The original Watch Dogs is often considered to be one of the
most over-hyped and disappointing games in recent memory. With an interesting
mechanic and promise of being able to “Hack the planet” plus with gameplay showing
great graphics, it was almost universally agreed that the game did not live up
to those expectations. With a generic protagonist, uninteresting story and a
clear downgrade in graphics from what was promised, no one seemed to like it.
As someone who played it months after the hype died down and everyone seemed to
dislike it, I have to say, I was still
unimpressed with what I got. If a videogame could be summed up in a colour, it
would be grey. Grey the videogame.
With that being said, once the trailer for Watch Dogs 2 was
released at E3, I instantly found myself excited, because with the little bit
of footage we saw, we saw a game with an identity. True, most people called it obnoxious
pandering to millennials that came across more as what focus groups think young
audiences behave like, but regardless, at least there was an identity to be described.
From that one trailer, it already seemed like Ubisoft had listened to the
feedback, and that gave me hope this game would be an improvement over the
original. And it was.
Watch Dogs 2 follows a group of young hackers in San
Francisco trying to stick it to greedy corporations and nosey governments by…hacking
things. In a lot of ways, this story shouldn’t work. There is certainly a
lingering feeling of manipulation as the characters feel like they were
designed to appeal to young audiences, and the story is most certainly lacking
in depth or unexpected twists, yet for some reason I still found myself genuinely
connected with what was happening. Maybe it’s the talented voice-actors, maybe
it’s the quippy dialogue, maybe it’s because the story doesn’t take itself too
seriously, or maybe it’s a mixture of all three, but I was invested. I liked this group of characters, and if anything, I’m disappointed
there weren’t more character based
missions, because the few that were there are the ones that stick out to me the
most.
Marcus and Wrench’s friendship was highly entertaining, but
it’s the level where Wrench is kidnapped and you have to save him where you
really see the depth and trust between the two. None of the other characters
truly get missions dedicated to them and that’s a shame, because the character
driven missions were easily my favourites. This is certainly a character driven
game, while the story is generic and not that engaging, by the time I finished,
I was saddened because it meant I wasn’t going to get to interact with this
crew anymore, and suddenly I lost most of my interest in playing. Though that shouldn’t
be taken as too harshly of a criticism.
In a lot of ways, the gameplay shouldn’t be as good as I think
it is. The game begins with a quick and easy tutorial level and a few cutscenes
establishing the world, then within about half an hour, you’re free to roam the
world and do the story missions whenever you feel like it. Hell, if you wanted,
you could explore the entire world and get all the upgrades before even
starting the first real mission. Now this isn’t really anything special, lots
of open world games let you do this, but when I think of why it works so well
in this game, one word comes into my mind, “Fun”. That’s the big improvement
over Watch Dogs 1, plus a ton of open world games. This game’s main objective
is for you to have a fun time, San Francisco isn’t a sandbox, it’s an entire
playground with multiple toys to unlock, even if you don’t have a complex or
original time, you are certainly going to have a fun time.
I also think this is why the repetitive gameplay and
missions don’t bother me. The majority of the levels can be described as “Drive
to this location, hack this, then either sneak out or shoot your way out”, and
yes, that applies to both side-missions and main missions. If you were to look
back at a lot of classic games like Super Mario Bros, Crash Bandicoot or even
more modern games like Far Cry (Another Ubisoft series). A lot of them have
incredibly repetitive missions, just with a few aesthetic changes or slightly
different obstacle to overcome, almost every generation of gaming has this, but
why doesn’t it bother us? Because it’s fun. While I’m always one for story
heavy games, it can’t be denied, if there is more focus on making your audience
think and pay close attention, flaws in gameplay are going to become more
noticeable. Take for example the Uncharted games, the first 3 were basically
adventure stories that only cared about being exciting and action packed, it’s
the fourth one however where they try to give it a more intricate plot and
character arcs, not a bad decision, but it certainly makes the game feel
slower, and I became bored of the repetitive gameplay a lot quicker. The same
can be said for Watch Dogs 1, except it has the even bigger problem that for a
story heavy game, the story is not very interesting, meaning it has boring
gameplay, and a boring story to boot. Watch Dogs 2 is like a firework show, it’s
so fast, so bright and so dazzling, you don’t really care if it’s the same
thing over and over again.
When Watch Dogs 1 came out, I couldn’t even finish it from
how little I cared about what was happening and I got no more than a few hours into.
Watch Dogs 2, took the same gameplay (Minus some minor but consistent annoyances),
gave us entertaining characters, a more diverse colour pallet, and probably
most important, some reasonable expectations with much more accurate trailers,
not promising that this will be a revolutionary experience, but certainly an
entertaining one. Honestly, if they make a Watch Dogs 3, I am more than happy
to follow these characters around for a second time, and I’m giving this game
an 8/10.
-Danny
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