Watch Dogs Series - forgot about this tbh

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Watch dogs 2s violence felt alot more real because of how much it tried to represent 2010s culture. This wasn't some far off setting, this is the real world.
Violence in WD2 is meant to be a last resort, but from my experience, enemy detection is so sensitive, it turns from stealth to guns blazings in an instant.

Shooting is fine, but the tone with the happy go lucky Dedsec clashes with the violence.
 
I was kind of hoping Ubisoft was going to try and pick up on the whole outlandish "political fiction" now that there's not going to be any more real MGS games, but that's certainly not going to happen now.
they kinda did in GR breakpoint, but then it fell of a cliff somewhere, and after it flopped they changed it (iirc originally it was supposed to end with AI or transhumanism or something), now it's just "GLOWIES LOL".
the infuriating thing is that they can do good shit if they want, wildlands (for all it's faults), was pretty damn good when it came to story and atmosphere. breakpoint still had glimmers of that too, even going as far as showing the pacifist-activist scientist "rebels" as irrational shortsighted dipshits, they just contained the whole thing on a single island instead of going "global". ffs they even had a terminator event to promote the movie, and as dumb as it sounds, it was actually pretty fun and kinda made sense in that setting (except every terminator wearing fucking biker clothes, that's plain retarded - there are no fucking bikers on the island, or when you watched T2 and know why arnie ended up with that look).


watch_dogs is kinda similar in that 1 was pretty good (ymmv), and next to the whole thriller main story had a subplot about privacy, surveillance and how "big data" can be abused, before going INSTAGRAM, BITCHES11!. just feels like they pussy'd out, when they could've gone full deus-ex instead.
 

The middling response and developer oversight explains the tonal shift from WD1 to WD2. While I wish that WD2 had more fanfare, I understand why audiences were hesitant with its sequel given the original's unmet hype.

Credit to Ubisoft for actually atoning to feedback from WD1 to evolve the franchise with 2. Almost every aspect criticized from 1 was revised and changed from 2.

Although, it feels as if shooting was added last minute due to its radical, jovial tone in its setting and characters.
 
Credit to Ubisoft for actually atoning to feedback from WD1 to evolve the franchise with 2.
Except the shooting, as you mentioned. It is actually very fun to go John Wick mode in 1 and use takedown/bullet time to take out enemies, unironically some of the most fun I've had with a 3ps since Max Payne.

I also think the tone was a big overcorrection and didn't resonate like they thought it might. Look up footage of Aiden in Legion and it is full of people saying they missed him and his edginess.
 
Except the shooting, as you mentioned. It is actually very fun to go John Wick mode in 1 and use takedown/bullet time to take out enemies, unironically some of the most fun I've had with a 3ps since Max Payne.

I also think the tone was a big overcorrection and didn't resonate like they thought it might. Look up footage of Aiden in Legion and it is full of people saying they missed him and his edginess.
I forgot to mention driving too. Maybe it's me, but it feels looser in 2.
 
To add to this point, Watch_Dogs Legion presents some external authoritarian threat that attempts to seize power and break continuity with the British state (with some additional dogwhistles hinting at white supremacy), whereas IRL a progressive evolution of the existing power structure into woke tyranny is IMO, far more likely. No need for Albion or Cass, the Metropolitan Police and your typical bureaucrat can be just as good of a threat.

Ultimately I find it interesting that a game about being against the institutions is ultimately immersed in the institutionally-correct line of thought popular today (also seen in other media like Handmaiden's Tale). There is ultimately nothing really all that transgressive about the future that it portrays- a far cry from Watch_Dogs 1's critique of the merging of mass surveillance, the establishment, and everyday life.

A few choice selections from the tweet below:
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In hindsight from 2021, the UK is very clearly capable of devolving into a grey-managerial-paste version of Albion on its own, no paramilitary needed.

Watchdogs Legion got it so wrong, they got high on Trump and Brexit. Same ironically with Far Cry 4 and its insinuation that Trump would start a nuclear war (though it was a bit better in explaining in its backstory on the Seeds how rotten most of America was).
 
Watchdogs Legion got it so wrong, they got high on Trump and Brexit. Same ironically with Far Cry 4 and its insinuation that Trump would start a nuclear war (though it was a bit better in explaining in its backstory on the Seeds how rotten most of America was).
I thought that WD: Legion had a novel idea with the "play as any NPC" gimmick. Its execution felt like an RNG character creator. What they should've did was allowed that gimmick as crew recruits and allowed us to create our own main character. Maybe a little RPG risk-reward mechanic where focusing on stealth could make you slightly weaker in combat.
 
Same ironically with Far Cry 4 and its insinuation that Trump would start a nuclear war (though it was a bit better in explaining in its backstory on the Seeds how rotten most of America was).
wrong far cry but close enough
 
Same ironically with Far Cry 4 and its insinuation that Trump would start a nuclear war (though it was a bit better in explaining in its backstory on the Seeds how rotten most of America was).

wrong far cry but close enough
Far Cry 5.

In his defense, all these Ubisoft games blur together. Glance at Far Cry 3 onward, they all look the same.
 
Except the shooting, as you mentioned. It is actually very fun to go John Wick mode in 1 and use takedown/bullet time to take out enemies, unironically some of the most fun I've had with a 3ps since Max Payne.

I also think the tone was a big overcorrection and didn't resonate like they thought it might. Look up footage of Aiden in Legion and it is full of people saying they missed him and his edginess.
Sometimes you want a bog-standard open-world game, which is what WD1 turned out to be, but kind of a slick edge to it.
 
I thought that WD: Legion had a novel idea with the "play as any NPC" gimmick. Its execution felt like an RNG character creator. What they should've did was allowed that gimmick as crew recruits and allowed us to create our own main character. Maybe a little RPG risk-reward mechanic where focusing on stealth could make you slightly weaker in combat.
Yeah like all the ideas are there it was just poorly implemented
I do love how unique every npc is though. I'll say that.
 
I played a little of the first. Wasn't terrible, but didn't hold my interest so I'll have to try again one day.

Got a laugh from that video where some guy went around shooting degenerates then fleeing the scene in WD1 though.
 
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In hindsight from 2021, the UK is very clearly capable of devolving into a grey-managerial-paste version of Albion on its own, no paramilitary needed.

Watchdogs Legion got it so wrong, they got high on Trump and Brexit. Same ironically with Far Cry 4 and its insinuation that Trump would start a nuclear war (though it was a bit better in explaining in its backstory on the Seeds how rotten most of America was).
I don't think Far Cry 5 really trashed Trump at all, it played it all very (too) safe.





Since Far Cry 4 was (accidentally) brought up, I think that is one of the worst cases of a squandered video game story I've seen. The in-game plot was paper thin, could pretty much be completely ignored, but if you read the scraps of paper and other lore junk you find, it had this epic story about palace intrigue and seduction and dynastic stuff that felt like ancient legends mixed with this trashy Third World aesthetic that perfectly matched the game where you could use elephant cavalry on narcostate soldiers.

It WOULD HAVE been fascinating, but it's like they had no confidence in it to actually try doing anything with it.

And I thought Far Cry 5 was squandered, too, because they were SO AFRAID of being political that they didn't give any character to the cult. Between the Mormons (which is what the Seeds felt closest to), People's Temple (Leftist and integrationist), and the White Identity types, there were a lot of real-world cult wars they could have played with and instead they made dreck that was inoffensive but also shallow as a puddle. There's this weird disconnect between the huge amount of effort they put into the cult music (which is God tier) and everything else about it. And it did a terrible job in its depiction of Montana, the place was like a fantasy mash-up of Mississippi, Appalachia, and Montana in its accents, cultural depiction, and terrain. Really, was like they were trying to make a generic "Red State."
 
Oh man, fucking Watch Dogs. I will admit I really liked the first game when it came out. Sure the game play was a bit tedious but I ignored I ignored it so I could play as cool hackerman with a Batman voice.

Indeed, you can argue that Aiden is hypergeneric and shit but idk, he grew on me. Same with T-bone and Jordi Chin. I certainly fucking appreciated them far more than the tumblr twitter instagram kid gang in the second game.

Only really tolerated the quiet autistic kid and Wrench in doses. Everyone else was fucking annoying and the villain looked less intimidating than some loser ordering pumpkin spice latte in Starbucks. I ain't got anything on Horatio even if he acted as the only actual human which obviously made him dead meat to suddenly force a "serious" tone on the game.

I feel as if the second game was just Ubisoft's insane overreaction to complaints made about the first game. You guys could make changes in moderation, you know? Instead they went extreme and it's embarrassing.

Suppose it doesn't matter now anyway because the franchise is dead - maybe. Unless they remaster the first game. I'd be down for that.
 
Oh man, fucking Watch Dogs. I will admit I really liked the first game when it came out. Sure the game play was a bit tedious but I ignored I ignored it so I could play as cool hackerman with a Batman voice.

Indeed, you can argue that Aiden is hypergeneric and shit but idk, he grew on me. Same with T-bone and Jordi Chin. I certainly fucking appreciated them far more than the tumblr twitter instagram kid gang in the second game.

Only really tolerated the quiet autistic kid and Wrench in doses. Everyone else was fucking annoying and the villain looked less intimidating than some loser ordering pumpkin spice latte in Starbucks. I ain't got anything on Horatio even if he acted as the only actual human which obviously made him dead meat to suddenly force a "serious" tone on the game.

I feel as if the second game was just Ubisoft's insane overreaction to complaints made about the first game. You guys could make changes in moderation, you know? Instead they went extreme and it's embarrassing.

Suppose it doesn't matter now anyway because the franchise is dead - maybe. Unless they remaster the first game. I'd be down for that.
As the world's #1 Watch_Dogs enjoyer I couldn't even stand Watch_Dogs 2 enough to get past the first big mission, but I thought the idea of having some hipster faggot tech bro as the main villain was brilliant. That is, after all, the ultimate evil in real life?

Ubisoft ruined a lot of aspects of it. The city streets were strangely empty of people and no effort was put into the profiling. The game's tone was way too far off to justify the guns it keeps steering you towards (I really think it should have just removed everything besides the taser, and given the drone more actual gameplay mechanics). The excellent realistic driving in Watch_Dogs 1, which kiddies complained about because it wasn't an arcade game, was repalced with weightless trash. The story became utterly aimless.

And ultimately Ubisoft proved that, being a modern day corporation, they had no willingness to engage with the real deep themes they had to work with. They made lots of references to le epic Internet stuff, but they're PART of Tech Bro Globohomo, of course they won't actually criticize it on any deep level.

Then Legion killed any hope I had for the franchise ever being good. Watch_Dogs 1 was lightning in a jar, and even that didn't live up to its full potential, it was just a top notch GTA clone with its own gimmicks. Was a time when I'd call it one of the best games, but after become more well-rounded I'd say it's just in the same tier as Sleeping Dogs and other such.
 
Yeah I really wanted to like legion. I appreciated how they brought back Aiden but the game just wasn't built for him and it shows.

1 was such a grand good time. One of the only open world games were I seriously paid attention to doing things right and not harming innocent people or cops.

Aiden had balls, he had uncompromising justice you could play into. And they really tried to lightly push against that in legion. He's not bad, but you can tell what we had with 1 is never coming back.
 
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