Ruffian Games hasn't had the most relaxing time of it - having only 18 months to work on Crackdown 2 (as opposed to the 5 years spent on the first game by RealTime Worlds), it was inevitable that people would pick it apart a bit. Producer James Cope addressed a lot of these criticisms on MTV's Multiplayer blog.
"One of the things we are worried about is that there are elements of repetitiveness in the game, but that is through necessity of how the game is structured for being this completely open experience that can be approached from any angle with many players," Cope said, responding to the design of the missions and game progression.
"For the campaign game, we had to devise an over-arching mission structure that worked when you go through it on your own, linearly, or go through it with four players doing four completely different things at one point in time, all working to finishing the game...That does impose some creative confines in which we have to work."
The decision to return to Pacific City was primarily a time-related one, given the short development cycle Ruffian had been given. Cope said that the team looked at some potential "effort savings" that would help them focus on gameplay rather than the world design. "The gameplay always won out in those decisions. Did it work? It's arguable."
DLC is planned for the game, and this will also address the lack of colour seen in Pacific City - Cope said that decision was taken to showcase how much of a dump the game world had become since the last Crackdown game. Two pieces of DLC will arrive - the first bringing back the Keys To The City debug mode, and the second focusing on a new way to play Crackdown 2.
More candid revelations - including the notion that expanding the storyline "beyond what was already set wasn't what people wanted" - can be found in MTV's interview.
"One of the things we are worried about is that there are elements of repetitiveness in the game, but that is through necessity of how the game is structured for being this completely open experience that can be approached from any angle with many players," Cope said, responding to the design of the missions and game progression.
"For the campaign game, we had to devise an over-arching mission structure that worked when you go through it on your own, linearly, or go through it with four players doing four completely different things at one point in time, all working to finishing the game...That does impose some creative confines in which we have to work."
The decision to return to Pacific City was primarily a time-related one, given the short development cycle Ruffian had been given. Cope said that the team looked at some potential "effort savings" that would help them focus on gameplay rather than the world design. "The gameplay always won out in those decisions. Did it work? It's arguable."
DLC is planned for the game, and this will also address the lack of colour seen in Pacific City - Cope said that decision was taken to showcase how much of a dump the game world had become since the last Crackdown game. Two pieces of DLC will arrive - the first bringing back the Keys To The City debug mode, and the second focusing on a new way to play Crackdown 2.
More candid revelations - including the notion that expanding the storyline "beyond what was already set wasn't what people wanted" - can be found in MTV's interview.
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