If you look around in stores, you’ll notice it’s that special time of the year again. The time where every major publisher is releasing new versions of their games so people can get them in time for the Holiday season. Ubisoft is preparing its Holiday line-up and will have to do without a new Assassin’s Creed game, instead, we get a sequel to Watch Dogs. Is Watch Dogs 2 shaping up to be the big hit we all want it to be? I’ll tell you more after spending a couple of hours with the game.
New hacker, new atmosphere
Watch Dogs 2 says goodbye to Aiden Pierce and welcomes notorious hacker Marcus Holloway. Marcus is an entirely different character and this gets clear right from the start. The first Watch Dogs game had a very serious undertone thanks to the revenge story of Pierce but Watch Dogs 2 all seems to revolve around anarchy and fun. You start the game as Marcus, who’s trying to get his shot at becoming a true Dedsec member.
The world of Watch Dogs 2 hasn’t changed that much when it comes to the big players. Dedsec still is that notorious hacker coalition that tries to take down ctOS, an Operating System that became the Big Brother of society thanks to their digital products. Marcus tries to stop this by hacking into their servers but he doesn’t operate alone. Rather soon, you’ll meet the rest of the Dedsec crew, with Wrench being the most notable character.
Wrench stands for everything that Watch Dogs 2 wants to be. He’s an extremely smart character that creates all kind of handy gadgets and guns for Marcus. Aside from being extremely smart, Wrench is just plain out weird and funny. You’ll end up in a lot of hilarious conversations with Wrench for sure based on the couple of hours I’ve been playing. It’s good to see this more mellow approach to the story and combined with some great music, Watch Dogs 2 certainly generates an enjoyable atmosphere.
Handle it the way you want
In order to bring down ctOS, Dedsec came up with the brilliant idea to launch their own app. This app sends photos and videos of the hacking group to the fans while stealing the power of the device. By activating all those devices around the city, Dedsec hopes to gather enough power to bring down ctOS once and for all. The story is kept light and fun but the way you handle the missions is just great.
Hacking was never this fun!
Since you’re creating an app, your missions consist out of getting yourself noticed by the people. You’ll receive a lot of requests on your app, these are the main missions, and you choose when you want to play them. These missions are called Operations and will take you some time to complete. Some operations begin rather easy but will become more challenging the more enemies you come across with. The way you complete the missions itself is entirely up to you.
Want to go into a building, shooting all the enemies? It’s possible but don’t be surprised if someone managed to call in the reinforcement. One thing I learned from the demo is to use your drones where possible and take down as many enemies as possible before entering the building or area you need to be.
Hack everything and operate those drones
The gameplay of Watch Dogs 2 remains the same as in the first one but improves on it a lot. Just like the first one, you can hack everything you see. While on ground, you can hack electrical cabins to shock enemies, hack cameras to spot important locations, hack into security and a lot more. Hacking your way through a certain area always felt good and rewarding. The best thing about hacking however, is that you can count on the help of your drones.
The best drone to hack is you ground drone, able to perform physical hacks as well. The more you advance in the story, the better you can equip your drone. At first, it’s a rather slow and harmless thing but the more you unlock, the faster and more lethal the thing gets. The real star of the drones is your flying drone. This baby can drop bombs on your enemies, taking them out so it’s safe for Marcus to enter the area. You’re never forced to use the drones and you’ll have a lot of great gadgets to stay alive but using the drones does result in better chances of survival during some of the more action-packed missions.
A lot of content
One thing’s for sure, Watch Dogs 2 is packed with content. I could play some of the Operations at the beginning of the game and some on a later point. It made clear that all of the Operations have something new and fun to offer and that the story still remains fun and light enough to keep you motivated until you reach the very end of the game. My personal favorite mission was a mission where I had to steal a speaking car from a movie and paint it in the Dedsec colors to promote the Dedsec name even more. But that’s not all, the game is filled with side-missions that are also playable in co-op online.
The side-missions are well implemented in the main story and thanks to the cut scenes it doesn’t even feel like you’re playing a side-mission. Instead, it just feels like you’re playing the main missions. Besides missions, there’s a lot of clothing to discover, a lot of cars to steal, a lot of weapons to mess with and a lot of things to hack. Watch Dogs 2 is literally filled with content and I can’t wait to discover a lot more.
Graphical hiccups
I was very pleased with the story and the way the game handled things but the graphics got me worried for a bit. When I was just walking around in San Francisco, there was no problem at all. Everything looked incredibly good and it really looks like the inhabitants are all minding their own business, creating different characters all over the place. While running around as Marcus, the amount of details found in the graphics really got me by surprise. This is what Watch Dogs was supposed to look like in the first place. Things changed when I entered a car however.
While driving, it looked like the game dropped from a PlayStation 4 game to a PlayStation 2 game in seconds. The environment barely looked as good as before and the streets were just too empty to really deliver some fun while driving. I also experienced some pop-ups and bad textures while driving a car that seemed to float over the road instead of truly being on it. Now, it’s worth mentioning that I played a preview version and not the retail game so I’m still thinking Ubisoft will fix those graphical hiccups in the retail version. It wouldn’t make sense at all to have a game looking as good as this on foot would transform into a graphical mess while being inside a vehicle. I’m sure the final product will look good all of the time.
Early conclusion:
Watch Dogs 2 got me by surprise, the new story and new characters really fit the game way better than Aiden Pierce ever did. The story is filled with great humor and extremely fun missions. Hacking was never this fun! Also note that the gameplay itself feels very solid and you’ll be able to get upgrades until the very end of the game, so you’ll always have something to do. I can’t wait to see and play more but for now, I’m jumping on the hype train.
