The sequel picks up where the original leaves off. All is quiet in the Gobbo Valley since Croc got rid of Dante, but Croc feels unsettled. One day, while walking on the beach, Croc finds a message in a bottle that leaves him wanting to search for his long-lost parents. As his search begins, Croc finds out the evil Baron Dante is at it again, this time kidnapping the Gobbo kings. It's up to Croc to rescue the Gobbo kings, face off against the Baron himself one more time and find his parents. Ho Hum, all in a day's work.

Ok, so the story isn't best-seller material, but the motive is there to set off on Croc's latest adventure, which leads our scaled-hero through over 40 levels within four Gobbo tribe villages. As opposed to the original title, Croc 2 is an open-ended title. The game doesn't progress in a linear fashion. Since the game is divided into four sub-levels, you can pick and choose your route. The goals remain the same however, so although you have the option of selection which village to enter first, the simple fact of it all is that you must complete all four villages in order to win the game (and unlock a Secret Village to boot).

Since the original title, Croc has also learned a few new tricks. Croc can now hang, do Power Flips, Boost Triple Jumps as well as picking up and throwing items. There are also a number of special events that occur during the game such as a cart race through a mine, flying a hang glider and floating in a hot air balloon. There are also plenty of hidden levels and mini-games scattered throughout Croc 2 as well including a shooting gallery and a cart racing game. Finally, you can collect crystals in order to trade them in with Swap Meet Pete for power-ups and bonus items such as Gummi Saver Jumps and Extra Lives.

Similarly to Earthworm Jim 3D, the storyline and goals are communicated through character interaction. You'll learn objectives and hints by conversing with Gobbos from each of the villages. Each level is packed with all sorts of characters including Gobbos, monsters and of course the all-powerful, all-new bosses. You'll even come across a boss that has a crush on Croc apparently, Soveena the Squid. It all builds up to an exciting encounter with Baron Dante himself.

The biggest problem with Croc 2 is the same problem we saw in Earthworm Jim 3D a few months ago, that being the inconceivable camera angles. Although it fares slightly better than Earthworm Jim, the camera positioning continues to provide some extremely awkward views of the action. It roams freely pending the direction Croc's moving in as well as the objects in the vicinity. The end result are views that at times make jumping and navigating near impossible without adjusting the camera manually. Another problem with the game is the relative ease at which I breezed through it. The bosses were less than difficult and even the special events (hang gliding, cart racing) placed throughout the game were less than spectacular moments.

Graphically, Croc 2 is an improvement over the original, but still lacks the quality found in such titles as Rayman 2. The environments, and really everything in this game, are extremely colourful but also quite bland. The characters seem poorly animated and the only highlight in terms of visuals is some fantastic effects seen in a few explosions during the game. The audio, I'm glad to say, is much better than the visual department. The soundtrack is upbeat and plays right into the theme of each village. There's no real speech in the game despite the fact that the Gobbos and Croc speak to each other, they do so in a language that is unintelligible to say the least.

One of the unique features of Croc 2 is the introduction of Omniplay, an option that allows two players to share control of the game. It doesn't allow two people to physically control two separate characters, but it does allow somebody to control our hero while the other controls the camera angles. It's an interesting addition to the game but one that will probably see limited use. I can't see how somebody can have fun controlling the inner workings of a camera while somebody else does all the butt-kicking. Maybe I'm wrong though.

Croc 2 isn't necessarily a poor game, in fact it's fairly entertaining and priced right. I think younger gamers would really enjoy this arcade game but I'm sure veteran gamers will find the camera angles cumbersome and the gameplay far too easy. Simply put, Croc 2's bark, or roar, is much worse than his bite.