Watch_Dogs

I want to know if the game feels less. "Random task" stuff with generic sandbox sidequests, and more hacking based like the premise is all about.

The RC car was my favourite toy in the first game (well, the expansion pack) and the chopper looks hella fun too.

It's a shame though that I doubt my laptop can handle the super-fresh AAA titles.

And that's why I'm a console gamer. No shelling out for upgrades, no hoping I can play stuff, just buy, insert disc, and go get me some.

"No shelling for upgrades".

Uh yes you do shell for upgrades every few years. If you don't shell, you'll be playing absolutely nothing of the new games, rather than just having some limits.

Additionally, your upgrades are stuck in one place, require extra equipment that you have to contest other members of the household for, are a useless brick when you're not gaming and occasionally you have to go through the hassle of re-plugging in your old one if you want to play some classics

edited 1st Dec '16 10:40:46 PM by Adannor

I got the game last night, started playing this morning, and have a few first impressions with ~4 hours under my belt (although I think it's longer; Steam was offline for a part of that).

• Marcus is not Aiden Pearce. Not even a little. This is both a plus and a minus (more on that later).
• Aiden shows up in a side mission, briefly. I don't know if he will show up again. He's considered something of a legend by DedSec.
• I haven't seen much of Blume's workings yet, just a brief cutscene of its ridiculously hip-looking CEO, whom I recognize from the trailers by face, if not by name. Blume seems to be only a vague threat at present. I guess I have to advance the main story missions to see more.
• The game is visually appealing, although the way the graphics engine runs at the settings I'm able to play smoothly at (Medium) makes everything look a little fuzzy. The depth of field effects just don't feel quite right to my brain, which knows it's looking at a 2D image of a 3D world. This isn't a complaint specifically about this game, but about the style in general.
• The core gameplay is basically the same as in the first one, with a few added toys and tricks.
  • The Jumper is cool but as I have yet to unlock its high jump upgrade, it's more frustrating than helpful — when I see a space that's clearly designed for it yet is too high for it to reach, I don't think to myself, "Wow, I really need to get that key;" I think, "Yet another mindless content gate."
  • The Quadcopter is amazing and is by far a better gizmo. You can roam freely above mission areas without having to dick with camera locations, and you can scout ascent paths for tricky buildings, something I really, really appreciate.
  • The security hacking mini-game is quite fun when it's played in the real world instead of a separate interface.
  • Car hacking is hilariously fun.
  • The stun gun is a cute new weapon but it's so limited in crowded areas that it feels like a Self-Imposed Challenge not to kill anyone. Once I picked up an assault rifle from one of the guards I took down, going into combat mode became insanely easy, which brings me to...
  • There is no longer a meaningful penalty for killing cops and civilians that I can detect, other than increased police awareness, which makes dreams of sociopathy enormously easier to realize but also takes me out of suspension of disbelief a bit. You'd think that DedSec being associated with mass murder would reduce their follower count at the very least.
• I appreciate not having to hack towers to gain map visibility, but special items only showing up when I'm near them means I have to explore every damn corner of the map to know if I missed anything. I'm not sure that's an improvement.

Now, on to the story. I both appreciate and am annoyed by Marcus and his buddies. While it's nice to not have a two-dimensional protagonist who, in "Yahtzee" Croshaw's words, has had all the personality sandblasted off of him, this new guy is so hip and... "millennial", for lack of a better word, that it grates a bit. With its copious geek and nerd references, irreverent digs at pop culture, and even the placement of Ubisoft in the game world as an object of ridicule, it seems to be trying a little bit too hard to nail the popular twenty-something zeitgeist.

Maybe it's just me, but this theme of fighting back against "The Man" and "Big Data" and the general assumption that every big corporation is secretly up to evil shit while the hackers stealing data and installing backdoors and whatnot are fighting for the democratic freedom of the people just rings a bit hollow. It doesn't help that it's published by a gaming megacompany that has frequently been accused of selling out to the lowest common denominator and recycling its ideas more often than an aluminum can. (For example, Marcus' little DedSec cell bears more than a little resemblance to the Assassin cell from AC 2 and onward.)

Which is not to say that it's not fun. It is; I enjoy DedSec's antics even as I realize how absurdly unrealistic they are. I just hope some Reality Ensues catches up with them as the plot advances, because they're a bit much to take in: publicly advertising for followers in a city controlled by an omniscient megacorp? Seriously? Do they not know that the FBI takes down botnets like theirs for breakfast? I'm also sensing some Gameplay and Story Segregation in that you can have multiple violent shootouts with gangs, security agencies, and police on a daily basis and San Franciscans seem blissfully unaware. Must be one hell of a good media cover-up scheme going on there.

In the first game, Aiden's main beef was with a mob boss, and Blume was sort of a background villain. This game, focusing on Blume as it does, seems to throw certain moral assumptions at the player's face without establishing enough internal justification to make me agree with them. I'm half on Blume's side here, when I think about it. I'm sure it'll turn out that they're burning kittens in their sub-basement dungeons and so that justifies anything done to them, but it's harder to take seriously even so.

A personal pet peeve: I'm finding it harder to create massive, explosive multi-car pileups now than I did before. Partly, that seems to be because Marcus doesn't have an upgrade path for vehicular combat in the same way that Aiden did, so his cars aren't five times more durable than the opponents and he can't inflict godlike ramming damage. (Motorcycles, on the other hand, set off chain detonations much more effectively than in the first game.) The game also has this annoying habit of despawning crashed cars once they are out of my field of view for a second, even if they're less than twenty meters away. Wonder if it's a video memory thing.

The integrated multiplayer seems more engaging for some reason. Since you no longer lose reputation for a failure, there is no longer a groaning sense of frustration when you get matched for a hacking or bounty job. You can ignore it, make a token effort to get your participation bonus, or engage and test your wits. And I remain fully aware that I can turn off online matchmaking if I want to.

Overall impression so far: This is a quality title, with the core gameplay polished to a far greater degree than in its predecessor. Unlike in Watch_Dogs, however, the main story lacks much in the way of dramatic tension, at least so far. I'm not feeling the stakes like I was with Aiden's quest; I'm basically following around a bunch of millennials as they play "Fuck the Man" in their garage club. Maybe I'm too old to appreciate it fully.

edited 3rd Dec '16 10:20:20 PM by Fighteer

Getting at that age Fighteer? Where them young people with their hip and hops is annoying you? I can see you shaking your cane from here ;P

'sokay, I get that way too, it's how aging works.

edited 3rd Dec '16 10:05:51 PM by Ghilz

As far as I'm aware, I'm younger than Marcus and his 'millennial-ness' annoys the crap out of me.

Shhhh you're ruining the joke :-P

My apologies. I didn't realize we were in joking mode.

Their "hips" and their "hops" annoyed me even when I was young enough to notionally belong in that demographic.

As I said, the "Let's Fight The Man" mentality is grating to my sensibilities, especially coming as it does from a mega game developer who is very much "The Man". I'm willing to give the story room to grow on me, though, as long as it gets more serious about the consequences of DedSec's actions, and/or gives me a reason to hate Blume that goes beyond "Generic Evil Megacorps Are Bad".

edited 3rd Dec '16 10:21:34 PM by Fighteer

Yeah, you need to get deeper into the game. There's a main story mission called "Haum Sweet Home"; finish that, then talk to me about "generic megacorps aren't evil".

Well, okay, mass surveillance feeding data into subliminal social control algorithms is pretty evil. I'm past that now and through the point where... well, let's just say that being the least-developed character in a wacky ensemble is often a fatal condition, and the cliche is once again proven correct. Thing is that having the stakes raised by a largely irrelevant third party fridging people that we never got to know that well doesn't add depth to the story.

Oh, and T-Bone's entrance is just perfect. Love him soooo much, and apparently so do the developers. The Batman Gambit played by Blume's CEO (whose name I still can't remember — so much for compelling characterization) was quite ingenious. I could say I called it, but there had to be some kind of fix in; DedSec was getting away with way too much to be reasonable. Still doesn't explain how Kenny comes in and magically waves away their problems, except that he's a hacker god, which is as much a Deus ex Machina as anything could be. I did call the FBI getting involved, though. I'm taking full credit for that.

Lastly, three words: Josh on acid. I don't know if the idea of treating spectrum disorders with hallucinogens has any medical merit, but I find it fascinating and hilarious at the same time. I do like how he's treated with such respect. I hope he doesn't end up getting beaten up for cheap drama.

P.S.: A mechanic I'm starting to explore that I absolutely love is calling the cops or rival gangs on enemies. Letting them duke it out and then picking over the remains is a fantastic way to get through a mission stealthily... for a certain definition of the word, anyway. I find that the game has veered a bit out of the old Ubisoft model of emphasizing or even mandating stealthy or non-lethal completion, and I find it a bit disconcerting from a moral perspective. Marcus seems like a decent guy who wouldn't kill wantonly, but there is absolutely zero penalty or even recognition for leaving a trail of corpses, innocent or guilty, police or criminal, in his wake.

edited 4th Dec '16 10:26:19 PM by Fighteer

This review aptly sums up my own feelings about the use of guns in Watch_Dogs2 (and, by inference, in the first game). It's trying too hard to be GTA at the expense of its own unique design. At least Aiden Pearce had a justification, however flimsy, for his wanton use of violence (should you choose that route).

edited 5th Dec '16 12:49:54 PM by Fighteer

Saw that article and totally agree. Imagine if they pulled a different view - that yo ucould only use guns dropped on the ground and even then, not use them well (Almost Max Payne style, when you had to use weapons scavenged around you).

I'm sure I read somewhere about how the tools you are given in a game influence how you interact with it - so, swords and spells means you tend for more up close methods - guns means you tend to go a bit kill crazy - cameras make you a bit slower and take more notice of things.

Imagine if an open world game treated a gun fight like the horror show it actually is. And you could influence it like the way Sleeping Dogs did - guns were rare in that, disposable and actually created problems - you relied on your melee styles and running AWAY from the police (That it had a system that penalised you for hurting cops and that the cops were a NIGHTMARE at higher levels helped).

But the conclusion that there's a fear about alienating your audience probably holds true.

I'd disagree with the justification - he only had it for plot missions at best. In free roam gunnery was baiting a lot of contradictions.

I.e. "feel free to headshot all minor goons, but The Worst guy of this pack you gotta let live" missions, "you shot the criminal before he shot his victim, here's your penalty for killing innocents", the cop shootouts (though I personally got into nearly none).

New guy also has justification for not using guns and having the taser gun option is very very nice. Or you can headcanon Let Me Be Evil and blow everything away.

The taser gun is laughably inadequate for pitched battles, and it's not silenced, so using it to take out an enemy in line of sight of anyone else is all she wrote for stealth.

Even within the gameplay portion alone, Watch_Dogs2 could do more to punish excessive violence, such as by spawning more and harder enemies at objectives and having them be better-equipped. Story-wise, maybe the news could mention "large numbers of bodies found at a local shootout, DedSec involvement suspected", or Sitara could yell at Marcus for being too violent, or something.

Of course, I find the tone shifts jarring in other ways, as you can have a bubbly conversation with Sitara about your follower count immediately after something tragic or awful happens. It's a bit like the conversations you can have with the Assassin cell members in AC 2 through 3, but since you're always at the same point in the story when you do them, it doesn't feel so out of place.

edited 5th Dec '16 6:54:47 AM by Fighteer

I liked how Sleeping Dogs handled the use of firearms in a game that focused mainly on martial arts combat; guns are treated as temporary power-ups that can only be used until you run out of ammo, and you where restricted to 1 gun at a time to prevent weapon stockpiling.

They were also far less common, which makes sense when you compare Hong Kong to the USA :-P

Well, Marcus isn't supposed to be a combat monster in melee, either. It's already straining credulity to have him be a twenty-something who's a star hacker, a parkour master, an ace driver, a graffiti artist, and everything else he does, without also being an expert marksman, invincible with his little ball-and-chain toy, and able to soak up bullets like the Terminator.

And yes, I get it: the game still has to be fun regardless of suspension of disbelief, but they could have done more to aid the latter.

edited 5th Dec '16 7:48:49 AM by Fighteer

Dunno, but looking how he handles his combat yo-yo are we sure he's not a combat monster?

That's sort of my point: it goes blissfully unexplained. The story ignores his combat skills completely, taking them for granted when they are probably the most remarkable part of his character given his apparent background. Everyone talks up how he's this amazing hacker ("a better coder than anyone in my company," says Evil Blume CEO), and there's an offhand reference to him having a gun license, but other than that it's left up to our imagination.

Maybe Ubisoft is absorbing the message about how players are getting bored with overly long expositional backstory sequences in games a bit too much, and veering off to the other extreme.

edited 5th Dec '16 8:00:54 AM by Fighteer

I'm assuming it's all meta and he's actually in a coma after being tased during his first mission and the whole game is a dream about fighting the man.

Invading the FBI's San Francisco HQ was pretty funny. I ended up doing a melee takedown or tasering the lot of them to make myself feel better about assaulting Feds, although the game couldn't care either way. By the time the scripted plot called for me to be detected, there wasn't anyone left to go after me. Well, on the top floor, anyway. Down at ground level, I had to take a few tries at getting out without being perforated. Guards with the assault rifle are mercilessly deadly in the open.

edited 5th Dec '16 10:00:52 PM by Fighteer

Well, looks like I'm at the final chapter, based on the Interface Spoiler of the achievement list. I have to say: my initial worries that the stakes would not ramp up believably were wrong. We're into all sorts of nasty shit and there's some very real concern as to whether any ultimate "takedown" of Blume could ever have the desired effect of getting the people to wake up and stop taking their information for granted.

I'm taking mental notes of all the Bland-Name Product and No Celebrities Were Harmed examples in this game and it's getting pretty silly, but yet it still manages to be both awesome and funny. I have to hand it to Ubisoft; their writers managed to tap a well of creativity for the script that keeps me amused, and really, what more can one ask? I got to graffiti a campaign billboard for a corrupt politician and screw with his social media manipulation. Hell yeah. Getting to pilot a for-real Spider Tank was amazing, and it's a cute Call-Back to the first game and its VR experiences.

Looks like I'll wrap this sucker up over the weekend and write up a final review.

And... done. That was quicker than I expected. Better be some good extra content coming to justify the price I paid for the Season Pass...

edited 10th Dec '16 6:37:57 AM by Fighteer