Watch Dogs 2 Review

Watch Dogs 2 is a game I tried to get into twice but never really could. I tried to play it two times in the past and both times I could not get into it. After playing the first Watch Dogs again for the first time in almost a decade, I decided to give 2 one final chance and while I don't think WD2 is "bad", I also never got the belief that it was better than the first game even now, while I don't think WD1 is an amazing game, it always felt like Grand Theft Auto if it had better mechanics, less scripted mission design and having a protagonist who didn't feel like a glorified errand boy. Watch Dogs 2 on the other hand tries to be a combination of Splinter Cell Blacklist, Deus Ex Human Revolution and Metal Gear Solid 5 all while just so happening to feature driving. While that might sound good on paper since I do enjoy all 3 of the above mentioned games, WD2 in terms of gameplay and mechanics is inferior to all 3. 

Despite me saying this, I'll give it credit for being an open world "crime sandbox" something the above mentioned games are not, it has far more ways of approaching and completing missions than something like the Grand Theft Auto series does and is less scripted and cinematic compared to the later Saints Row games. 

I like all this on paper, but the execution is lacking. 

Before I go more in detail on this, I will talk about the aspect of WD2 that is widely considered inferior to the first game and that is the story. I enjoyed the story to the first Watch Dogs, while it did have some issues, it was a solid and enjoyable story for the kind of game it was. WD2 on the other hand is where Ubisoft decided to listen to the people deriding the first game's story at the time where it "took itself too seriously" and had a "dull main character" and decided it into some weird and awkard dystopian satire. 

The writing is full of forced pop culture refrences, terrible attempts at trying to be "hip" with the younger people of modern times, and just has the forced modern day internet style of "humor" I have come to dislike. If Watch Dogs 1 was Breaking Bad but with a vigilante rather than a drug lord, Watch Dogs 2 wants to be the like the 90s movie "Hackers". 

That isn't a bad thing on it's own, I haven't watched Hackers in years but so much of the writing in WD2 is incredibly "tryhard". The game's opening already has a forced Mission Impossible refrence and it never lets up there. There is a conversation later in the game where Marcus and Wrench have a conversation about who'd win against Aliens and Predator and the whole thing was forced since it was just a pop culture refrence for the sake of having one. 

The character interactions just want the viewer to think these kids of today are relatable and zany when they just come off as obnoxious kids a lot of the time. The writing and tone never takes itself seriously enough even though the subject matter demands for everything to be taken seriously. 

The plot also has 3 major problems. The first being the poorly written main villain, Dusan, the second being a returning character Rayman Kenny given nothing to do and the third being how the plot turns into Grand Theft Auto 5 where around quarter into the story, the plot derails and then turns into a series of sub plots with barely much connecting everything. 

Dusan is a bad villain, he makes Damien Brenks look amazinginly written, while I don't think the latter is the worst villain ever and had potential, the former meets up with Marcus in the begginning while he was drunk and then turns out of nowhere to be the big bad of the game. 

Outside of derailing DeadSec one time, he never does a whole lot of bad things to the heroes outside of maybe antagonizing Wrench which doesn't hant him later. He mostly just acts smug and gets annoyed while never doing any major damage of his own. 

Raymond Kenny returns in WD2 and once he joins Marcus and his crew, he barely has any agency of his own or any geniune goals of his own compare that to WD1 where Aiden and Clara had to convince him to join them. Once you beat the hackers challenge, Raymond becomes a slave with not much to do on his end much like many of the side characters on Ethan Hunt's team in the Mission Impossible movies. He has some tension with Sitara but that only has two secnes and is dropped pretty fast. 

Then there is there the plot which goes into a series of loosely connected sub plots, there is one particular offender where Haratio gets killed by a Mexican gang out of nowhere with no build up and his death is just anticlimatic. You could cut Haratio out of the game and you'd get the same narrative. 

Not big on the story in WD2 at all, the voice acting and direction was the only reason I paid attention to the story at all even if the actors was given weak material. 

Now after how much I dislike the story of WD2, the gameplay is...okay. All though I do not like it as much as the first WD. 

Two issues I had right away was the lack of focus mode and the lack of car chases in the main missions. 

Focus mode's omission was strange since while I did discover after beating it that WD1's combat had a high skill ceiling even though I played it as a cover based shooter. It did give you more options in  combat and also getting headshots in slo mo never got old since WD2 gives you an option to run and gun it makes the combat feel even more one note without it. Also, since WD2 wants to be MGS5 really badly and WD1 had a system where you can use focus during stealth to prevent a possible alert if the enemy's detection bar wasn't filled up, the lack of WD2's focus or reflex mode stand in is even more jarring, I always did like Max Payne 3's last man standing mechanic on paper since it gives the player a few seconds to correct a mistake before seeing a game over screen and not seeing it improved was a shame. 

The second issue I have is the lack of car chases in the main missions considering this game has the developers of Driver San Franciso doing the driving physics, it's even more bizarre that there is rarely if ever any moment in the main story where there will be car chases, it happens maybe less than 5 times. I always liked the idea car chases in games since it's like living out those movie power fantasies of being in a cool action movie chase and while WD1 could maybe considered too easy since you can netrualize cars with a press of a button and the timing was far too generous but it did create a nice sense of spectacle. WD2 doesn't really improve on this and I also find it a shame. 

Since WD2 removes two aspects that made WD1 a solid, "do four things decently enough" kind of game. The thing with WD2 that I mentioned earlier is that it is basically a "play your way" style of action game like Deus Ex Human Revolution, Splinter Cell Blacklist and MGS5. 

Like Deus Ex Human Revolution, the game is heavily biased and wants you to play it stealth really badly since Marcus' characterization is that he's a young trickster who only uses violence when he has to and that is when he has the element of surprise. There is many ways for Marcus to deal with enemies non lethally and you could complete objectives using gadgets. 

It's like MGS5 in that many of the missions revolve around Marcus infiltrating a "camp" full of enemies, doing an objective then exfiltrating. To WD2's credit over MGS5, there is far more variety in the kind of "small base infiltrate and then exfiltrate" then there is in MGS5. 

This is also combined with Splinter Cell Blacklist's gadgets like a portable remote control helicoptor, it's cover system and it's quick tap of the action button while from behind to do a stealth takedown as well as it's detection arrows. 

This all sounds like a solid game on paper even if it could suffer from the problem MGS5 had which was being way too long and one note with the lack of situational depth but this can apply to many open world games. The game also gives you more depth on completing missions than GTA and Saints Row do. 

What is the thing that lets the game down so much for me? That is the enemy AI. Enemies notice you way too fast and the way they can spot you can be really inconsistent. They can see me above their line of sight one minute, they can see me from far away, and to top it all off, if you knock out a guard a couple of seconds after they spot you, the whole base will be on alert and everyone will know where you are. It's incredible how Splinter Cell Blacklist which came out 3 years prior managed to avoid AI like this. On top of this, Blacklist had a last known position system which also makes it easier to tell where I should relocate after being seen. 

As a result, what should've been me feeling a cool stealthy trickster who occasionally gets caught to, play stealthy for 2 minutes then get caught and then shoot everyone in sight until I kill enough people to the point where I can have the guards give up on their search for me. Most of my time WD2 experience was this. So what should've been solid stealth adventure turned into an okay at best shooter. 

Also why is there no crouch button still? I want to maintain stealth after being seen or when caught have me be harder to hit by enemies. 

After all this, what does WD2 improve over the original? The hacking puzzles are slightly better now that you have to look around the environment as well solve the puzzle even if this improvement is one note since it's the same style of puzzle for the whole game with the exception of a bomb defusal. The reputation system is gone which is good since it was a gimmick in WD1. 

One final compliant is that while Watch Dogs 1 like I said before never excelled at once aspect since it did so many gameplay ideas like driving, stealth, shooting, puzzles. WD1 has a much more memorable final mission than 2 does. In WD1, you had to deal with the enemy also having ctOS and you didn't have access to it for a while something the player was accustomed to using and you had to deal with environmental obstacles while also dealing with the cops as you had to hack 3 terminals in order to regain control. It felt like a great way of putting the game design on it's head and it felt like a nice accumulation of everything that came before. 

What does WD2 do? Just the same hacking puzzles, a one note shootout, and the same guard evasions you've doing for 95% of the game. It's as underwhelming as the rest of the game, nothing really changes or gets put on it's head, it's the same gameplay that was there since the first few hours. 

Overall, while I don't think Watch Dogs 2 is a bad game, I also don't think it's the "massive improvement" over the first game that many hype it up as. It tries to be more of an open world stealth adventure instead of "vigilante hacker" Grand Theft Auto with better mechanics. The bad AI is what holds WD2 back for me, if this aspect was improved I'd be much kinder on it. I can see why dropped the game twice in the past and while apart of me is glad I finally finished, I can't picture myself playing it again.