Tag Archives: James Cope

Is your city a crime-free, freak-vaporized, de-orbed totalitarian utopia? Have you seen all there is to see, climbed the highest heights and punched your co-op buddies off them?

Fear not, agent. Ruffian still has a few more tricks up its sleeve.

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As if pre-unlocking achievements and unlocking the Ruthless difficulty in the Crackdown 2 demo wasn’t enough, Ruffian’s going proper over the top today.

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Last month, we put you to work by having you ask Ruffian some questions regarding Crackdown 2.

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Crackdown 2 producer James Cope has told CVG that timing was the reason why the multiplayer beta for Halo: Reach was not included in the release of the Ruffian sandbox epic.

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Ruffian’s confirmed that Crackdown 2′s going to get a pre-release demo.

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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.

Crackdown 2 will run at 30fps when it releases next year. That is according to Ruffian’s creative director Billy Thomson, who revealed the news to VG247 in an interview at a hands-on for the game last month.

He reveals that they will keep adding stuff to the game until they go above it, stating they need to keep the framerate “constant”.

“We will just keep hitting it until we hit 30. Because it does need to be a constant 30. As soon as we go above that, we need to stop.”

No exact date yet. Needless to say, it’s a must-buy.

Find our full interview with Thomson and producer James Cope here and here. Find some new shots 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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Speaking at the NEoN event in Dundee, Ruffian Games has stated how important Crackdown 2′s online is, and how it needs to be able to “keep your disc in people’s disc drive.”

“If you’re doing that you’re onto a winner. We play games online, and we want to bring that element of quick skirmish action. We always thought Crackdown was perfect for online and always wanted to do it like this,” said Ruffian producer James Cope.

The company also confirmed it will work on Crackdown 2 after it’s release next year.

“As a company, we’ve got a really strong belief in staying as a single project company. We feel that enables us to make the best games possible.

“We’re not putting people with really great skills in the position of having to manage multiple things. You always get that situation where one game, one project, becomes more important than the other and you dilute your key staff across that. We want to stay incredibly focused on making really great core action games. That’s where the future of the company is.”

Find more at GI.