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Watch Dogs 2

Started by Pete Wells, 27 November, 2016, 10:49:14 AM

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Pete Wells

I really enjoyed Watch Dogs so was keen to get WD2 and I must say, I've spent hours and hours absolutely LOVING this.

The tone is great; I understand lots of people didn't like the more serious tone and protagonist of WD1 so this time you get a crew of cooler, younger and more nerdy hackers who have some genuinely funny banter - for example there's a great, nerdy debate about who would win between Aliens vs Predator ("Wait... are we talking Ridley Scott Alien or James Cameron Alien?" After minutes of nerdy deliberation, someone mentions that Judge Dredd beat them both - yay!) There are loads and loads of geeky references in the game that should keep us sci fi buffs more than happy! Speaking of tone, and probably because of the setting, it's a very progressive game with same sex relationships, transgenderism and multiculturalism being, quite rightly, a social norm.

Your crew are called Dedsec and are a thin pastiche of Anonymous, giving masked video messages to the masses after you complete larger missions and continue to unearth and expose corporate/political scandals or whatever. The city of San Fransisco is vast and beautiful and chock full of stuff to see and do. The many stories are excellent and extremely relevant, right down to presidential candidate Mark Thruss ("Let's make the Bay Area stronger!"), rigged voting, mind control via social media and so much more. The main bad guys are the cliched Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg style characters who believe that a person's data is now more important than their lives, and we also get to go toe to toe with a Scientology cult as well as the many warring gang factions of the bay.

The hacking is frigging ace. Like the first game you can cause absolute mayhem from a relatively safe distance by piggybacking onto CCTV cameras, hacking grenades on the bad guys' belts, distracting them with their phones, explosively overloading a transformer next to where they're standing and so much more. A great new feature is to send a henchman's ID to a rival gang or the police then either sit back and either watch the resulting chaos or use it as a distraction to achieve your objectives. However, the most fun new features by far are your drone and remote controlled car. The drone in particular is fantastic, allowing you to survey a situation from above, plan your strategy or just drop a load of bombs (which themselves can be remote detonated or triggered by proximity.) The drone adds a good bit of verticality to the world too, giving you so much more to explore. As the world becomes more reliant on mobile technology, the opportunities for mischief increase, so now we can hack into the computer systems of cars and send them crashing into oncoming traffic, drive automated forklifts or tamper with security robots. Sadly, there are no swing bridges in San Francisco, which were my favourite things in WD1.

This game is a blast, offering hours and hours of fun. I can't recommend it enough.

GordonR

It sounds great, the reviews have been good and maybe we need more games like this than shoot-the-terrorists stuff.  But, unfortunately, sales have been poor so far - 80% down on what the first one sold at launch.

In fact, it's one of several big franchise releases recently - Gears of War 4, Titanfall 2, Dishonored 2, even the new Call of Dury - that's looking at seriously missing its expected sales numbers.

Something's changing out there in videogameland.

strontium71

#2
Quote from: GordonR on 27 November, 2016, 04:00:29 PM


...even the new Call of Dury


Is that the one where you get to hit everyone with a rhythm stick..?
...because I hate you.

Tony Angelino

Melee weapons just aren't popular in that franchise.

Professor Bear

Call of Dury is the only real surprise there, but even then, there was advance warning in how the douchejock contingent were throwing their toys out of the pram because their Super Army Soldiers simulator now contained the two things that forever ruin anything: science fiction, and women.

JamesC

I think the COD bubble has to burst sometime and now it's moved into space I think this could be the start of a decline in sales. Actually I think Battlefield One is doing well and they'll no doubt be selling thousands of the Barttlefield and FIFA Xbox One S packs this Xmas.

I think Watchdogs and Titanfall both suffered from the same over-hype at time of release. Both were supposed to be the 'next big thing' and both were slightly disappointing. Watchdogs may have sold loads but after a week half of those copies were on the pre owned shelf or on EBay.

Dishonoured was a decent game but it didn't really scream 'franchise' to me.

Professor Bear

COD has something like four different franchises going on at any one time, and one of them was always going to end up underperforming sooner or later.  The Ghosts/Advanced Warfare timeline has been the most-criticised by fans, so Infinite Warfare (the 3rd in the series) was the odds-on favorite to fill that role even before the original trailer became the most-hated video on Youtube.

Even so, there's probably only so many tentpole franchises that can come out in one year.

jacob g

Quote from: JamesC on 28 November, 2016, 06:56:17 AMI think Watchdogs and Titanfall both suffered from the same over-hype at time of release. Both were supposed to be the 'next big thing' and both were slightly disappointing. Watchdogs may have sold loads but after a week half of those copies were on the pre owned shelf or on EBay.

I don't know about WD but the worst thing that happened to original Titanfall was lack of support after the game was released. There was a fanbase that enjoyed the game (and it's great mechanics) but they were... just left alone. Hopefully this will be no case with Titanfall 2 'cuz it's great game, they improved almost everything from original and promised more (and guys, bring back frontier defense!).

If WD2 is the same improvement as T2 to Titanfall I'll for sure give the game chance.

Sometimes I think that EA just want to kill Titanfall because they don't own the IP and need Respawn only for future Star Wars titles.
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