Watch Dogs 2 review: You'll have a terrific time as long as you play as a hacker instead of a murdering sociopath
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Score: 8.0/10
Platform: PlayStation 4 (reviewed) (Pro and Standard tested), Xbox One, Windows PC
Platform: PlayStation 4 (reviewed) (Pro and Standard tested), Xbox One, Windows PC
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
Release: November 15, 2016
ESRB: M
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Publisher: Ubisoft
Release: November 15, 2016
ESRB: M
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True story: About six hours after I downloaded and began playing Watch Dogs 2 — a game about hacktivists saving San Francisco from systemic corruption – my PlayStation account was hacked. I was locked out for nearly half a day, until Sony’s tech support opened the next morning and sorted everything out for me.
Happily, all I lost was some time playing the game. It was frustrating, nothing more. But being hacked while playing a game the protagonist of which is a hacker inevitably altered my perspective on what he — and, by extension, I — was doing.
For example, at one point our hacktivist heroes — known collectively as Dedsec, an extension of the same group that worked out of Chicago in the original Watch Dogs — embark on an operation that involves taking control of several satellites. One of them provides access to a utilities control room in Seoul, where the group remotely overloads the power grid of an entire country. While the overarching goal — gumming up the works for corrupt companies back home in San Francisco — is admirable, the group is directly responsible for creating a really bad day for a whole lot of innocent people. I was fine taking part in other hacking missions where we get to do such things as ruin a pedophile’s life or take down dirty cops, but screwing around with ordinary folks just seemed wrong.
Thankfully, we don’t spend much time ruining innocent people’s days in Watch Dogs 2. Or at least we don’t have to. That’s because we have the ability to choose who we mess with and how.
In fact, I played through the entire game with an aim to do as little harm as I possibly could – not just in terms of hacking innocents but also physical violence. I opted to wield no weapons other than stun guns, and I was directly responsible for the deaths of surprisingly few people. And in so doing I was able to avoid a trap common in open world action games: Playing as a character who seems like a great guy in story scenes but whose violent tendencies make him come off as a schizophrenic psychopath.
Of course, you can still kill loads and loads of people if that’s how you want to play. It would probably make many operations a whole lot easier, too. But if that’s what you choose then you’re going to miss out on some really great stealthy — even puzzle-y — play, especially later in the game. Indeed, choose to play the way (I think/hope) the designers meant for us to play, and you’ll be in for an experience much more fitting of the franchise’s hacktivist theme than the original, which, while fun, kind of felt like a Grand Theft Auto game with a hacker for a hero.
You’ll just need to have some patience, since both the narrative and the missions get off to a bit of a slow start.
In fact, if you asked me what Watch Dogs 2‘s story was about even four or five hours in, all I could have answered was that it was about a small band of gifted twenty-somethings who were raging against the machine without much direction, other than to rally support for their agitation through a mobile app. But as the story grows the issues come slowly into focus. We see hard examples of the ways in which San Francisco’s central operating system — ctOS 2.0 — is invading privacy, how private interests are using the data it collects on all citizens to profile and repress people by doing everything from gaming health insurance to influencing elections.
This is what drives our hero, Marcus Holloway — who goes by the hacker name Retr0 — to become an activist. A rare black hero in a big budget game — and, thanks to his quick wit, winning smile, and sharp mind, a wonderfully likeable one, to boot — we learn that he’s been a victim of racial profiling, and it’s left him deeply bitter toward the system.
Social justice is a noticeable theme throughout the game. We encounter NPCs like a transgender politico whose sexual identity plays only the tiniest part in defining her character and role, and a visit to the headquarters of Nudle (the game’s spot-on send-up of Google) is prefaced by a bit of playful dialogue about how Marcus and his friend Horatio are pretty much the only black guys in Silicon Valley. Call it a social agenda if you must, but whatever it is it’s more than welcome in a medium known for propagating stereotypes.
Watch Dogs 2’s main message, though, is that there is a sea of personal data floating around us just waiting to be scooped up and misused by nefarious agents. There is, of course, an inherent contradiction in watching Dedsec invade everyone’s privacy – including civilians (all you need do is look at someone to know their income and any potentially embarrassing highlights from their personal lives) – in order to protect it. That’s a big pill the player needs to be willing to swallow before jumping in. But – thanks largely to some really fun hacking abilities – it’s one that Ubisoft makes surprisingly easy to force down.
Early missions are a bit disappointing in their lack of imagination – and surprisingly challenging if you play with an aim not to hurt anyone. But that’s only because all of Marcus’ best tricks are earned gradually – perhaps a little too gradually, since in order to activate many of them players must not only earn research points by accumulating “followers” (think of followers as experience points) but also by searching the city for special data keys necessary to unlock them on the skill tree. (You get a couple of free extra upgrade points early if your tie your progression into Ubisoft’s Uplay system. We aren’t sure if this is some sort of meta commentary or not.)
However, once you’ve collected the majority abilities, San Francisco and all its buildings, vehicles, and infrastructure become your playthings.
Anyone who played the original Watch Dogs has some notion of what this means. You can look through any camera, eavesdrop on text conversations, and control traffic lights and road barriers. But the really fun abilities – the ones that provide you with massive choice in planning how to, say, infiltrate and explore a rocket lab undetected, free an ally being held in Alcatraz from dirty cops, steal computer chips from a robot factory, or deliver retribution to a gang of mindless thugs – come more slowly. And they make both core missions and many side ops genuinely satisfying.
Say you need to get into a secured broadcasting tower. A good way to start might be to pull out Marcus’ quadcopter drone and case the facility from the air, potentially hacking a few fuse boxes to turn them into explosive traps that will detonate and knock out any guards who wander near.
Next you might send in your jumper, a little two-wheeled remote controlled vehicle that can scoot through vents and hop through holes in the ceiling to run around largely undetected and hacking panels that will unlock important doors. You’re probably going to want to leave both drones operating (but hidden) so they can function as extra sets of eyes when you need them in places out of Marcus’ line of sight.
Now it’s time to move Marcus in. Your goal, typically, is to remain completely undetected. You might hack guards’ phones to send them a text or call in order to distract them so you can run past, or lure them to an electrical panel by causing it to make a noise. Taking control of forklifts and scissor-lifts are a great means of vertical movement when it seems there’s nowhere to go. In a few missions Marcus even has the option of hacking cranes that can position him high above his enemies and out of their sight.
But it’s impossible to avoid detection all the time. When push comes to shove, Marcus is a good hand-to-hand combatant, taking down almost anyone with a tap of a button. But fistfights tend to draw more attention. Better to, say, zap foes with a taser, or drop a stun mine that can be set off remotely. You can also set enemies’ phones to begin screeching, causing them pain and confusion – and buying a few seconds to escape.
If things get really hairy, you might want to hack someone’s ctOS profile and plant digital evidence that will immediately alert the police, who’ll arrive like gangbusters. This is a remarkably effective tactic for clearing out a space crawling with enemies, but since it inevitably ends with at least a few dead people I opted to use it only a handful of times – like one mission in which a group of gangsters made things very personal.
The end result – at least once you’ve earned enough abilities – is a game that almost feels like old-school Splinter Cell, with a huge emphasis on stealth and gadget mastery. It takes time to become completely comfortable with all of the abilities at our disposal, but in later missions Marcus feels almost unstoppable, expertly surveilling target areas (even maneuvering the quad indoors in a couple of missions) and easily distracting enemies so that he can walk among them almost as though invisible.
Sadly, I’m less a fan of the missions that involve action outside of enclosed buildings or areas, partly because the driving physics – especially on bumpy terrain, of which there is plenty in San Francisco – don’t feel quite right. This made certain side operations, some of which include series of dirt bike and go-kart races, markedly less appealing than main missions. But anything that isn’t marked as a “main operation” on Marcus’ phone – taking pictures of famous sights, ferrying people around like an Uber driver for a little extra money, spraying Deadsec graffiti on hard-to-reach billboards – is optional, so you’ll rarely feel forced to do things you don’t want to do.
It’s worth mentioning, too, that Ubisoft Montreal’s artists have done a terrific job realizing the Bay Area. I was fortunate enough to play using a PlayStation 4 Pro and a 4K TV, which made San Francisco as pretty as any virtual world I’ve explored this year. Some environments – like Nudle’s headquarters – appeared almost hyper detailed, and most of the time motion felt wonderfully fluid.
I did encounter some pretty serious frame chop on a few occasions (which may or may not have been related to online missions in which players take turns playing the roles of hunter and prey), but Ubisoft told journalists that a pre-launch patch was going to fix the problem. (The editor also experienced this same phenomenon playing on a launch PS4.)
Getting the most out of Watch Dogs 2 requires a good deal of patience and the resolve to play the way you’re supposed to play – especially when you first start out.
Then, around the midway point, you’ll reach a tipping point where you can’t stop thinking of the possibilities inherent in the hacker abilities you’ve unlocked. Suddenly you won’t want to stop playing. And from that point until the credits roll it becomes a rollicking ride of stealth and action, with a healthy splotch of progressive social commentary thrown in.
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