This was written back in 2016 for a GOTY piece...
Approached from the mentality of someone who actually enjoyed his time with Watch Dogs 1, this follow-up really dropped the ball big time in areas that the first game excelled at. Scoping out an enemy location with your hacks, infiltrating with stealth and then resorting to guns when shit hits the fan felt so good. I've said it time and time again, but Watch Dogs has the best gunplay and stealth I've ever encountered in a GTA-esque game. In Watch Dogs 2, everything feels like it controls worse. The same dynamic of infiltrating a hideout and gradually wiping it out just isn't there. In Watch Dogs 2, if I'm caught by somebody, I'm essentially doomed. Reinforcements are called, I get surrounded because suddenly everyone knows where I am and that's it... game over.
And that's not even mentioning the severe dissonance there is between your ragtag crew of kooky hactivists who want to make the world a better place and the way you can play Marcus as your typical GTA protagonist. He's a lot more likeable than Aiden for sure, but say what you will about the guy, at least when Aiden went on the rampage and started killing people in waves, it actually felt tonally consistent with the rest of the game. All I do with Marcus is rely on his stun gun and drones. Anything else feels wildly out of character, which doesn't make combat sections much fun at all. Even seeing him hold a gun just looks wrong.
Watch Dogs 2 is fun, but for very different reasons to the first. I like that the tone is more chilled and light-hearted and humorous (even if it isn't actually funny), a lot of the side-missions are of a surprisingly high calibre and there's been some clear effort put in to make this rendition of San Francisco feel alive and populated. But I would happily sacrifice all of those differences for the tone of the first game if it meant I could get back those same gameplay mechanics.
Approached from the mentality of someone who actually enjoyed his time with Watch Dogs 1, this follow-up really dropped the ball big time in areas that the first game excelled at. Scoping out an enemy location with your hacks, infiltrating with stealth and then resorting to guns when shit hits the fan felt so good. I've said it time and time again, but Watch Dogs has the best gunplay and stealth I've ever encountered in a GTA-esque game. In Watch Dogs 2, everything feels like it controls worse. The same dynamic of infiltrating a hideout and gradually wiping it out just isn't there. In Watch Dogs 2, if I'm caught by somebody, I'm essentially doomed. Reinforcements are called, I get surrounded because suddenly everyone knows where I am and that's it... game over.
And that's not even mentioning the severe dissonance there is between your ragtag crew of kooky hactivists who want to make the world a better place and the way you can play Marcus as your typical GTA protagonist. He's a lot more likeable than Aiden for sure, but say what you will about the guy, at least when Aiden went on the rampage and started killing people in waves, it actually felt tonally consistent with the rest of the game. All I do with Marcus is rely on his stun gun and drones. Anything else feels wildly out of character, which doesn't make combat sections much fun at all. Even seeing him hold a gun just looks wrong.
Watch Dogs 2 is fun, but for very different reasons to the first. I like that the tone is more chilled and light-hearted and humorous (even if it isn't actually funny), a lot of the side-missions are of a surprisingly high calibre and there's been some clear effort put in to make this rendition of San Francisco feel alive and populated. But I would happily sacrifice all of those differences for the tone of the first game if it meant I could get back those same gameplay mechanics.