The game: Watch_Dogs 2 by Ubisoft
An improvement over the first installment, then! I was pretty critical of the narrative direction of Watch_Dogs when I reviewed it in November. Iâm delighted to say that the second entry in the series made huge improvements in creative and gameplay elements, and was much more fulfilling to play as a result. Letâs break it down.
In the first game, you loathed the protagonist. And this time around I love him! You play as Marcus Holloway, a young member of the hacktivist collective DedSec, which shared an underutilized rivalry with Aiden Pierce the first game. Itâs a smart choice to shift the seriesâ focus to DedSec, as this game (and, in my impression, Legion after it) has a better structure for Marcusâs motivation and resources. Itâs also clear very quickly that this installment put more thought into who is most endangered by the surveillance state, and by the human biases that go into algorithmsâ creation. Marcus is--repeatedly--flagged as a threat for being a black 20-something, and many plotlines are propelled by the teamâs desire to protect people of color, neurodivergent people, trans people, the integrity of elections, the privacy of children...
Itâs a big step up from Aiden, who sometimes hacked into peopleâs devices to spy on them having sex.
How does the treatment of death compare? I will say that I think a major black character is killed off simply to make the player hurt, and itâs a simple fact that the black community and people who love them have suffered an excessive amount of media which fixates on the murder of black characters, and I was disappointed.
In the bigger picture, this game gave me many more options to non-lethally complete missions, better writing for characters of color, and a sense of community and kinship between Marcus and his friends and mentors. Their goals are predicated on interpersonal justice, not violence for its own sake.
One thing you already liked was the gameplay. Yeah! WD2 expanded hacking puzzles in an appealing way, spreading interactive âwiringâ tiles across physical spaces, and broadened strategic options by introducing robots, both a wheeled âjumperâ and a drone. The puzzles were less varied, but the settings were more so, and less grimdark--more focused on infiltrating corrupt tech corporations. Itâs not clear to me whether Legion reintroduces more puzzle types, but I know the parkour and urban exploration returned.
They also did away with a couple of silly limitations from the first game that didnât really reflect how hacking works. Most notably, you no longer have to be able to see a camera to hack into it.
Any other comments on the direction of this game? It has far more personality than the first game, with fun supporting characters and neat zine- and meme-inspired art.
{Marcus stands in front of a mural of a hot pink mummy.}
The main cast includes an autistic man and a character implied to be bisexual. I wish theyâd pushed representation further, especially in a game set among San Francisco activists, but a range of identities are included, and the crew treats each other with enormous affection and respect. I was especially moved by a mission focused on retrieving a stolen object that helps a main manage his anxiety.
Hearing disorder corner: Although I would still like to see the series identify speakers in subtitles, there was less need for it; characters in phone calls are more clearly and consistently identified. They also mostly fixed the problem of dialogue appearing out of order, and made audio prompts easier to notice.
Anything they did worse than the first game? As I said, this installment lost a little variety in puzzle types. Escaping pursuers is much more difficult, and I was never fully sure how the system to lose a police tail worked. There was less driving overall (probably because they were no longer trying to directly compete with Grand Theft Auto), and vehicles were easier to control but with fewer useful hacking opportunities integrated. I also struggled with the AI of npcs at times, because they regularly moved towards a dangerous situation (like a moving vehicle) instead of away. I more than once killed a civilian because they ran into me, and had to deal with sometimes unnatural reactions from onlookers.
Also, I really hated a mission where I hacked into atms and sometimes??? Gave more money to rich people while taking away from poorer users? It was out of character and not very constructive.
Interested in Legion now? Yes, but Iâm not enough reconciled to the series to want to pay full price.
Try it if you like: A nerdy, progressive, charming protagonist, robots, graffiti, bright colors, cop-critical games (though itâs not acab, which I am), saying âIâve accessed the mainframeâ to yourself, soundtracks filled with absolute bops, the sort of lush urban environment Assassinâs Creed does well, but modern.