If future historians look back at our era, I’m sure they’ll call it the digital era, filled with gadgets and dangers of technology we couldn’t see. We all walk around with a smartphone in our hands, we come home to personal computers with cameras integrated into their designs. We give children toys filled with wires and electronics we don’t even understand, so what if the companies are abusing their power? Using these cameras worldwide to create a window in your personal lives? What if nothing is really a secret? If that’s the case, we should be more than happy with groups such as Dedsec. Hacking the companies to give freedom back to the people. Welcome to San Fransico, welcome to Watch Dogs 2.
Marcus, the reboot of the franchise
When I reviewed the first Watch Dogs, I gave it a solid score because I believed in the franchise and would have loved to see how a sequel would look like. Now, years later, that sequel is finally out there and I’m not disappointed at all. The reason why I’m this happy with Watch Dogs 2 is all because of Marcus Holloway, our new hero, nothing like Aiden Pierce from the first game. Aiden had a very serious and even depressing mission. The story of Watch Dogs was extremely heavy and a lot of gamers couldn’t really connect with all that drama. Marcus is the exact opposite of Aiden, as a black hipster hacker with a love for parkours, he sees the city and his mission as one big playground. No longer will you fight your inner demons, you fight because it’s fun, you fight because you hate society. If you’re a fan of the Mr. Robot show, you’ll understand Marcus even better.
So who is Marcus Holloway? Well, he’s a gifted hacker that’s trying to become a new member of the Dedsec group. If you’ve played the first Watch Dogs, this name will definitely ring a bell and that’s no surprise. The big players remained the same but this time you’ll meet the San Fransisco segment of Dedsec, still fighting the powerful Blume company and their ctOS operating system. Blume is the biggest player on the market and almost everybody in the city has some kind of Blume hardware in their house. Dedsec wants to bring Blume and ctOS down because they accuse the company of abusing their power. What follows is a genius plan that all revolves around a new Dedsec app.
The more people who download the Dedsec application, the more power the hackers coalition gets, power they’ll need in order to attack a network as big as the ctOS network. The only problem is that Dedsec needs to convince people to download their application, but how can you convince those people to download your app? Well, performing sick stunts while hacking the entire city might be a good start.
The missions are all about having fun
The plot itself isn’t as heavy or serious as the first Watch Dogs but that’s perhaps the best thing that could happen for the franchise. Thanks to a lighter plot, the creators got more freedom to create some hilarious and fun missions. Where you had to go on a serious revenge missions in the first game, Watch Dogs 2 is all about having fun and getting your name out there in the world. You do so by hacking celebrities, stealing movie cars, aiding the local church of Scientology and a lot more. Watch Dogs 2 isn’t afraid to mock with our current society and its generation of smartphone zombies. The missions are kept light and the characters themselves are as crazy as the story itself.
Hacker’s paradise
Marcus doesn’t operate alone but his companions are perhaps even crazier, especially Wrench. Wrench is the one with the mask, robot voice, and emoticons for eyes. He’s extremely weird but incredibly smart. Without Wrench, you wouldn’t be able to create your weapons using a 3D-printer. That’s just one of the examples of how Watch Dogs 2 is different in every way. Even the ultimate bad-guy, being the leader of Blume, is nothing more than a yoga-practising bearded hipster that got successful thanks to his operating system. Trying to defeat him and his organization offers a lot of memorable moments in the huge city of San Fransisco.
Game of drones
The best thing about the missions is that you can handle them the way you want. Do you want to go all Rambo on them? That’s possible if you bring enough weapons to the party. Like to sneak around like the trained hipster assassin you are, no problem! Want to sit on your ass just outside of the danger and let the drones do all the heavy work? No problem! Watch Dogs 2 really takes drone control to another level thanks to the two handy drones that Wrench created using the fancy 3D-printer. Marcus has two types of drones, one for ground use and one to seek higher grounds, both are extremely useful if you need to penetrate a hostile building.
Let’s discuss the ground drone first. This is one you’ll use a lot since it’s the only drone capable of physical hacks. This means you can hack a hard drive using the drone without the help of human interaction. It’s a small sneaky drone that’s perfect to go from small place to small place in order to reach your goal. It’s pretty vulnerable so you’ll need to watch out for enemies that can easily take you down with a kick or shot. The more you advance, the better this drone becomes thanks to the skilltree. Adding more speed and more gadgets to the drone transform this little baby to your new best friend.
Don’t like to attack from the ground? No worries, perhaps the flying drone might solve your problems. This drone is the perfect scout to scan your environment for hackable objects or enemies. Just like the regular drone, you can upgrade this one using your skillpoints as well, giving it the ability to drop bombs on your enemies. The perfect tool to bring down the enemies before you ever set foot in the restricted area.
It’s no surprise that Watch Dogs 2 suggests you the use the drones a lot and to be fair, it’s a great way of playing the game. You’re never forced to use them on the other hand and you can perfectly play the game as a third-person cover-based shooter or stealth game, the decision is truly up to you!
A lot to do
Without a fun city, Watch Dogs 2 would only be half as fun as it’s now. San Fransisco is the perfect playground and offers enough variation to keep you going. There are tons of objects to hack in the city, going from traffic lights to other cars. One of my personal favorite hacks is the ability to take over the wheel of another car, forcing it to drive in a certain direction, perfect if you try to escape from the police. Hacking has improved a lot and it no longer feels like pushing the right button at the right time, you can really create strategies if you hack the right objects in the right order, a big improvement if you ask me! Besides hacking, the city also offers a lot of side-missions to mess around with.
The main missions are incredibly fun but they don’t last forever. Ubisoft made sure you have enough to do in the city. Using your smartphone, you can install applications to become a personal taxi driver for example, just like the Über drivers. This is just one example, besides this, you can also visit famous landmarks, search for key information to unlock new weapons, participate in online side-missions and more. San Fransisco really feels alive in Watch Dogs 2 and every character you’ll meet has another way of responding to your presence or actions. It’s a huge leap forward from the first Watch Dogs and I’m very happy that Ubisoft managed to create a modern open world game this fun. To make everything even better, Marcus has insane parkours skills so you’ll feel like a modern assassin running around in the big city.
Still some technical problems
Everything about Watch Dogs 2 feels like an improvement and so do the graphics. Compared to the first Watch Dogs, this sequel looks incredibly good. The game is at its best during moments where you’re standing still to enjoy the falling leaves in a park while enjoying the sunset in the background. The graphics are amazing and the team really invested a lot of their time into this level of detail. It’s a shame that the game still struggles with the frame rate, especially when you’re driving your car around. The game features a wide variety of cars but I noticed that the frame rate dropped bellow 30fps while driving a faster car, making it almost impossible to accurately maneuver your vehicle through the smaller streets of San Fransisco. The frame rate still has issues, even when on foot but I’m sure Ubisoft will fix this in the future. Remember the first version of The Crew? That game got patched to create a way better experience in the future. I’m sure the same will happen with Watch Dogs 2!
That being said, we also experienced problems with the seamless multiplayer. Watch Dogs 2 promises a multiplayer experience where other players can jump into your game to help you out during co-op missions. You truly need this extra help since the co-op missions are hard to complete but we couldn’t really test it due to server issues. If Ubisoft can get their servers up and running, I’m sure Watch Dogs 2 can become a very addictive multiplayer game. The potential is here already but Ubisoft will need some small patches to get everything up and running in the near future.
Conclusion:
Watch Dogs 2 is a big improvement and finally finds the right setting and atmosphere for a modern hacking game. Marcus and his crew feel right at home in this mysterious world and will have no problem in sucking you into this universe. The city of San Fransisco is the perfect playground but it still suffers from some bugs and frame rate issues, we hope these will be patched soon. Aside of that, Watch Dogs 2 is an extremely fun game where you’ll have a lot of freedom to do whatever you want using whatever strategy suits you best. If you’re looking for a fun open world game, Watch Dogs 2 is simply a must-have.
8.5/10
