Tag Archives: Billy Thomson

If you found Crackdown’s hand-to-hand combat a little weak, fret not: the sequel has melee action inspired by Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham Asylum.

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Crackdown 2 lead designer Billy Thomson’s a Mario fan. So much so, in fact, that the Agency wing suit – revealed in the game’s VGA trailer last month – is based on the Nintendo plumber’s cape glide controls. Were there rooftop thermals in Mario?

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Ruffian has detailed to VG247 the first pieces of info of the underground element of Crackdown 2 at a hands-on in Dundee last month.

Creative director Billy Thomson told us that there would be nine subterranean levels in the sequel.

“If you take one of the locations for a gang boss in the first game, most of them are… let me think of one location that’d be a good size. The Refinery, probably,” said Thomson.

“A little bit smaller than the Refinery. And there’s, like, nine of them. It’s a big bit of gameplay.”

Microsoft refused to go into details though on specific kits for the underground segments.

No date yet, we’re afraid.

Catch our full interview with Thomson and James Cope of Ruffian here and here.

Speaking in an interview with VG247, Ruffian creative director Billy Thomson has said the play location will be “altered” for Crackdown 3.

What in the way now?

“When we go to Crackdown 3 things’ll alter again. But yeah, for Crackdown 2 it made more sense to stick in the same city, because it is pushing on from the idea of the Freak fires and how they’ve affected the city,” said Thomson.

“It’s not a case of doing it because it’s quicker. If anything it’s taken just as long to re-do what’s already there, because we’ve got to make sure we don’t break what we spent so much time getting right in the first game.”

There’s no date on Crackdown 2 as yet. Or Crackdown 3, for that matter.

Find our full interview with Billy Thomson and Ruffian’s producer James Cope here and here.

The second part of our Crackdown 2 interview with Ruffian creative director Billy Thomson and producer James Cope is after the break. Get the first part here.

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Xbox 360 has several legendary exclusives, but Crackdown is the most enigmatic. Relaying a comedic, near-future dystopia through mob boss murder and an open, island city, the RealTime Worlds title was, for many, the first true HD 360 experience. Assuming the role of an Agent, the player’s task was simple: reclaim the streets while avoiding civilian-vapourisation. Pacific City’s sandbox, drop-in co-op, physics-based action and the ludicrous, all-American VO secured Crackdown a rightful place in the hardcore’s heart.

A second game was not inevitable. Microsoft got cold feet after the original “only” sold 1.5 million, and RealTime Worlds moved onto APB. Braying fans got their wish, though, when staffers split away from RTW to form Ruffian in December 2008 and started work on what was announced at E3 2009 as a full sequel. The wrangling’s well-documented. The game’s more important.

We were lucky enough to visit Ruffian in Dundee last month. The two builds we saw showed enough to confirm that Pacific City’s undergone some huge changes. While the sequel’s set on the same map, we’re now in a post-apocalyptic setting. The Agency gained control at the end of the original, then quickly lost it. A civilian splinter group called the Cell, effectively a terrorist organisation, is calling the shots. The Agency is playing a weak third in the power stakes to the Cell and the Freaks, the mutants that appear near the end of Crackdown.

We’ll wrap up all the detail in a feature tomorrow. In short, it feels like Mad Max on brick-dust smack; it’s got four-way co-op for the entire campaign; nine huge, completely new, underground areas with an “underworld population”; co-op vehicles; new types of orbs; a new hand-to-hand fighting system; fully-featured multiplayer, including modes like Rocket Tag; it’ll be locked at 30fps; Skills are now limited to five levels; and nope, there’s no release date.

Check back in the morning for the preview and play impressions. For now, though, hit the link for our massive interview with Ruffian’s creative director, Billy Thomson, and the game’s producer, James Cope. We’ve put this up in two parts: get the second bit here. There are new screens here.

Interview by Patrick Garratt.

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Ruffian’s Billy Thomson has reiterated to Edge that the newly-formed Dundee developer’s focus is online gaming, despite the fact single-play will play an important part in its projects.

“It’s not like we’re going to avoid making singleplayer games,‭ ‬we still see a massive market in them,” he said.

“‬But,‭ ‬moving forward,‭ ‬many games are pushing things like co-operative play.‭ ‬If you look at the consoles that are out there now,‭ ‬everybody’s encouraging everyone to stay online,‭ ‬particularly through your friends list on the‭ ‬360,‭ ‬and now with the PS3‭’‬s Home.‭

“We definitely want to keep making solo games‭ – ‬we want to make great solo games‭ – ‬but we see the life of games online.‭ ‬Because when you finish your solo experience,‭ ‬if you want to get anything else out of the‭ ‬£45‭ ‬or‭ ‬$60‭ ‬you’ve spent,‭ ‬it’s going to be through online play.”

This piece was supposed to be published two weeks ago, as we alluded to in this article. Billy and the boys are working on a new Crackdown game, although it’s yet to be announced.