Watch_Dogs 2, Ubisoft’s sequel to their 2014 open world action-adventure video game, “Watch Dogs”, has recently just hit the shelves and even if I admittedly got interested in the title, I never expected to get the game as early as I did due to the lackluster and “boring” experience the first game has given me, it has potential though but I guess they just didn’t have the time to do it. As the first trailer for Watch Dogs 2 showed up earlier this year, I really hoped that the two year gap would be enough for Ubisoft to “refurbish” the game and make it so much better and utilize the potential of what the franchise could be.
The story revolves around a group of hackers calling themselves “Dedsec” and their movement to try and destroy “Blume”, the company that made the ctOS (Central Operating System), which connects every person to everything. Turns out, our new protagonist, Marcus Holloway, gets framed for a crime that he hasn’t done since the system “categorized” him as a suspect through a number of “probabilities”. He gets initiated into DedSec as they try to inform the citizens of how the system covertly harms all of them and leads the group in the fight with Blume. Set in a fictionalized the San Francisco Bay Area, which consists of four different areas: San Francisco, Marin, Oakland and Silicon Valley, all of which have altered appearances (Silicon Valley is home to Stanford, Nudle (the game’s version of Google), etc and San Francisco having Fisherman’s Wharf etc.).
In the first game, I never really cared for any of the characters however, in Watch Dogs 2, Ubisoft has managed to make me at feel like I am really one of the gang with Marcus and his hacker friends. Their camaraderie, puns, references and oh man, I would really like to get my hands on the same mask Wench has. One problem I encountered sometimes was that some characters would just show up without even a back-story and sometimes not even being mentioned in the dialogue, combine that with the current mission structure, it “may be” possible to skip the possible back-story/info these characters have.
The game-play is very reminiscent of most open-world games, you can drive multiple vehicles, ride on cable cars, visit tourist attractions, take selfies with Marcus’ cellphone. You can also earn money by getting random loot and then selling them to pawn shops, being a “Uber” driver, or by picking them up in the map, you use money to make weapons and choose different skins through DedSec’s 3D printer, buy cars from dealerships, clothing from stores, but the main point of Watch Dogs 2 has always been the ability to “Hack” through different things around the world. This time, hacking has largely been overhauled and adding more items to play with such as the ability to remotely move cars (“move” not drive, yes there is a difference), by pressing a button you could insta-hack something while holding the same button could present you with other options such as setting as power outlet as a proximity mine or being able to turn it off to avoid accidental explosions. Some actions can be unlocked by purchasing upgrades with “Research Points”, these are usually obtained by completing missions and earning followers (this game’s version of experience points) or by finding points in the open world. You are also given a remote controlled car and drone that can help you reach and infiltrate some places without physically running towards the objective. Selecting which mission to pursue is done through your phone and it is quite nice to have that system in place, both main and side missions are done in a “part by part” basis, almost similar to planning/collecting heist materials from GTA V, it does really help when you get bored doing all the serious stuff and then suddenly you want to steal the next hip-hop album.
With hacking comes puzzles, which may look the same as it’s predecessor, however the interface has been changed so that you are now required to look at the whole place to find which pieces can be rotated, while it does add more challenge especially to those moments that you have to hack a wide area, it does seem more annoying when you suddenly realize it was under something, I found relief though that not all puzzles had a “timer” mechanic to ease the stress. The game really allows you to choose between going into strongholds up-front or go with a slightly stealthy approach, with tons of options from scanning the whole area with your drone to dropping explosives or never even being hostile at all (at some missions), which is great however it really does not emphasize either as enemy AI detection can get messy just because once one guard spots you, automatically all of them know and with their tendency to roam around quite often, sometimes to even the farther areas, it is always possible that your cover can be broken and your plans never go the well you want them, which sometimes mean that you have to go in/out gun’s blazing or risking failing the mission. Check-points are also sometimes weirdly done, since if you die, you may have to restart a lot more farther than you think, good thing though that I have rarely encountered this and it didn’t really bother me that much.
Driving, while it has improved during the last game, still feels that the cars feels that they are running on greasy roads as I often find myself having to adjust too much on turns. The amount of vehicles in the game, while not as detailed or as many as other games still boasts a good number and even has some unique vehicles waiting for you to unlock or discover. Vehicles you own will also have some paint jobs available and all vehicles have physical collision effects so you can see the damage you and other vehicles have, while driving in muddy terrain usually can get your car dirty.There are only a limited number of guns as well however none of them really stand-out too much, and even using a suppressed weapon does not guarantee a silent-kill, you could however, pick from a select number of paint jobs to customize your gun. Customizing Marcus through clothing is also a whole lot better this year, rather than giving us a slight change and mostly a re-colors before, shops will be available in game for purchase of individual clothing (Cap, Top, Bottom, Bag, Mask & Footwear).
Multiplayer on the other hand got better, besides the old invasion mode, Ubisoft added a co-op and bounty hunter mode to the old invasion mode makes it so that everyone can have more choices to play as. However, due to some issues, Ubisoft has slightly turned off multiplayer as of writing this review but you may be able to play it only if you manually invite your friends to your session.
Over-all the game does justice on its predecessor by having overhauls mostly improve the game, besides the weird AI and usual “Ubi-bugs”, Watch Dogs 2 is a huge step-up because of the fact that there is another open-world game that will make you think how to approach scenarios to avoid that sinister game-over and a huge world to play with, too bad there aren’t random events that go on besides multiplayer.
