Tech Blog

[#1]

Is a reference to a song on UK indie band The Boo Radley's critical and commercial failure C'Mon Kids too obscure for the title of a story about Crackdown 2's upcoming downloadable content, Toy Box? Probably, but too late, it's already happened.

Although I'd like to be able to announce the DLC's release date, Microsoft hasn't announced it past "coming soon" but they have been kind enough to reveal its price, which is going to be "free" and "560 Microsoft Points" simultaneously.

For free, everyone who owns Crackdown 2 is going to get:

- The "Keys to the City." Famous from the original Crackdown, this "cheat mode" will allow the player to spawn weapons and gadgets, choose the time of day, alter their skills, God Mode, Infinite Ammo, "Fly Cam" whatever that is... all that sort of stuff.

- A new level 6 reward. If you've played the game you'll already know that once you reach level five there's no intrinsic reward to reaching level six, so now if you do you'll receive the "thruster ability," which will allow agents to boost and use their wingsuit (it seems) without having to go to all that trouble of finding a tall enough building to get started.

- Vehicle Tag. A new multiplayer mode that hasn't exactly been fully explained, but I guess it's some sort of arena-based vehicle smash-em-up, similar to the game's Rocket Tag mode just less... rockety.

However! If you're willing to stump up 560 Microsoft Points--about eight dollars-ish--then you'll also get:

- Two new vehicles, a "wall climbing aquatic mini-tank" the Agency ATV and the Squad Chopper, which allows for players to use one chopper and all man their own weapon (from the selection of a proximity mine launcher, precision rocket launcher, twin machine guns and nose machine gun... expect some squabbles.)

- Five "toys"--The Mass Driver (turreted gravity bending weapon), Portable Launch Pads (allows Agents to create their own launch pad jumps), Stickler Grenade (bouncing grenade that sets off smaller explosive charges as it bounces), Thrusters (allow vertical thrust), and Mags on Characters (allow Mag Grenades to be attached to characters).

- Two avatar awards: the Xbox green agent suit and the green agent helmet. The avatar awards included with the game were pretty good and on the Avatar Marketplace the suit/helmet combo is about 560 MS Points on its own, so this is a pretty good deal.

- Ten new achievements. This is a little odd because achievements normally get added in for games even if you don't have the DLC, so I guess what they mean is that the achievements will all require use of the vehicles and toys you get with the paid-for part of the DLC. As you can access the paid-for content if you join the game of a friend who has it (even if you don't) it's not clear if you could trigger these achievements that way.

- Eight agent suit colours. This is probably the most annoying paid-for exclusive! The range of colours int he main game was so, so boring (two blues, two black/greys) and with the eight colours including "Agent Orange" and "Dem Apples" you can tell they're really going to jazz your agent up, something my campaign playthough could really have done with.

It all sounds rather good, but is it going to be convincing enough to make you want to drop 560 points? Personally, I think I'm going to hold out for the next DLC, because I'm hoping for more mission-based content; I've messed around in Pacific City long enough that more toys doesn't really excite me... though I must admit I will be downloading the free content to give it a shot.

[#2]

I never thought the day would come that the Boo Radleys are mentioned in a tech gaming post, but it has. They were one of my favourite bands, but to be honest I haven't listened to them for years.

I think I will now...and i'll try and work a Super Furries reference into one of my posts somehow.

[#3]

I am glad someone enjoyed it! I'll enjoy any Super Furry Animals' reference you can manage to work in, so get to it!

[#4]

ack now i'm under pressure, do I get bonus points if it's in Welsh?