Crackdown was a sleeper hit. Bundled with the Halo 3 beta, many gamers assumed that it wouldn’t be very good and passed it by. If you’re one of those gamers, go dig it out and get back to me in a week when you’re finally able to put it down for a few minutes.

The premise of both Crackdown and Crackdown 2 is that you’re a super-powered Agent of (predictably) The Agency. In the second game you’re up against two major forces: The Cell, a terrorist group bent on anarchy, and The Freaks, mutated zombie-like things that are out to convert or kill anything that isn’t like them.

Crackdown 2 has an exclusive invite-only window on the demo for this weekend, so we at 360 Arcadians got a first look at what the new game has in-store. The demo has a 30-minute time limit that we ran down several times in succession. You’ll have to start again after each clock reset, but it’s worth it just to get a look at the world of Crackdown 2. Continue reading »