Watch Dogs 2 - Ubisoft's other open world IP returns

Did you ever find that time?

The game just dropped to a 9$ sales price, so thinking of adding it to my backlog. Never finished the first game, so just wondering if I should just install that again if I feel the need for some hacking action. I gather this does improve in some of the formula, though it seems to have killed the franchise?

Haha nope, but its on my to do list. I was dumb and picked up Division 2 which is amazing. :)

I don’t think it killed the franchise, Ubi loves to improve on their franchises, I have no doubt Watch Dogs 3 is still being worked on in the shadows.

Having played both, I enjoyed Watch Dogs 2 more. If it looks at all interesting to you I would say pick it up and don’t go back to the first one.

The first was alright, I finished it and the ending is at least worth youtubing to have the story wrapped up. I still hate ubi for creating a super cool secret rail yard HQ and then doing almost nothing with it.

Eurogamer pointed out that this timelapse video of someone walking across virtual San Francisco was mesmerizing. It wants to make me pick up the game just to do just that: walk across the city. It certainly looks like they did a lot better with virtual San Fran than they did with Virtual Chicago.

The game’s on sale for $8 in the Xbox Spring Sale btw. Makes it extra tempting.

Yeah, WD2 is my favourite virtual city outside of GTA5, and GTA5 only wins because I love the way RockStar builds its quasi-real cities. It’s by far the best “real” city I’ve played. That’s why I’m so psyched about London, which has been weirdly poorly served in open world games, considering.

I felt London was done extremely well in AC Syndicate, unless you mean modern day London.

I did mean modern day London, yes, but it’s kind of remarkable that Syndicate is by far the best realisation of London in videogames, when you consider how prominent the city is in other global media, especially film. There are other cities that are even less well served in videogames, especially in Asia (seriously, where’s our Mumbai open world game?) and Latin America, but those are also relatively speaking not that often represented in Hollywood’s output, so it’s less jarring.

I think The Getaway and it’s sequel were the last big open world games I remember being set in modern London.

I didn’t play the sequel, but I thought The Getaway was a remarkable recreation of the ‘modern’ London I remember from last having visited there in the mid-80s. Of course, a lot has probably changed since then. There’s that giant ferris wheel thing, and lots of new skyscrapers and new modern bridges.

But still, The Getaway also was a good illustration of why London is such a boring city outside the city center. Rows and rows of identical houses galore, just like I remember from the 80s.

The Uncanny Valley effect of Syndicate’s London just being wrong (big stations in Whitechapel! The bend by Waterloo being all wrong. Just starting the game in Croydon, FGS) put me off in a way the compressed Paris didn’t. I guess the Parisian core just isn’t as sprawling.

Heh, yeah, there’s some weird stuff around Ludgate Circus that struck me as well. But I thought it was pretty good as a compressed impression - much more accurate than most open world cities before it. Also, I don’t know what it is, but it seems like around that time their world building pipeline really kicked up a gear, because WD2’s SF was much, much better than the Chicago of WD1, and AC Origins and Odyssey have these vast worlds (admittedly with a lot of asset re-use and no need to have particularly recognisable/accurate layouts). I can’t speak to its accuracy, but people seem pretty impressed by TD2’s DC as well.

Over the weekend, I tried out Watch Dogs 2, and did the opening tutorial area until I got to the open world.

I must say, I like it so far. I kind of like this main character, unlike the one in Watch Dogs. But they still try really hard to alienate me. After the opening area, there is a suuuuuuper long cutscene where he gets hazed by his fellow hackers, and then they just hang out on the beach talking about nothing in particular, getting high (I think? Nothing explicit was shown) and just hanging around stupidly for no reason on that beach. What the hell was the point of that long cutscene? To make me dislike this group of hackers?

Yeah, just posted elsewhere, I try to play every open world game, wanted to love Watch Dogs 2, played a lot of it, but I got frustrated at what came across to me as contrived timed puzzles that didn’t feel really like they advanced the story as much as they just threw them in. It’s the only open world game I’ve played in a long time that I never finished.

Hey y’all! I just remembered I had this in my library, so I began playing it, and it’s so different from other open world games that want you to shoot/kill everything. So far I love listening in on people’s conversations, and taking money from that pharmaceutical guy for that rap song was hilarious. Nice version of San Fran too, also love one of the apps is called Driver, as I loved Driver: San Francisco.

Question though, is there a place that explains what some of the hacking icons do? The tutorial went by so fast I forget which, say, sets something to be an explosive and so on.

Next game leaked as Watch Dogs: Legion. Set in London, with some ability to play as the London NPCs, maybe a bit like Nomad Soul.

Bought it last week on a steam discount. Fun game! Quite punk too, i like that. Also can be played pretty nicely, i only use a taser, never guns.

On the other hand my phone is a weapon of motherfucking mass destruction man! Horrible traffic accidents, three-way gang wars that also involve the cops, all kinds of chaos. Such fun.

I’m playing this on PC. Can someone enlighten me on how to use the Song Sneak phone app in the game? All the instructions talk about hitting the touch pad of the PS4 controller but I’m playing on PC so that doesn’t help me.

EDIT: D’oh, never mind, I figured it out. You hit the back button on the controller (the one to the left of the X on the Xbox One controller).

Be sure to get the freeLC high res pack. Its sweet!

Yup, looks like I got it. I don’t recall specifically downloading it or installing it, though.

Was talking with McMaster the other night during one of his twitch streams, asking what open world game I should give a go next. My last was AC Odyssey, so I checked the backlog and the big three I had waiting for me was Watch Dogs 2, Mafia 3 and Middle-earth: Shadow of War. He said this was probably the best of the three games.

So far things I reallllly like:
Personality of everyone is dialed up like 1000% from WD1.
Is he using a yo-yo as a melee weapon? If so its awesome!
Taser!
Fast travel unlocked from the start!
Better driving and general player movement from WD1.

Not far in the game yet, currently doing a mission with a talking car.