Review agurczuk 3/5 · Feb 12, 2018
A rather big disappointment in form of pretty generic open world game.
I liked the first installment of Watchdogs. I liked it a log despite some of the flaws it had in design and game play. And I was really looking forward for Watchdogs 2 where I hoped they would build upon the first one and deliver even better experience …
A rather big disappointment in form of pretty generic open world game.
I liked the first installment of Watchdogs. I liked it a log despite some of the flaws it had in design and game play. And I was really looking forward for Watchdogs 2 where I hoped they would build upon the first one and deliver even better experience than the original. I was so disappointed when it turned out it's not the case.
I'll start with positives before mentioning what ruined the game for me. So first off it's really nice looking. Silicon valley is pretty, colorful, well designed and detailed. You've got your iconic landmarks like golden gate, city is nicely layed out - generally a good job for an open world environment.
The enemies are pretty smart, firefights are quite the challenge. They do flank you, they call for reinforcements and although most missions are somewhat expecting you to be stealthy you can do it the hard way as well and shoot your way through. And you will be forced to move around as sitting just in one cover will get you killed pretty quick - that's pretty nice.
Additionally you get some toys with you - a flying and driving drone. Those are pretty useful for scouting the area ahead, marking enemies, opening doors etc... Generally give you a lot of options when approaching a mission - great addition.
So you might wonder what's wrong with the game? The game play elements seem solid but there's just something completely off with the atmosphere and the story. The general feel for the game is kind of "hack the planet" - bunch of kids playing hackers for fun and "truth". I would have thought I'd like that but it felt just disconnected. I did not feel connection to any of the main characters - just doing missions for the sake of doing it. It did not at feel like accomplishing anything - just pushing the mediocre story ever forward. Especially the starting missions felt really random.
The experience progression in the game is done via followers. The more followers your group gets the more skills you unlock. They justify it by more people giving more computing power from their cellphones but doing stuff for followers or almost likes just feels wrong.
I did not enjoy the whole Deadsec aesthetic as well. Flashy, row res graffiti all over the place - made me even more alienated from the game story. And I do love hackers movies generally but something here felt odd. The whole group goes by "we want to open peoples eyes and save them", yet not even single remark is made when you kill random people either by car or just shoot them straight in the face. It feels more like GTA than "freedom fighters" the group kind of poses to be.
A big annoyance was the city itself - while looking nice - it's full of hipsters. And the game kind of acknowledges it by trying very hard to make a satire of whole hipster culture. This kind of gets out of hand and when you hear same satiric conversation about vaping - you kind of want to turn it off. But you can't and through the whole game you're stuck in hipster capital of the world.
And the biggest annoyance for the last. Mission design and police chases. While some missions are interesting most of them come down to driving from place to place before engaging the actual mission. This reminds a lot of the original assassin creed - where you had to complete same things over and over before attempting the final assassination. The missions itself are not bad, especially towards the end - but getting to them - not so fun.
And police chases - are a disaster. The police car pop-ins are just so unfair. You run away, hide, and suddenly a police car pops up just next to you looking for you. Completely breaks the immersion and there were times when I felt - I can't escape them normally. Had to ride into woods, away from roads, kill remaining perusers and wait till the heat goes off. Very frustrating.
In the end it's a mixed bag for me. The story got a little better toward the end but I'm still rather disappointed by the whole experience. It seems like there are good components there and I'm pretty sure some people will find it way more enjoyable than I did. For me though - generic open world game with no flare.
