The Crackdown 2 demo plays like Crackdown, and I’m okay with that. At first, I was very down on Crackdown 2 for numerous reasons. New developers combined with the same setting and general mechanics as the original made the game feel a lot like a phoned-in sequel that was more of the same.

As I’ve listened to podcasts and read all the content availible online, I’ve learned more about the game and gone from apathy to guarded interest. Yes, the developers are new. However, Ruffian Games was formed by people from Realtime Worlds, the original creators of Crackdown, who splintered off to specifically to make Crackdown 2. Yes, it’s in the same city. However, this “same city” is 10 years after the end of Crackdown, so really they can change anything want. They have added a day and night cycle and added many many more standard enemies so you can level your abilities with far more ease.

What completely allayed my fears was the new demo on Xbox Live. Obviously, I greatly enjoyed it simply because it plays like more Crackdown, but the demo itself is worthy of praise simply for how it’s packaged. The demos for XBLA and PSN games track when you unlock Achievements and Trophies and tells you that “You’ve earned an Achievement/Trophy! To unlock it, buy this game now!” Crackdown 2 does the exact same thing for a full retail game: as you play the demo, you unlock Achievements. If, on July 6th, you decide to buy the game, you’ll instantly get the points you’ve unlocked.

Think this is already brilliant, but they should take it a step further. Put the demo out; let us play your game. Give us the ability to unlock Achievements and Trophies before the game is actually out and then let us save the game in the demo. Think about it. How great would it be to get to skip straight past any lame tutorials and get right into your game? You’ve already played through the first hour of the game, you have a sense for how everything goes, then you can keep going when you pick up the retail release.

Obviously, this can’t work in all demos. Several demos (like the Batman: Arkham Asylum demo) combine the tutorial with sections of later parts of the game to provide a better picture of how the game plays. Still, it wouldn’t be too hard to make a modified intro, give a taste of the middle of the game, then let us save and proceed from right after the tutorial ends in the final product. It would certainly make things smoother all-around.