Xbox Reviews

Watch Dogs 2 Review

Review: Watch Dogs 2 | Looking back, the first Watch Dogs was pretty good, I spend quite a few hours with it. Two years later Ubisoft brings out the sequel and honestly totally delivers an incredibe open world game. Be sure to read more, I don’t want Dedsec hacking me because I have too few readers 😛

We will update this review soon, Watch Dogs 2 online modes aren’t online yet. This review is solely written for it’s single player experience!

THE GOOD

  • The most important thing for an open world game? An interesting and fun city. San Francisco’s Watch Dogs 2 is just that. I’m totally baffled, in a good way how much detail you can find in the game. A believable massive world that can suck players right in, thumbs up for the level designers.
  • Let me tell you a random experience that shows how great the pedestrian AI (artificial intelligence) is. I was running around taking selfies for one of the mini games in the game, in the distance I saw a few people standing around, I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on at first but once I got closer I saw it was a wedding. The naughty devil inside me came up with the idea to hack the police database and list the groom as a terrorist. Not much later the police shows up and instantly kills the poor guy, the bride goes into a frenzy and ends up being arrested. To be honest I felt a little guilty! It was all so realistic that me and my girlfriend were really looking at it with open mouth. Many times I was just running around to see what the pedestrians were up to, and each time I was surprised by what I saw.
  • How you play is entirely up to you, I prefered the stealth way but you can always go guns blazing too.  Anyway, the stealth gameplay is really basic but fun. I loved checking out the environment with drones and camera’s before silently taking out enemies. Sometimes you miss a few extra stealth touches, like hiding bodies but overall it was a fun experience. And again, you don’t have to act like a ninja. Blowing everyone up with a grenade launcher is possible too.
  • The Dedsec group, an organization that recruited you has very likeable characters. Fixing one of the negative parts from the first Watch Dogs, now you have interesting characters that help make the game stand out. Especially Wrench, a dude with a cool expression mask is a memorable person. The playable character, Marcus is a great improvement too when you compare it with Aiden Pearce. It’s actually nice to see that Ubisoft used the feedback from the previous game to improve the sequel.
  • Watch Dogs 2 looks visually stunning, a lot of time is spend on making each and every inch unique and great looking. It happened more than once that I stopped and stared. Trash that’s lying around, leaves on cars, pigeons searching for food at trash cans and impressive vista’s. Without a doubt, Watch Dogs is one of the best looking games on Xbox One.
  • One of my friends told me he thought it was a negative thing but I personally loved the massive level-up system. Giving you a great motivation to progress. Not having the ability to let police fight against enemies, or having much more useful abilities for your drones might be a shame for the early missions but I loved that the game continuously gave me new abilities, and more importantly that I could pick them myself.

Mixed Feelings

  • It’s a shame that you don’t get rewarded for how you play the game. It doesn’t really make sense that you blow up people or make them unrecognizable with a shotgun headshot when you see some of the cut scenes or story dialogue.
  • For casual gamers the controls can really become a little confusing and difficult. I’m not afraid to admit that even for me it wasn’t always a walk in the park. Luckily the game comes with a handy “Did You Know” application on your in-game phone. But still, I feel that things could have been a little easier. Even some basic things like going in and out cover isn’t always a fluid experience.

THE BAD

  • Watch Dogs 2 is a visual impressive game, maybe a little too much for the Xbox One to handle right. Frame rate issues happen occasionally, especially while driving and some parts of the world randomly disappeared. One time I also had a funny weird Pedestrian glitch, everyone was doing the same thing. For those that watched Supergirl, it was Myriad all over again!
  • Take away the hacking abilities and you have a below average cover shooter. I think it’s important to list this one because I know not everyone will enjoy all the hacking abilities and just want to shoot stuff. Who am I to say that you are playing the game wrong if that’s the case.

90% | Watch Dogs 2 is a vast improvement and one of the best looking games on Xbox One. Memorable characters, fun hacking abilities and lots of things to do. In short, Watch Dogs 2 would be one hell of a Christmas present for each and every gamer.

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