In a scene that I imagine played out similarly for many gamers last week, the first step of my Crackdown 2 adventure simply involved looking toward the sky. Or, more specifically, the skyline, hoping to glimpse Crackdown’s version of the virtual hug, a string of agility orbs, whose soft green glow punctuates pockets of high-rises.

Grab a few orbs, and your voice-from-above commander busts both balls and fourth walls as he reprimands you before throwing an achievement your way. Indeed, my first hour of Crackdown 2 brought back a rush of fuzzy feelings.

As a fan of that early Xbox 360 gem Crackdown, I immediately felt right at home in this sequel. But even as I relished starting the leveling-up process again one orb at a time, apprehension loomed as I waited for disappointment set in.

The reason for my doubts stemmed from recent prerelease coverage of the game. The first hint was on our very own Mobcast, in which a quartet of editors voiced their Crackdown 2 concerns after spending some time with a preview version of the game. Buzz from the demo, meanwhile, was mixed at best. Finally, as the games press got hold of reviewable copies of the game, myself included, people started to hint the game might even be -- gasp -- bad.

Here’s the thing: It’s a fun game. I would be surprised if anyone claims they didn’t enjoy at least a decent portion of their time with the game. I was talking with a friend about the game last week, and he’s absolutely loving it. And why not? Crackdown 2 offers a near-identical supersoldier template as the previous game. The problem, though, is that gamers, the free-roam genre, and that special moment in time when the first game was so right have passed on by.

Take a look at the timeline below. Crackdown hit a sweet spot when the first batch of “next-gen” open-world games were just coming into vogue, delivering a superhero-style experience that happened to capture that “it” feeling.

What’s that “it” feeling? I’m talking about the way a single basic gameplay element grabs you with its simplicity, then holds on tight with a dependable level of satisfaction. Think cruising in the early Tony Hawk games and grinding a few rails, weaving through traffic in Burnout 3 in its near-miss glory, or web-slinging through Spider-Man 3’s city. Every gamer has their own suite of gameplay touchstones that clicks just right for them; it takes only seconds to lose hours.

And like I said, Crackdown reached that “it” status. Whether it was intentional or a happy accident, seeing an orb in your peripheral vision was enough to derail whatever mission you were on. You had to make with a bit of vertical dexterity to get your fix.

Sure, the surrounding game was iffy if you scrutinized it, but simply navigating the city while searching for orbs was addictive enough for it to reach instant-classic status among gamers. As recently as last month I was trying to find time to get back to the game to chase a few achievements -- and nab a few more orbs -- before newer, “I gotta play these now to stay relevant” games bullied my best intentions out of the way.