Watch Dogs 2 Review

[Guri]

Watch Dogs 2 is an open-world, action/adventure game that was developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft, which is the sequel to 2014's Watch Dogs; it was released in 2016 for PC and Console.

What’s new:

The Watch Dogs franchise made its debut in 2014, the series kicked off with a fascinating concept: a huge GTA style open world to explore, combined with gameplay that turned you into a vigilante hacker, it has everything in it that a techy gamer would desire, from having a phone that can hack entire city to a fun open world sandbox world to play around in. But unfortunately, the final product failed to live up to the graphical fidelity that was initially promised. It was still quite pretty for the time but it was nowhere near as gorgeous as the E3 demos.
Watch Dogs 2 is a whole another thing altogether, the sequel moves the series to San Francisco, and puts you in the role of a newer and younger hacker, the charming and talented Marcus Holloway. While Watch Dogs 2 is fundamentally very similar to the original in terms of gameplay, you’ll still spend a lot of time hacking various electronics and sneaking around buildings as the game prefers a stealth approach to the missions, but this time the general tone of the game is much more light hearted and jolly, and it worked worders for the game & turned it into a really fun game world to roam around in.

Story:

The game is technically a sequel, but it largely manages to stands on its own. Just like its predecessor, the overarching story arc of Watch Dogs 2 revolves around how the governments and large corporations use the personal data of citizens for their own profit and agenda (kinda like the world we live in, so it's quite relatable). After his first experience with this idea, Marcus joins a small hacking group called DeadSec, a more lighthearted and joyful version of its real-world counterpart “Anonymous”.
The game’s greatest strength, is in its writing. In the more recent times Ubisoft games have often been lacking in good scripts, but Watch Dogs 2 frequently delivers moments of heartwarming charm and sharp comedic humor. Alongside its fresh approach to world and game design, Watch Dogs 2 also opens up it's beautiful world immediately. Aside from one or two minor upgrades that you'll unlock shortly after starting the game, you can drive anywhere on the map and access everything right from the get go.

Gameplay:

Watch Dogs 2’s toolset to explore and interact with that world has evolved from that of the previous game, and mostly for the better. The most important weapon in your fight against the CT-OS is your phone, which allows you to hack into anything connected to the city's infrastructure which is to say, almost everything. With some digging around, you can find a dozen of routes to get through any one problem, and it's extremely satisfying when a clever little strategy that you created comes together.
Watch Dogs 2’s best missions are presented while using your hacking abilities; environmental manipulation being a major one, as well as your most utilitarian tools in the game which includes an RC hopper car that is capable of remote hacking and sneaking through vents that you can’t fit in, and a quadcopter drone which is useful for scouting nearby surroundings from above.

Multiplayer/ co-op:

Watch Dogs 2 expands on its predecessors' unique take on multiplayer, where players can "invade" each other's games and attempt to hack data from each other. On top of that, there are the co-op missions and also a new "bounty hunter" mode, which places you into games where players are causing a lot of chaos and you’d have to hunt them down assisting the police, this gives us an added layer of challenge and surprise.
The co-op in Watch Dogs 2 is one of the best things about the game, here we can play along with 3 other friends (initially the game launched with just 2 player co-op, but later the 4-player party was added). With the addition of DLC content like the school bus of death called "Bertha" (the most fun vehicle in the game) Watch Dogs 2 is a blast to play along with friends, occasionally while on a mission we might come across another team that has been tasked to stop us, whenever this happens there’s chaos everywhere & that is pure fun.

Conclusion:

Watch Dogs 2 really improves a ton on the premise of its predecessor. It’s an open world action game alone side the added mechanic of hacking makes it feel unique and fresh, instead of just any another third-person shooter. It’s full of thrilling escapes and moments that make you feel like a Hollywood vision of a hacker, and it does all this while presenting a world full of characters that makes you want to push forward to find what’s next. Watch Dogs 2 is definitely one of the best open-world games out there. I’d give it a 9/10.

Reviewer: Anonymous Source

Rate: 9/10