Dundee, Scotland: home to the Tay Rail Bridge (seen above) and Crackdown 2 dev Ruffian Games

It seems that Ruffian Games will be showing off Crackdown 2, the sequel to the "still fun after all these years" Crackdown, to the general public next weekend at the NEoN Digital Arts Festival.  This is the first time the game will be shown and demoed outside of a major trade show event like E3 or TGS.  The catch?  The event is in Dundee, Scotland.  So unless you live in the area, have already acquired plane/event tickets, or are really good friends with Nightcrawler, you likely won't be amongst those lucky few that will get to check out this promising co-op title in person for the first time.  Fortunately, any new details that are shown will undoubtedly be disseminated across the Internet in less time than you can say "I wonder if the sequel will come with a Halo: Reach beta," and you can be sure we'll be posting all the latest and greatest co-op related news just as soon as it does.

Additional information about the NEoN Digital Arts Festival can be found at the following link.

Source: Link

"Dig in and shut up. We're in for a ride."

While poring over Joystiq's interview with Crackdown 2 lead designer Steve Iannetta, we came across a little tidbit that means big news for co-op gamers...especially those who enjoy co-op survival modes...
 

[We're proud of] things like our 8-player versus enemy mode.

It's quite unique. Quite structured. Again, drop-in, drop-out: Where if you want to engage in this mode you can have up to eight players in an environment fighting against a huge amount of enemies.

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The Tokyo Game Show has given us a few insights into games that were just announced at E3, including the highly anticipated co-op sequel to Crackdown. Crackdown 2 was giving journalists a chance to test drive this sequel behind closed doors, and we have a preview or so to share. We have been looking forward to the sequel that was almost nixed by Microsoft due to low expectations before Crackdown knocked our socks off, but we have a new team behind the scenes this time. With Ruffian studio taking the reins with Crackdown 2, does the sequel hold up to the original, or are these shoes just too big to fill?

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The first official screenshots have arrived for the upcoming 4 player co-op Crackdown 2.  The sequel to the wildly popular original, Crackdown 2 has some new tricks up its sleeve.  We see the agents look quite a bit different from these screens, and we also have a glimpse at some of the vehicle mounted weapons for co-op play!

But not everything has changed, I spy with my little eye Agility Orbs!  BING!!

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It's quite surprising sometime the politics that go on behind the scenes of game development.  For a hobby that brings so much joy to people, you'd think things could go smoothly on the back end.  That's not always the case.  When Crackdown 2 was announced, and announced in development by upstart Ruffian Studios, well you can imagine Realtime Worlds wasn't happy.  

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The upcoming issue of Game Informer magazine will unveil some details about the four player co-op game Crackdown 2.  Continuing on from the first game, it appears a zombie virus is spreading, and the civilians have banded together to form a gang and destroyed the Agency.  Day and night will play a crucial role in the game, and freaks will be bigger and badder than before.  

Of course someone managed to get their hands on the article early and leaked a ton more information regarding the game and its features.  

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Ruffian Studios doesn't want to get into a pissing match with Realtime Worlds, the original developer of Crackdown.  Of course part of that reason is so many members of the Ruffian team that are working on the game's sequel were actually AT Realtime Worlds when they made the game.  How many?   Well almost half.
 

Close to half of our team worked on the original game. We’ve got core members from every discipline who worked on it, the majority of the design team, and, depending on whom you speak to, some of the best coders and most talented artists. But there are still guys at Realtime we want to be friends with, so we don’t want to get dragged into a slanging match. 

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Have you ever had a crush on someone, only to have your friend (or former friend) move in and take him or her right from underneath you?  That's kind of what happened to Crackdown developer Realtime Worlds when Microsoft chose Ruffian Games to develop Crackdown 2. 

Now what if you had to live in the same house with the person that stole your crush?  With former Realtime World developers on the Ruffian team, and both development houses in the same town in Scotland.

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Yesterday Microsoft surprised us when they announced Crackdown 2 for the Xbox 360 at their E3 2009 conference.  At the time there were very few details of the game available, and we were unsure if the co-op mode would expand beyond the first's two player drop-in/drop-out. 

The Official Crackdown 2 page has popped up on Xbox.com and it appears that the game will indeed have four player co-op.  On top of that the page says Crackdown 2 will have 16 player multiplayer modes, which we assume would be team based death match and objective style games.  

All it took was one sound, and the crowd went wild.  Visions of Agency tower climbs filled our heads, and then we heard a familiar voice.  The agent in all of us suddenly sprung to life as Microsoft announced what has long been rumored, Crackdown 2.  While no gameplay was shown, we did get a trailer.  It looks like Crackdown is going down a darker path as agents clean up the city from some sort of disease or infection.  Perhaps this big guy comes out of the sewer at the end?

The game is being developed by Ruffian Games, who are comprised mostly of Crackdown vets.  We don't know how many cooperative players the game will support, but it will support co-op.  For now, feast your eyes on the trailer and pray that 2010 comes very very soon.

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