Crackdown 2

Crackdown 2 returns to Pacific City a decade later, finding it in far worse shape than when players left it. The streets are controlled by the rebel organization Cell, and an outbreak beneath the city has turned people into aggressive Freaks. The Agent, once again a practically indestructible super-cop, is tasked with securing key points, activating sunlight weapons, and literally burning the darkness out of the city. The structure is deliberately simple: daytime belongs to firefights against human opponents, nighttime to monsters pouring out of the sewers.

The core of the fun remains unchanged and still works. The character improves through use, so shooting increases accuracy, driving unlocks better vehicles, and above all collecting green orbs boosts jump strength until the Agent is leaping over skyscrapers. Vertical climbing across the city is addictive, and the second entry supports it by adding a parachute, which turns every tower into a launching point. Weapons are unlocked by completing objectives, and many of them lean more on absurdity than realism, whether it's grenades that pull nearby objects toward them or homing rocket launchers. The big addition was smooth four-player co-op and a competitive mode for larger groups, where you can complete the same objectives against each other. The graphics kept the comic-book outlines with striking contrasting colors that still give the city a distinctive look today.

Contemporary reviews were cooler than for the first game, mainly because the action takes place in the same city, just older and more broken down, and offers similar objectives over and over. It was also criticized for the routine feel of fighting the nightly enemy waves. Even so, it remains one of the few games that so precisely captured the joy of moving through heights, and the Agency commander's radio quips give it a dry, faintly ominous humor. Today Crackdown 2 is at its best in co-op, with the whole group racing across rooftops competing over who finds the next glowing orb first.