The protagonist of “Crackdown 2” (Microsoft, for the Xbox 360, $59.99) is a SWAT cop whose most distinctive skill is a vertical leap that lets him scale the sides of skyscrapers. However, once you’re 20 stories high, you’ll discover that most of the buildings in Pacific City are topped by roofs that jut out a foot or so — just enough to prevent our superpowered hero from climbing on top.
It’s an all-too-typical flaw in Ruffian Games’ urban adventure, which promises sky-high excitement but continually finds ways to crash to Earth. The original “Crackdown” became something of a cult hit despite similar limitations, but fans who expect a sequel to fix such issues will come away disappointed.
In the earlier game, you fought to wrest control of Pacific City from three criminal gangs. Despite your efforts, though, things have gotten worse 10 years later. The remnants of the gangs have coalesced into a terrorist group called The Cell, and a runaway pathogen has turned half the population into vicious Freaks. The once radiant metropolis is crumbling, but your employer, The Agency, has a plan to stop the chaos.
The essence of that plan, called Project Sunburst, is to expose the Freaks to light. First, you have to seize three generators from The Cell; then you have to drop a beacon into one of the Freaks’ subterranean strongholds and defend it until it detonates.
Pulling off that mission once is challenging enough. “Crackdown 2” asks you to do it nine times — and by the fourth or fifth go-round, you’ll start to wonder when the story gets interesting.
It doesn’t.
You can break the monotony with vehicular side missions, which require you to drive through checkpoints or pull off stunts, but they won’t cause the designers of “Need for Speed” to lose any sleep. There are…