Crackdown 2 wing suit aiming for "Mario controls"

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?

"We refer to it as 'falling with style'," Thomson told VG247 in a phone interview. "It's more a glide than an actual flight mechanic.

"It's all about angling the Agent into a controlled dive, or pulling up to gain a little bit of height. I suppose it's a little bit like Mario in that sense. We like the Mario controls, and we're trying to get something along those lines."

But it's not flying. Why?

"I've got a bit of a fear of flight with the whole exploration side of things," the developer added. "I really like the way the game controls, that you've got to pick your way up and around the environment, that you don't just simply fly up and drop down on top of it.

"We were keen to make sure that, once the player had unlocked it, it didn't break the game, that they can't just kind of activate a jetpack and fly to the highest roof."

The VGA Crackdown 2 trailer showed Agents taking to the air for the first time. Something that wasn't shown, though, was the use of updrafts.

"We're going to use thermals as well," said Thomson.

"We've got air vents and stuff on top of rooftops, so that if you can glide your way towards one of these updrafts, you'll gain height again, and you can continue flying – gliding - around the city."

Ruffian's Crackdown 2 is set ten years after RTW's 360 original, again setting the player in the role of an Agency super-cop in an open-world, crime-based toy box. You'll like it. Just don't mention flying.

It's out this year, published by Microsoft.