They needed a way to differentiate it from the first one and with only a limited time to make it, they went with reusing the same city, but changing the mood, atchitecture and adding some additional interior or underground locations. Once you get over the disappointment of it recycling the same city, I actually feel the change is pretty effective mood wise. It feels quite different from the first one and while the setting is unoriginal, it does come with some great three way fights between agents, cell and freaks.
I had forgotten how massive the freak crowds were. In the Shai-Gen district it feels like there can be hundreds on screen at a time and while they aren't great to fight with guns and rifles, it's fun to plow through them in other ways. It can get really chaotic until you start cleaning up the areas.
They are a lot like the first game and when people say Crackdown 3 is just Crackdown 1 again, I'm really surprised, because they are so radically diffferent from each other in terms of even basic mechanics, that it's hard for me to see the comparison. 3 really is a new game, where 1 and 2 are variations on the same template. Like Tomb Raider 1 and 2 are using the same template, but Tomb Raider 2013 being something new.
I understand why you would find the controls in 1 + 2 terrible, even if I don't feel the same way, though the fighting mechanics are pretty bad and some things like trying to drive on walls can be frustrating. The basic running and jumping remind me more of a cinematic platformer or even something like N+, because you have to dedicate yourself to speed and momentum and can't adjust so easily in the air, as in Crackdown 3. To me that's what makes jumps thrilling and also so scary, that at times you actually stop to think it through, before trying to execute a series of jumps.
With budgets being so huge, we'll likely never have another game in the series trying to recapture that feeling, just as Tomb Raider fans will never have a game with the original series control, as long as Crystal Dynamics have to attempt to appeal to everyone. That makes me appreciate the original games even more, makes them even more memorable, though I understand why people prefer the modern way of doing things.
