I didn't use violence at all in WD2.
The bomb and weapon skill trees are empty for me.
And I didn't do it from some moral standpoint either, they just seemed boring. I put all of my points into stealth improvements and hacking.

Jerykk wrote on Apr 16, 2018, 23:49:

eRe4s3r wrote on Apr 16, 2018, 22:52:

Burrito of Peace wrote on Apr 16, 2018, 19:19:
I'll be honest: I liked WD2. I hated WD1 because the protagonist was such an unlikable, whiny dick. Although I am, as the kids say, old AF, I can see where the crew from WD2 fit and how they came together in a city that has an active maker scene and set in current times. Hell, they remind me of the students I mentor after a fashion.

My problem with Watch Dogs 1 and 2 is that it has a political even up-to-date setting and message... and paints terrorism as the solution. That's super questionable. And even if you argue this ain't terrorism, I'd argue they break the 4th wall at the very least.

Either way, both are fundamentally bad games imo, 2 was more enjoyable to play, but had an even more questionable tone and REALLY bad writing.

It made more sense in the first game where the protagonist was driven by revenge. He'd be okay with killing people and potentially causing collateral damage. But in Watch_Dogs 2, the ability to kill people and hurt civilians made no sense at all. It didn't match up with the light-hearted prankster mentality of the characters. In WD1, Aiden used hacking as means to track down his targets so he could kill them. In WD2, hacking was supposed to be a non-violent means of exposing corruption and protecting the people.

I feel like this game could have turned out to be a really great, even an awesome masterpiece, if Ubisoft would have had the balls to remove weapons and lethal force from the game 100% and keep it entirely peaceful digital revolution or punish use of force greatly at the very least. The entire tone was hacker revolution, maker spaces, but what we got was a ideological terrorism group like the RAF because Ubisoft as usual has the cultural and societal awareness of a death row prisoner that was stuck in jail for the past 60 years.

At least I could get behind the revenge plot in WD1. I blame it on Ubisoft being disconnected from the world or from refraining of actually following through with any of their political pseudo messages. I mean Far Cry 5 has nearly exactly the same problem, political message muddied by being nearly psychopathically tone-deaf. But at least there the open structure makes it less of an issue. While in WD2 nearly 100% of the violence is targeted at 100% innocents.

I wouldn't even care about this, but if you make the setting the "real world" then I do care. Probably a fault but I can't change how I perceive these games.

eRe4s3r wrote on Apr 16, 2018, 22:52:

Burrito of Peace wrote on Apr 16, 2018, 19:19:
I'll be honest: I liked WD2. I hated WD1 because the protagonist was such an unlikable, whiny dick. Although I am, as the kids say, old AF, I can see where the crew from WD2 fit and how they came together in a city that has an active maker scene and set in current times. Hell, they remind me of the students I mentor after a fashion.

My problem with Watch Dogs 1 and 2 is that it has a political even up-to-date setting and message... and paints terrorism as the solution. That's super questionable. And even if you argue this ain't terrorism, I'd argue they break the 4th wall at the very least.

Either way, both are fundamentally bad games imo, 2 was more enjoyable to play, but had an even more questionable tone and REALLY bad writing.

It made more sense in the first game where the protagonist was driven by revenge. He'd be okay with killing people and potentially causing collateral damage. But in Watch_Dogs 2, the ability to kill people and hurt civilians made no sense at all. It didn't match up with the light-hearted prankster mentality of the characters. In WD1, Aiden used hacking as means to track down his targets so he could kill them. In WD2, hacking was supposed to be a non-violent means of exposing corruption and protecting the people.

aka_STEVE wrote on Apr 16, 2018, 14:56:
Pretty hard to build a new franchise - then keep changing the protagonist.

Isn't that precisely what Rockstar have done?

Burrito of Peace wrote on Apr 16, 2018, 19:19:
I'll be honest: I liked WD2. I hated WD1 because the protagonist was such an unlikable, whiny dick. Although I am, as the kids say, old AF, I can see where the crew from WD2 fit and how they came together in a city that has an active maker scene and set in current times. Hell, they remind me of the students I mentor after a fashion.

My problem with Watch Dogs 1 and 2 is that it has a political even up-to-date setting and message... and paints terrorism as the solution. That's super questionable. And even if you argue this ain't terrorism, I'd argue they break the 4th wall at the very least.

Either way, both are fundamentally bad games imo, 2 was more enjoyable to play, but had an even more questionable tone and REALLY bad writing.

I'll be honest: I liked WD2. I hated WD1 because the protagonist was such an unlikable, whiny dick. Although I am, as the kids say, old AF, I can see where the crew from WD2 fit and how they came together in a city that has an active maker scene and set in current times. Hell, they remind me of the students I mentor after a fashion.

I loved the first game, hated (and don't own, but I've played) the second one... I wonder how cringey they can make the 3rd protagonist? A guy who never leaves his room, has a waifu pillow, and you have to white knight online forum grills and gamers?

Srsly though, the characters in #2 were so annoying, I just couldn't stand it. The main character does backflips off of ledges for no apparent reason.

accidentally

Yup......

Give just how fucking bad the first game was I have less than zero desire to check out the second one. Ubi is going to need to give it away for free in order to draw my interest.

Watch_Dogs 2 was really good. Looking forward to this.

Pretty hard to build a new franchise - then keep changing the protagonist.

saluk wrote on Apr 16, 2018, 14:20:

wtf_man wrote on Apr 16, 2018, 12:44:
I actually liked the first one, even though a majority of folks seems to disagree.

It was a nice distraction, but I haven't thought about it much since. I had similar feelings about other non-gta open world games, like [prototype] or the whole saints row series.

I disagree about Saints Row...but only “The Third”. It was completely bonkers, and while I didn’t CARE about the characters, they were hilarious, and I recommend it to anyone looking for an absurd action game with lots of dumb-but-funny writing. The 4th one felt like a pale shadow of The Third.

It's popcorn gaming; not much too it but entertaining for a few days.

wtf_man wrote on Apr 16, 2018, 12:44:
I actually liked the first one, even though a majority of folks seems to disagree.

It was a nice distraction, but I haven't thought about it much since. I had similar feelings about other non-gta open world games, like [prototype] or the whole saints row series.

WD2 had the best side-item collecting since Crackdown.

I actually liked the first one, even though a majority of folks seems to disagree.

The characters in Watch Dogs 2 were forgettable. It made it difficult to login and play since I just didn't care about the story. I think the world itself was fine and enjoyable, just felt like there wasn't much point.

I haven't played the previous entries but WD2 looked kind of bland. How about some real stakes and a dynamic world (destructible environments, evolving buildings/cities, etc.)? The standard open-world formula that started with GTA3 needs a shot in the arm IMO.