away, and lectures to snooze through. The hardcore thief got head-fucks reading philosophy, instead of revising for the paper on Social Problems and Political Solutions in 19th Century Novel.

The petty thief kept dipping into the sanity hoard for my own 3D surround-sound Lothlorien-cum-student-bedsit experience, and got slack and lazy. But for the hardcore thief, this was just women with beards, trickster palm-readers, and the snakeman. After a few rides at the carnival it was time for the witch-doctor to cast his runes and go hunting for the source.

Surfacing I realised that the petty thief was a stupid kid, screwing around with the facts of a fresh spring morning and the whole day laid out with something he wanted to do; that the hardcore thief wanted to play RussianCrackdown 2, Crunch Time Development Done Right

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Crackdown 2 took 2009's E3 by surprise storm, and was even playable at PAX East, 2010. How does something turn from announcement, to release in almost one year? Loads of hectic crunch time. Kind of like facing a horde of Freaks by yourself. Good thing Ruffian had a good team together, because they really hit the nail on the head with Crackdown 2.

How would one measure an average game cycle? Well, if we take a look at high profile gameStarcraft 2: Wings of Liberty or Halo 2, which faced many delays since their announcements, a year or so of development is really not much.

According to MTV, Ruffian Studios, established in 2008, only had about 18 months of total development time for Crackdown