Date played: September 5th
Platform: PS4
After months of procrastination, I finally booted up Watch Dogs 2, a game I've been really excited to play, but I was dealing with a bit of open world fatigue after FFXV and Horizon. Now that it's been a little while, it seemed like a good time to start. The first Watch Dogs game was one of the biggest titles in the first year of this console generation. It had been hyped to hell, and was highly anticipated. When the game came out though, reviews and general opinion was pretty negative, but I was really interested in the premise, so I picked it up anyway.
I loved it. While it's true that the characters were shit, particularly the main protagonist, the gameplay was pretty damn solid. Hacking stuff was fun and innovative, and the open world was well made. Watch Dogs 2, so far, has proven to be a huge improvement already.
In the wake of the events at the end of Watch Dogs, where Aiden Pierce managed to take down ctOS in Chicago, Blume corporation doubles down on it's intrusive software and manages to launch version 2.0 in every American city... The data collection is so intense that it is taking over many decision-making processes, like whether to to give life insurance to someone based on their habits. It drives every major corporate decision and honestly, it feels like humans are losing control of their lives to algorithms. That's a really cool concept, and it's explained really well during the intro.
The first mission is a bit of a tutorial. I am given control of Marcus, a hacker also known as Retr0. He is in the process of infiltrating a Blume server farm and hack into a ctOS server in San Francisco. I can already tell that the game's gameplay is slightly different, and definitely improved, at least so far. The usual camera hopping stuff is still in, but hacking devices and people is a bit more involved now, with multiple options being available for each hack. For example, I can hack a door to open it, close it, power it off, attract enemies or even put a proximity trap on it. It's really cool so far.
I stealthily entered the facility, taking out guards with non-lethal melee combat or my single-shot tranquilizer gun. The controls have changed a lot too, and it kind of feels more like Assassin's Creed than anything else at this point. There's "Vault" button that is used for climbing, and it works quite well, but I'm still struggling a bit because in this kind of game, every damn button does something. I completed the mission by accessing the server, deleting his profile from the system and installing a back door application on it, then running away to safety.
This whole operation turned out to be a test or initiation for Marcus to join DeadSec, the hacker group that first took down ctOS in Chicago. They take me to a spot near the Golden Gate bridge to talk about the hack and to get drunk and high. They party for a while, when a jogger bumps into Marcus, knocking his phone down. The jogger picks it up a second, then gives it to Marcus. There was definitely something suspicious here, but we'll see if it amounts to anything.
Eventually, drunk Marcus throws his phone into the sea. He wakes up in his underwear, sleeping in some half-naked girl's room. One of the DeadSec people calls Marcus on his new cell phone and asks that he come to the group's HQ, in downtown San Francisco.
I fucked around a little bit here, exploring all the options available to me. The in-game cell phone is kind of fantastic, better than even GTA V's. It's got an app store, a Shazam equivalent, a music player, a camera featuring tons of filters and other options, a great map app that looks just like Google Maps, a research app (skill tree) and a mission app. It's even got real time weather and other fun little tidbits. It's a really cool way to build a video game interface, and it works better than you would expect.
I stole a car (this is still an open world, GTA-style game after all), set up a waypoint to the hideout and drove for a while. I was in Marin county, which is north of San Francisco, so I had a good drive waiting for me. This was a good time to test out the music player app. The first game was chock-full of great music (in my opinion anyway) and the sequel seems to be just as good on that front so far. I also played around with hacking while driving, stealing cash from normal citizens.
Unfortunately, I wasn't very safe with my driving and accidentally killed a pedestrian, which brought on police attention. I drove quickly and hid in some bushes near my destination. The cops went away...
DeadSec headquarters is really cool, with each member having a little "office" to work in. The crew is really interesting and fun, though they all seem pretty immature. They all have their specialties and very distinct personalities, I like them a lot so far. I spent a good amount of time in here, exploring the hideout and speaking with everyone. There were many data logs with audio files that gave me a ton of background on everyone.
So that's when the game really starts I guess. I'm the newest member of DeadSec, and my job is to gain "computational power", ie: followers, so that we have enough power to take out ctOS, or at least expose it. It's a fun way to say to the player "Hey, go get points for doing shit, it'll work out in the end". For an open world game, that's kind of perfect really.
I really don't know where to start. There's a TON of different activities and missions available to me already, and the whole map seems to be open. I mean, there's main missions, side missions, activities with other hacker groups, collectibles to find, secrets to hack, selfies to take at landmarks, races, it's all there. I can't wait to just dive in and start exploring the city and doing fun shit. So far, I'm very impressed with the game in general. It's got a good tone, it looks great, the music rocks, the writing is interesting and the characters are miles better than anything in the first game.
The only little thing that bugs me is that there's a surprising amount of draw-in, or pop-ups, when traveling in a vehicle. Considering I have a PS4 Pro, that's pretty disappointing. Still, the game has great graphics. I particularly like the faces and motion-captured animation. Shooting has also been kind of weak, but thankfully, it's far from being a focus, at least so far.
Platform: PS4
After months of procrastination, I finally booted up Watch Dogs 2, a game I've been really excited to play, but I was dealing with a bit of open world fatigue after FFXV and Horizon. Now that it's been a little while, it seemed like a good time to start. The first Watch Dogs game was one of the biggest titles in the first year of this console generation. It had been hyped to hell, and was highly anticipated. When the game came out though, reviews and general opinion was pretty negative, but I was really interested in the premise, so I picked it up anyway.
I loved it. While it's true that the characters were shit, particularly the main protagonist, the gameplay was pretty damn solid. Hacking stuff was fun and innovative, and the open world was well made. Watch Dogs 2, so far, has proven to be a huge improvement already.
In the wake of the events at the end of Watch Dogs, where Aiden Pierce managed to take down ctOS in Chicago, Blume corporation doubles down on it's intrusive software and manages to launch version 2.0 in every American city... The data collection is so intense that it is taking over many decision-making processes, like whether to to give life insurance to someone based on their habits. It drives every major corporate decision and honestly, it feels like humans are losing control of their lives to algorithms. That's a really cool concept, and it's explained really well during the intro.
The first mission is a bit of a tutorial. I am given control of Marcus, a hacker also known as Retr0. He is in the process of infiltrating a Blume server farm and hack into a ctOS server in San Francisco. I can already tell that the game's gameplay is slightly different, and definitely improved, at least so far. The usual camera hopping stuff is still in, but hacking devices and people is a bit more involved now, with multiple options being available for each hack. For example, I can hack a door to open it, close it, power it off, attract enemies or even put a proximity trap on it. It's really cool so far.
I stealthily entered the facility, taking out guards with non-lethal melee combat or my single-shot tranquilizer gun. The controls have changed a lot too, and it kind of feels more like Assassin's Creed than anything else at this point. There's "Vault" button that is used for climbing, and it works quite well, but I'm still struggling a bit because in this kind of game, every damn button does something. I completed the mission by accessing the server, deleting his profile from the system and installing a back door application on it, then running away to safety.
This whole operation turned out to be a test or initiation for Marcus to join DeadSec, the hacker group that first took down ctOS in Chicago. They take me to a spot near the Golden Gate bridge to talk about the hack and to get drunk and high. They party for a while, when a jogger bumps into Marcus, knocking his phone down. The jogger picks it up a second, then gives it to Marcus. There was definitely something suspicious here, but we'll see if it amounts to anything.
 |
| San Francisco's DeadSec crew (Marcus is on the far left) |
I fucked around a little bit here, exploring all the options available to me. The in-game cell phone is kind of fantastic, better than even GTA V's. It's got an app store, a Shazam equivalent, a music player, a camera featuring tons of filters and other options, a great map app that looks just like Google Maps, a research app (skill tree) and a mission app. It's even got real time weather and other fun little tidbits. It's a really cool way to build a video game interface, and it works better than you would expect.
I stole a car (this is still an open world, GTA-style game after all), set up a waypoint to the hideout and drove for a while. I was in Marin county, which is north of San Francisco, so I had a good drive waiting for me. This was a good time to test out the music player app. The first game was chock-full of great music (in my opinion anyway) and the sequel seems to be just as good on that front so far. I also played around with hacking while driving, stealing cash from normal citizens.
Unfortunately, I wasn't very safe with my driving and accidentally killed a pedestrian, which brought on police attention. I drove quickly and hid in some bushes near my destination. The cops went away...
DeadSec headquarters is really cool, with each member having a little "office" to work in. The crew is really interesting and fun, though they all seem pretty immature. They all have their specialties and very distinct personalities, I like them a lot so far. I spent a good amount of time in here, exploring the hideout and speaking with everyone. There were many data logs with audio files that gave me a ton of background on everyone.
So that's when the game really starts I guess. I'm the newest member of DeadSec, and my job is to gain "computational power", ie: followers, so that we have enough power to take out ctOS, or at least expose it. It's a fun way to say to the player "Hey, go get points for doing shit, it'll work out in the end". For an open world game, that's kind of perfect really.
I really don't know where to start. There's a TON of different activities and missions available to me already, and the whole map seems to be open. I mean, there's main missions, side missions, activities with other hacker groups, collectibles to find, secrets to hack, selfies to take at landmarks, races, it's all there. I can't wait to just dive in and start exploring the city and doing fun shit. So far, I'm very impressed with the game in general. It's got a good tone, it looks great, the music rocks, the writing is interesting and the characters are miles better than anything in the first game.
The only little thing that bugs me is that there's a surprising amount of draw-in, or pop-ups, when traveling in a vehicle. Considering I have a PS4 Pro, that's pretty disappointing. Still, the game has great graphics. I particularly like the faces and motion-captured animation. Shooting has also been kind of weak, but thankfully, it's far from being a focus, at least so far.
