Watch_Dogs

Okay, here's my review of the game.

http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2017/01/watchdogs-2-review.html

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

How the fuck is any of that funny?

I'm Charlie Owens, good night and good luck. PSNID: CEOIII 1117

The sheer insane presumptioness of those headlines?

Finally beat the game and enjoyed it just fine.

Overall, I really liked the game but I think it felt a lot more random than the original. A lot of people talk shit about Aiden Pearce but I generally liked the story arc because I thought we were supposed to find him an unlikable scumbag and hypocrite. He's a noir cyberpunk protagonist and they tend to be guys who are not exactly heroic or charismatic but deeply flawed assholes.

Marcus and the crew are just so much more FUN, though, it's hard to really be upset with the switchover. They're a lovable bunch of goofballs and the fact I wanted to hang out with these fictional "friends" more or less redeemed the game for me. I felt the game itself was nothing to write home about and the story was deeply disjointed but I didn't need it to be great as long as I got to enjoy the characters bounce off one another—it's an ability Bioware mastered but few other companies have.

Villainy-wise, I'm not even sure Dusan qualifies as a bad guy let alone is a worthy antagonist to the series. Near as I can tell, all he did was screw with Ded Sec's plan to destroy his companies servers (i.e. his job) and engage in some insider trading. He's really not done anything wrong as inside trading is the lowest of all crimes in video game evil. Fuck, even making Marcus a target is accurate because he did all the crap he's accused of doing. It says something I wish Truss, the New Dawn, or the Haddok guy were the villains because you could assume they're genuinely evil.

Also, while the stakes raised, Blume still feels like the least villainous group in this place as they're primarily guilty of mass dating mining and aggressive digital marketing.

The missions were all enjoyable even if they all felt like side-quests to a nonexistent main plot. They're all ripped from the headlines and have no real uniting factor but they're still all fun. I can't really remember any mission which felt BAD save, maybe the Tezcas mission. The killing of Horatio felt completely unnecessary and was just mined for drama. I felt similarly about Clara in the original game.

It's notable my favorite missions from the game were probably the goofiest. I think Nudle was the best of the missions just because it was funny as hell and felt like a place I'd actually like to work. It was also a good recreation of Google. The Hack the World mission was also amazing and probably a better finale than the actual finale. I do like the fact Dusan managed to get at least some good hits in—too often the villains get completely steamrolled.

Least favorite? Anything involving Lenni. God, I hate her.

There's some touching moments throughout the game and little character bits that I really liked. Playing as Wrench's wingman, getting his mask, generally treating Hot Sauce as a beloved friend despite his condition, the nerd conversations, and so on are all things more games could learn from. I care less and less about shooting people in the face the older I get and more about the characters.

San Fran was also a beautiful city to explore. I felt bad for wrecking it as much as I did.

7/10 or so with the caveat 7 is actually "really fun if not exceptional."

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

A 10 gig patch. Either we can haz new DLC, or someone screwed up something big.

I'm Charlie Owens, good night and good luck. PSNID: CEOIII 1117

Patch notes are here. Just looks like they were fixing enough stuff that a lot of the core data files had to be re-downloaded.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Wonder if that'll make that bunker mission easier.....

I'm Charlie Owens, good night and good luck. PSNID: CEOIII 1117

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

JORDI!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love how the only person from WD 1 that we don't really interact with is the main character of WD 1

I'm Charlie Owens, good night and good luck. PSNID: CEOIII 1117

It would be hilariously to have him sometimes show up randomly if you start shooting in public, bean you on the top of the head, growl something and walk off.

If we're interacting with everyone from WD 1 except Aiden, this means we're going to see Nikki in the next DLC, right?

And Jackson!!

And eventually Clara!

......A MAN CAN DREAM, DAMMIT. *storms off*

I'm Charlie Owens, good night and good luck. PSNID: CEOIII 1117

We saw Aiden, although we didn't interact with him directly.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Got some time in with the game.

The DedSec characters are actually quite endearing, although Horatio was glaringly underused. Tied in with that, the stakes aren't really communicated that well. The contrast of the beauty of the Bay Area and what its criminal underbelly is up to should be hard to miss in comparison to the everyone-is-an-ass-on-some-level of the first game, but somehow it is. And how do you set up a criminal base on Alcatraz without anyone stumbling on it?

The world is beautiful and looks genuinely lived in. My previous sandbox experiences with San Francisco were all in cars, so being able to just walk around and explore the environment on foot feels great.

Gunplay is... average, I guess. It doesn't really stand out, save for leaving you scratching your head at some of the weapon choices. A stockless Ultimax? Do you actually want to hit something with that?

As to demphasising gunplay in favor of hacking or drone manipulation, reducing the ammo supply for non-grenade launchers seems like a good place to start, or at least changing ammo stock counts based on caliber. As it is, you run about with 320 odd 7.62x51 rounds for the G3 Zero Day Rifle I've been using. Or alternately, 320 odd rounds for a 1911. That's quite a bit more than most US soldiers carry in the field.

That said, the stun gun is actually a more reliable way of incapacitating hostiles outside of vehicles for medium and short ranges with all the upgrades researched than firearms. Sure, having stunned hostiles wake up automatically after a while is a tad infuriating, but you can just zap them again even without having them wake up. Or you can use the lethal stuff on them once they're down, as taking hits while unconscious does not wake them up.

So far I've refrained from killing police and Umeni forces outside of steam pipe explosions and losses they suffer when sent after a gang hideout, even if they appear to be a lot more competent when going after Marcus than any criminals they get in a fight with.

Now, the various gangs... well, it's open season. You can't be detected during the download if everyone has already been shot or exploded. And as they say, nothing is as popular as vigilantism. Even if Bay Area DedSec is quite literally a paragon of virtue compared to real life online movements.

Speaking of explosions, the quadcopter and fully researched IEDs makes the destruction missions hilariously easy. Just quickly fly it in, drop the charge and then detonate it once you're ready. The guards look for humans, not whirring noises. Can't say the same about the jumper, though. It's pretty difficult to maintain hacking line of sight and not be in the blast radius or get detected with the jumper.

edited 26th Apr '17 12:19:20 PM by Krieger22

I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot

I've been playing WD2 multiplayer a lot, ever since I got bored, logged in, and finished the DLC content. I'm not sure what concurrency for the game is these days, but it doesn't seem very high, at least for Steam/UPlay. I also have no idea if the console versions use the same multiplayer matchmaking as PC.

Based on the multiplayer leaderboards, it's easy to tell what sort of content people prefer: bounty hunting. It's certainly the fastest source of points if you are at least slightly competent. Hacking Invasions seems like they're second, and co-op third. I don't even bother to queue for Sh0down or racing modes, and I suspect nobody else does either.

The quality of FAQs and board posts for this game is minimal so it's really hard for me to find quality information about the inner workings of these modes, but I've compiled a (partial) list of gripes and observations...

Co-op:

No major complaints here, save that the respawn time when dying on a mission is annoying. Seems like I can almost always find someone to hang out with if I select it from the multiplayer menu, although whether someone actually joins a mission that I'm on seems highly random. This implies a higher population of people starting missions than seeking to join other players' missions, which makes sense, I guess. Most of the time I prefer to solo the missions because it's 50-50 whether you get someone who's actually serious about it versus a moron or goofball.

Hacking invasions:

Such a mixed bag of experiences here. Sometimes I get matched against folks who disconnect instantly (despite earning points even if they do nothing; I guess they can't be bothered), sometimes they run it up to 95% and then disconnect (same thing, why not just take the free points), sometimes they seem to be deliberately hanging out in parts of the map that are really hard to hide in.

Despite all that, I have the most fun in this mode because it's the purest experience of "hacking" as opposed to any other bog standard third-person sandbox shooter. Players can get really clueless, too: hiding in garages and businesses is my favorite tactic and often they don't even try to look there.

There's also a ton of enjoyment to be had in messing with their game world while they're trying to find you: calling gang members on nearby NPCs, driving cars around, exploding things, and my favorite: controlling a scissor lift or forklift and following them around in plain view.

I just wish I got invaded more often. Half of the time my invader is so clueless that I identify them from driving right up to me in plain sight, which is fine by me (free 200 leaderboard points) but speaks poorly of their understanding of the game mode. Oh, well.

Bounty hunter

Okay, where to start? This is the most frustrating mode for me, for several reasons.

• There always seem to be more bounties than bounty hunters in the game world at any given time. It can take minutes to get matchmaking going if I trigger a bounty, whereas most of the time I jump right into one if I go as a hunter. Seems like it'd be the other way around, but oh well.
• The matchmaking drops out or hangs way more often than it should. If the other player disconnects or dies while matchmaking is going on, I'd prefer it if the game put me in queue again instead of transporting me halfway across the map and dumping me there. I guess it's the peer to peer thing.
• I don't know if Ubisoft cares about cheating in WD2 at all. I reported one guy for exploiting geometry to get inside a building and therefore be unreachable. The same player was back a week later. Seems to have something to do with those tow trucks you can hack to raise the ramp on, but I have no idea how to do it and no desire to try.
• This mode is where the game's combat mechanics are the most obviously busted.
  • The value of headshots as instant kills is just too damn high, and these give disproportionate power to high-ROF weapons like machine pistols.
  • I can never tell how the "difficulty" is determined in bounty hunts. Sometimes it seems tuned to the baby setting and even direct sniper rifle hits aren't fatal, and sometimes it's tuned to the realistic setting and getting grazed with a pistol takes off half your health. I can't tell how it's determined and there's no in-game indicator.
  • The Your Boy Serge sniper rifle is insanely OP; it's the only weapon that can OHK vehicles and players (absent a headshot), but everybody can use it. There's damn little skill involved in someone atop a roof with YBS spawn-camping hunters, although I'd swear they're using aimbots to get such high accuracy if anyone bothered to make those for this game.
  • I still have no idea how someone can have access to machine pistols and SMGs while driving, yet still use the U100 and YBS loadout while out of cars.
  • Bounty hunter targets seem almost impervious to IEDs and shock bombs, but hunters get easily killed by them. Nice game balance. If Ubisoft wanted to discourage sniper camping as the target, they wouldn't have such an imbalance here.
  • Some perches are all but impossible to take out the target on, even if they aren't cheating. The Golden Gate Bridge is one such. The MP matchmaking should identify some of these spots and not let you queue while on them.
• There are a few two-player teams that seem to show up pretty often in bounty hunter, and they're stupidly good, to the point where I just don't bother queuing for this mode when I see them online. I know, "git gud", but these people seem to have no lives beyond ruining other players' fun.
• The Armored Truck bounty hunter mode is quite fun, but sometimes I spawn 2 km away from the package. Really, guys? Also, there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to whether I spawn in a vehicle or not, which is not really helpful when the target is in a performance car halfway across the world map.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 21st 2019 at 12:01:02 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Anyone heard anything about a sequel?

I'm Charlie Owens, good night and good luck. PSNID: CEOIII 1117

Just got the second on sale for like 15$, but I've got a huge backlog of games to go through before I tackle it. Far Cry 4 and 5, Wolfenstein II, Rise and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the Halo Wars PC port that I didn't know existed until last month, the first Watch_Dogs, which I never finished...

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Jan 21st 2019 at 10:28:15 AM

Ditto. Enjoy them both but.... neither really gripped me. I prefer the sequel as it feels a little more light hearted and fun to explore - the graffiti challenges and drone upgrading. Aidan was too much trying to be Batman.

But couldn't quite get through. Tried non lethal all the time - felt wrong for the protag to want to start killing. It was fun, but some bits just got repetitive.

And they binned the hidden space game you could find, but no word on what's happening with WD. Maybe they should just commit to a full cyberpunk game? Or that you're an assassin?

Doing the missions as a "hacker", without killing anyone, is definitely the "good" path, but the game doesn't enforce any consequences for choosing otherwise, and honestly, murdering people is often quicker.

It gets kind of silly at times, though. In the final main story mission, I tried several times to shoot my way out, only to finally give up, use Mass Jam Comms, and then run past all the stunned Umeni troops.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 22nd 2019 at 11:37:49 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Okay, there was just a reveal of Watch Dogs: Legion at E3. It's looking quite impressive. Gamespot video.

Very brief notes/impressions:

• It's set in London, farther in the future than WD2 by observation.
• The city's a classic cyberpunk shithole.
• You recruit and play as a variety of different members of DedSec, with lots of different skill sets.
• You can be killed permanently, at which point you select a new character from your roster.
• There is an option to surrender in combat, which I assume gets your character jailed and you can bust them out.
• Much more emphasis on drones.
• Melee combat seems to be more detailed.
• Mission Control seems to be a straight-up AI. I'm sure that won't get turned against you at some point for the mandatory mid-game De-power.

The level of dialog complexity indicated by having so many playable characters who all need to interact with each other is frankly insane. I wonder how scripted the experience will be.

Edited by Fighteer on Jun 10th 2019 at 5:32:56 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

This game caught me by complete surprise, initially I thought oh this protag was going to be Aidan 2.0 and then he died and it was revealed you could switch to a whole bunch of different other characters.

I can see this game being very good if its done right.

As I mentioned in the E3 thread, I'm guessing there will be a handful of special characters and everyone else fits into 20 or so "archetypes".

I will be shocked if everyone is as unique as they demonstrated in the trailer.

This song needs more love.

Yeah I can see another problem being that a plethora of characters might make it so you don't get attached to any of them.

London as a setting is quite intruiging. Looks great!

Man, with Cyberpunk AND Watch Dogs coming next spring, I'm gonna need a new PC....

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian

Well at least we might have a greater variety of characters apart of Deadsec this time.

2 had way too many hipsters.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."