It would be easy to suggest that Pacific City is one of the harder urban spaces on the videogame map for citizens to inhabit, but more accurate to paint it as a battle zone on the losing side of regaining any measure of sanity – aptly demonstrated by an obligatory introduction cinematic that invites the eyes to feast on an ultra-violent spectacle.
Ruffian’s Crackdown 2 plagues Pacific City with the tightly organized violence of the terrorist group Cell fighting against the authoritarian fist of The Agency players work for, flavored further by a setting sun that brings hordes of mutant zombie “Freaks” to the streets to infect the remaining citizens.
Continuing with the straightforward agenda of desperate times calling for desperate measures, it takes a new breed of genetically engineered enforcer to retake such streets, and players fill the heavy boots of The Agency’s human RoboCop – with the added agility needed to patrol Pacific City by street and roof top equally.
With all the turmoil immediately awaiting players in this sandbox, the most surprising aspect is how little is offered to merit the sequel. Crackdown 2 creates a vortex where time becomes meaningless not because it has no value, but rather because of just how much time is wasted in the mix of tedium and monotony that provides damning evidence that this revisit is, at best, a first draft toward a game worth a second of the player’s attention.