Watch Dogs: Legion - Bloodline Review

I didn't really care for the Legion base game, but I did hear from some people who were also not big fans of it to check this DLC out since it's supposedly better and overall, I'd say it was. The game still does inherent problems from the former, but I did have a good time for the $20 I spent.

I'll start with what I liked. The story and character interactions especially are really well written and entertaining. All the characters really do a good job at bouncing off each other and the script does a good job at making the conversations very endearing. The stuff with Aiden and Jackson and Wrench and Jordi were some of my favorites. Jackson and Aiden's dynamic are very beliveable and their uneasiness at first is well handled since Jackson is rather apprehensive about Aiden but then he slowly warms up to him and slowly start to get along. It's been done before of course but the acting and writing does a good job at selling me on everything. I also liked that dream sequence with Aiden towards the end of the game which does a good job at personifying Aiden's guilt all though it could've been better if the story slowly built up towards it but the visuals do a decent enough job at getting the point across. 

Wrench is more tolerable in this DLC than he is in Watch Dogs 2 since the rest of DLC is a lot more serious where everything in Watch Dogs 2 was wacky and full of awkward humor and jokes. I did like his interactions with Jordi, in fact I normally don't do side quests in any game but I loved their dynamic so much plus the missions were short enough to the point where I did the Fixer Contracts. Jordi is a crazy psycho while Wrench is so annoying not even the former can stand him. The Marcus Halloway reveal did remind me why I never do side quests since Jackson says in the main questline that, "you should call Marcus" even though I technically did, and of course side quests derails the agency of the main character since Aiden is in a coma and Jackson doesn't mind waiting for him. Getting off track here, but stuff like this is why I never do side quests.

Anyway, more good, the Aiden portions of the game I liked the most since Aiden is given more combat options like an active reload where your firearm damage is increased upon getting a reloading mini game right, and close quarters takedowns that can be chained into bullet time kills due to Legion's combat issues this isn't as fun as it sounds but more on that later.

What I also love about Aiden's missions is that for the first time since the first game, car chases are part of the main story quests and considering how stale the WD formula was of, "infiltrate camp, do objective, exfiltrate," this was a very welcome change and these parts did a good job at breaking up the shooting and stealth.

Wrench was...okay to play as, at first he was alright since he was a melee tailored character and many of the outposts had melee trained guards but he didn't have nearly as many combat options as Aiden did which is fine since with Wrench, I mixed up melee and stealth.

Now, on to the bad, I'll start with the villain Rempart, he was okay, he didn't annoy me but he could've done more outside of putting Aiden in a coma due to a cutscene bullet. He was just kind of there. I get it since the game is a prequel and there wasn't much you could do when you write those kinds of stories.

The really bad is the combat at least on normal. This was an issue with the base game, but combat is not very good. Guns sound weak, enemies are very tanky, you die very quickly and combine that with a high enemy count and on normal, I died a lot.

Stealth is also very basic and don't give a lot of options outside of takedowns and crouch and it's easy to get caught be forced into action making the weak combat stand out even more.

Aiden doesn't even feel like the epic power fantasy the game wants you to be especially on normal since most of your time is in cover and waiting for health to regen rather than performing takedowns and performing bullet time kills, this could be fine if you could do the latter with a button press but you need to perform takedowns to do it...where you will get shot at with a low health pool, as a result the only time, I didn't feel like my time wasn't spent hugging walls was on easy mode.

The last mission with Wrench is even worse since his weapons feel weak, most enemies have guns and there are forced action segments making the above mentioned combat issues even worse. This is all tolerable on easy mode, thankfully but easy mode making cover combat more fun highlights the problem regen health and cover mechanics have.

Also, Wrench's cargo drone and flying excessively with it highlighted how bored I was with the main game with how objectives are far apart and there is nothing to do while you are flying to your objective.

Overall, Bloodline is a solid expansion that did as much as it could being based on a game as sub par as Legion. I didn't dislike the game main game as much as others did but who would've thought that having actual characters instead of playing as "anyone" ultimately lead to a better game. I did wish this was it's own game from the ground up with that said. Not a bad way to possibly "end" the series.