kill at least one enemy. 10
• Party Bus
  Four Agents; one driver and three gunners, on a Battle Bus. Must jump through a Vehicle Stunt Ring. 10
• Pile Driver
  Kill 5 enemies with a single Ground Strike. 10

[Source: MGC via CVG]

• Crackdown 2 Screens Big In Japan
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• Microsoft Contest Offers Early Bird Crackdown 2 Demo Access
• Crackdown 2 DLC Already Incoming?

If you’re anything like me, you played and enjoyed the original Crackdown game. However, you’re probably also wondering where the hell the mutant alien invasion terrorizing the Pacific City streets in the sequel came from. This is an obvious (and valid) question. It’s also one that the creators planned for.

So without further ado, here’s the second installment of the Crackdown 2 prequel series, “The Pacific Archives”, titled “Evil.” May all your mutant creation questions be answered.

• Crackdown 2 Screens Big In Japan
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• Ripten Review: Crackdown 2
• Crackdown 2 Now Certifiably Complete
• Assassin’s Creed Brootherhood Ending, Prepare For Wall-Punching WTF Moment
• E310 Preview: Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption is all the rage right now, and if you haven’t played it there is likely something wrong with you. Maybe you’ve got bad breath or a severe case of foot fungus. Worst yet, maybe you’re one of the millions of Americans suffering from Flahtbrowkitus (flat-broke-itus).

There’s nothing to be ashamed of if you are, but it likely means you won’t be able to toss fistfuls of of cash in the direction of Rockstar Games in exchange for some lovely Red Dead Redemption flavored swag. Yes, that means you’ll miss out on Red Dead dice and playing cards, shirts, soap, and even a Red Dead Redemption candle fashioned to look like a few sticks of dynamite.

Now, I’m not sure about the rest of you, but whenever I see a stick of dynamite it reminds me of the old Warner Bros. Roadrunner versus Wile E. Coyote cartoons.  Meep Meep!

• Short Film Made From Red Dead Redemption, Now Online
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• E310 Preview: Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
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Hey remember that Red Dead Redemption Animated Short we mentioned the other day? You know, the one made from in-game assets and scheduled to air on FOX this Saturday at midnight EST? Well, it seems that Rockstar Games has released a teaser trailer to wet your whistle, and you can watch it below.

• Short Film Made From Red Dead Redemption, Now Online
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Batman, Joker, Harley, and the rest of the Arkham bunch will be coming back for seconds. Rocksteady opened up the Video Game Awards on Spike TV by announcing Batman: Arkham Asylum 2. Watch the trailer below.

As someone who just wrapped up the original, I can definitely tell you that it’s worth picking up if you haven’t already. Follow the progress on the sequel over at the Arkham Has Moved official website.

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A new teaser trailer (shown below) was released today for the upcoming Crackdown 2 announcing that the game would be part of the laundry list of Video Game Awards world exclusives debuting live on Spike TV December 12th.

• Ripten Review: Crackdown 2
• Crackdown 2 Screens Big In Japan
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Prototype was a hotly anticipated open-world action game that was originally supposed to release last year. After an impressive showing at GDC, Prototype continued to dazzle the media until one day it slipped to a 2009 release and then disappeared off the radar.

Not any more. Prototype is back, and before its big re-reveal at the CES in Vegas, they’re going to give us a little teaser.

If you head over to the Prototype website, you’ll find a countdown timer. Counting down to what? Good question, but I would guess it’s counting down to the Consumer Electronics Show that starts tomorrow, January 8th. That’s when we’re presuming Prototype will be officially shown to the world in its latest form.

Not content to wait a whole extra day, G4 snatched up an exclusive trailer that will air tonight on X-Play. While I’m sure it will be awesome, I really just want to see the game in action and maybe get my hands on it. Too bad we aren’t going to CES this year…

Regardless, you can tune in to G4 tonight and check out X-Play for the new trailer. Hopefully it comes with a release date announcement as well.

• GDC 08: Prototype – Open World, Open Wounds
• Ripten Review: Crackdown 2
• Assassin’s Creed Brootherhood Ending, Prepare For Wall-Punching WTF Moment
• E310 Preview: Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
• Short Film Made From Red Dead Redemption, Now Online
• Crackdown 2 Screens Big In Japan

I can imagine being a little disconcerted, waking up with creepy super powers that you’re not quite sure how you got. I suppose I can also imagine being a little pissed, which is how the main character Alex Mercer feels about the whole thing.

Since our last look at Prototype during this year’s Game Developer’s Conference, the co-op mode has sadly been cut, but hopefully it just means the game will be that much more polished when it ships later this year. Jump the cut to hear about features you will get to see…

At Sierra’s spring event we saw shape-shifting powers different from the ones usually shown off, like a snarly whip fist. Go ahead and whip the Infected right in half–that’ll show ‘em. This game is rated M and it knows it.

Another of these mutations, which you unlock throughout the game with evolution points, gives Alex blades for hands, which of course, means another pile of body parts.

Alex has also scored some new moves that aren’t specifically tied to a monstrous change in appearance. In one, you stomp an enemy and literally surf on the body until friction prevails, at which point you can jump off and make a targeted kick at a new victim. Another recently added feature is the “flying squirrel move” used for gliding in the air, giving you extra control when you get knocked off a building, or keeping you from being completely knocked off in the first place.

The demo took place partly during a mission to destroy rooftop “sniffers,” which are out sniffing for you. Seemed like a fairly typical “kill x” mission, to be honest, but there will also be parts where you’re infiltrating military bases in disguise, so variety seems insured.

“Disguise” in this case, means appearing to be your latest absorption victim, whether a marine or a pedestrian, via more creepy shape-shifting. It originally sounded like you would be able to carry at least a number of these bodies to select from, but the process has been streamlined to just include one.

If you do blow your cover, you can either duck out of sight and swallow another person whole with your sinister black tendrils, or, more comically, point to the next marine (in the demo’s case) over and convince everyone that he’s the Prototype. They’ll shoot him to pieces!

There are definite areas of spit-shine needed, even though the Parkour twists and vaults still impress us. Unfortunately no hands-on as of yet, but we’re interested enough in the game that not playing it makes us antsy– a good sign.

• Prototype Comes Back from the Dead
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The original Mafia game was a bit overlooked in the wake of GTA3 and its ilk, but I thought the old-timey setting, vintage cars and weapons, and Scorcese-like story were pretty awesome. Now, long overdue, comes the sequel.

These screens are jaw-dropping. Of course, I bet if GTA4 was rendered on a high-end PC, it’d look pretty stunning as well, but I am holding out hope that this serious open world crime game will live up to my fond memories of the original.

In the original Mafia, you could drive outside of the city limits and into the countryside for spectcular shoot-outs, and this was ages before San Andreas. One mission had you speeding through abandoned city streets at night in an ancient Formula 1 racing car, just so you could sabotage it for a race the next day. Even the ending stayed with me for a long time, because of its last, great twist. Enjoy these screens of Mafia 2.

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Prototype is what Crackdown would be if you were a bad-ass instead of a superhero. Crunching cars beneath your feet, running up buildings, literally smashing peoples’ heads into the ground, and absorbing dead bodies into your own — just some of the things you will be doing as Prototype’s main anti-hero, Alex Mercer.

During GDC, we were presented with a brief explanation of the background and inspiration for Radical’s new game. Essentially, when players are given an open world to do whatever they want, they always behave badly. Radical have embraced that fundamental human desire to be naughty and designed a game that is gritty, disgusting, and fucking awesome.

As you can tell from this slide, the basic structure of the game is to “Kill guys and take their stuff”. It’s much more than that, though. There’s a war going on between the Infected and the Military, and you’re in the middle. You can play the two against each other, or help one side fight the other — whatever it takes to accomplish your goals.

Alex has no idea who he is (except that his name is Alex Mercer, apparently) and absorbs peoples’ brains to help himself figure it all out. He accomplishes that in many ways, all of which involve killing people in super-awesome expressions of love. We witnessed a man’s head getting forcibly squished into his own chest cavity, but we also saw such classics as the basic head-exploding curb stomp. Awwww, how cute…

Once people are absorbed, Alex’s biomass increases. This effectively let’s him smash things easier and grow huge claws and so forth. You can also assume the identity of the absorbed people to blend in easier or open special abilities. For example, assuming the identity of a high-ranking military official let’s the player call in air strikes!

Alex can also steal vehicles, including tanks and helicopters. Both hijacking maneuvers include spectacular gore-splosions, but Alex somehow manages to keep his white hoodie nice and clean. Of course, you can just avoid direct contact by tossing the tank at the helicopter, destroying them both.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Eric Holmes and Tim Bennison may have a little Prototype in themselves.

After the presentation, one of the Radical guys just sat there and played the game for 15 minutes while we all watched. It looked amazing, and they claim the graphics are far from complete. I asked about a release date, and they say they are really hoping for this year, but there is no official release scheduled.

Oh, they also let slip that there will be a full-blown cooperative mode, as well as the possibility of “other multiplayer modes” that they aren’t ready to discuss. Stay tuned and we will give you all the information as we get it.

• Prototype Comes Back from the Dead
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• Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Super Double Confirmed
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