Watch Dogs: 5 Years Later

welcome to Chicago a modern city with life and character life that seeks to bloom but it's choked kept in line by a firm hand around its neck you step out of line they're always watching and they don't forget they don't take anyone trying to break free from the grip lightly aiden pearce was a fixer a fancy word for a handyman who'd be better suited to cleaning blood off the floor than putting up a set of shelves he got a problem he's who you call and someone did Aidan and his partner Damien branks were to siphon money from the fat cats at the Merlotte hotel but they were discovered and there was something far more valuable at the hotel than money something that the owner mob-boss lucky Quinn would stop at nothing to protect fixers were hired to fix the fixer it was Maurice Vega who tailed Aidan into a tunnel with his niece in the back of the car and it was only meant as a warning shot but the car lost control rolled with Lena Pierce only five years old killed in the wreckage Aiden is as responsible for killing Lena as Vega and if guilt is the souls call to action then Aiden was hell-bent someone anyone was going to pay [Music] eleven months later there's nothing but dead bodies between Aidan and Maurice but he's just a hired gun Aidan doesn't know why the Malik job failed or who ordered the attack Maurice is just the beginning and appropriately the beginning of watchdogs well you can't change the past Geordie has agreed to keep ahold of Maurice until we figure out what to do with him for most of us players it wasn't until now that something seemed wrong we just blacked out an entire football stadium using our phone that was awesome but this isn't right why does Chicago look different this isn't the Chicago that we were sold nothing is as detailed the lighting is night and day in more ways than one there are no such wind effects no cans blown along the street the e3 gameplay was a demo that for all we know might have not even been run in real time designed especially to show off what next-gen could do and what next-gen could in fact do was nothing of the sort everything you see was downgraded for the final release and so we have the first knife in watchdogs gut lies night and day is frankly an understatement but disappointment inevitably warps people's perception of things it's very easy to substitute disappointing for bad and it's very easy to substitute bad for terrible Dark Souls to anyone it's a predisposition that upon revisiting the game today I didn't have watchdogs doesn't look last gen the Windy City is beautiful for a map that's vastly smaller than the likes of GTA the range of environments is remarkable low-cost housing in the wards the sick outskirt town where people go to escape the city Pawnee and the bustling modern city center the loop it's a beautiful skyline and I love it seeing it from all these different perspectives there's something horrifying about looking but skyscrapers from a slum underneath the highway and it's that dense variety that keeps the environments consistently fresh throughout the campaign I always get the Windy City and the rainy city confused but this game could have fooled me Ubisoft nailed the rain in this game as much as every other time of day rain comes without slight haze the afternoon Sun beams down through the environment believably and the lights of the city all feel very life like a night which creates an incredibly effective contrast with when you knock those lights out I don't know what it is about rain in a city that feels so relaxing perhaps the satisfaction that you're completely unaffected by a natural hazard and you didn't even have to lift a finger or that even when it seems like the difference between governments and God is smaller than ever nature still finds a way to piss on us perspective makes all the difference for immersion which is actually why I enjoy the L train so much the L train is an example of how the smallest details can make the largest differences I remember in 2014 a couple months before watchdogs dropped I was blown away by infamous second son and there was one detail that stood out to me it was the train it moved you can stand on top of it this is true next-gen the L train had an even stronger effect what do you and I do in a city on a day to day basis we travel we work and we eat most of the buildings we see mean very little they're no more than a setting so a video game realizing a vast chunk of what a city is to us public transport is an immensely immersive touch the mere perspective of a train window makes a virtual city feel that much more real but it's the people that make it feel alive thanks to your hacker man's super powers you're given the names job titles income and dirty secrets of everyone in the city a guy isn't just a guy he may be a foot fetishist fari working as a janitor that gives people a level of personality you're just not gonna get anywhere else but even beyond it you'll find people kissing you'll find people rapping you'll find friends gossiping you'll find friends arguing there's a homeless population there's people doing yoga that's how you make a virtual city feel real if the people believe it then you will too watchdogs is only matched by its sequel in this respect so what else is there to say but well done Ubisoft have never had filty with making a place feel lived in they've just had difficulty making you want to live in it you know for all their flaws I don't think towers on a map are always an awful way of doing things I like the idea of having to scout out an area first before you magically know the exact location of everything in it and I never thought towers were all that boring the sense of vertigo in something like Far Cry 3 or 4 was quite unique but in watchdogs as we can see it's not quite the same it's a rooftop well that's not really quite as good surprisingly you don't need to do any of them to fill up most of the map much of it reveals automatically or from profiling would you just look at how many side missions there are I bet pressing ctrl C and control V all those times must have taken Ubisoft ages and there you have the second knife none of this was new this wasn't next-gen this was just the same thing with a prettier face we realized here that not only would this be more of the same but so would the next generation of gaming it wasn't the prettier face that made people instantly pre-order watchdogs though it was that sexy USP you're a hacker God in the city is under your control it's no surprise that a concept decidedly modern and techie would sell the idea of next-gen so well that's what's really different about this Chicago that's the hand gripping its throat CTOs the central operation system an entire city wired up to one central network when a camera can recognize faces what's the difference between it in an eyeball thousand eyes on you in your house in your workplace in your car on every building and every street it knows who your friends are it knows who your rivals are it controls your cars locking mechanism the traffic flow the public transport the water the gas the electricity the money your front gate Blum knows everything about you and has strings on every aspect of your life they say it's fear safety we know better than that Blum wants money and Blum wants power which means whether or not CTOs is impenetrable is irrelevant to them and so we have the watchdog's hackers inside the system if the system is everything then a hacker is like a god I always wondered why they named watchdogs but it seems clear to me now it's just a gritty way of saying Guardian or in this case vigilante most stories about a vigilante a comic books and shows where the main character fights like kung-fu Panda and has a billion dollar bank account backing them up but who needs any of that when you control the world itself CTOs made hacking a superpower the cameras are your eyes now thanks to the constant tracking of every citizen in Chicago the element of surprise is always your own pipes can be bust to stun enemies electrical boxes can be detonated to kill them things get more complex when you take to the streets you can hack yourself into a parking garage then blackout CTOs to prevent your pursuers from following you can detonate steam pipes underneath enemy vehicles or use traffic blockers and spikes to a similar effect bridges are just for the fun of jumping around everywhere but it is fun it's a shame that in those six lines I've summarized almost all of hackings effect on the gameplay rut role hacking in watchdogs has no depth in fact dispatching your pursuers comes down to pressing a single button exactly when the game tells you there's no skill gap because there is no skill it's just free kills at the tap of a finger hacking in stealth is rarely more complex in fact the only time hacking impressed me was the door locked blackout escapes because it's the only time you can combine multiple hacks for a greater effect much of hacking is in essence a QuickTime event watchdogs is an open Wild third-person shooter that gameplay the idea upon which the game was sold just doesn't have much of a part to play but it wasn't downgraded Ubisoft never said that these systems would be any more deep than they are in any of the marketing material that's important because it shows how untempered expectations was just as much a knife in this game's gut as lies in this case we weren't disappointed because we had been messed around we were disappointed because we expected better Aiden might be all-powerful but playing with that power is as shallow as spider-man PS Falls puddles not so super now huh but perhaps still a hero the Fox fights crime as he sees fit but watchdogs are rarely reasonable creatures he isn't necessarily a paragon of virtue that much is up to you enter the reputation system oh boy sounds sweet on paper a very simple way of dynamically creating consequences to your actions and that's what everyone assumed going in instead of using your super-hearing to find crimes from great distances you use the system to stop it from ever happening at all once you're at the scene you find a place to hide wait for it and as soon as the criminal pulls the weapon you intervene I think there's one other variation on this but that's the extent of the crime prediction mechanics in watchdogs there's nothing else to say what a joke saving a life gets you good rap taking out a criminal does two extra if you put him down non-lethal II logically killing or injuring civilians gives bad rap along with using unwarranted force on petty thieves and harming police officers to any degree logically for a public image simulator maybe not so logical from a game design perspective the reputation system harshly conflicts with the gameplay and in some cases is just broken you will fail random crimes if you come out too early which is ridiculous because you've saved a life no matter how you look at it that's a floor of the setup but what the game considers to be too early is plainly ridiculous you are only allowed to intervene when the UI goes from green to red but you as the player should be watching the actual NPCs it's still green when the criminal pulls the weapon it's still green even when it's half pointed which will fail you when you inevitably respond to the natural instinct to stop the crime before it happens this is so severe that it's responsible for at least half the times I've lost one of these events some crime CTOs doesn't predict those happen quickly in the streets but the only way to get good rep out of them is with a melee takedown because of course hitting him in the ass with a not very fast moving car instantly killed him and his unwarranted violence but caving his head in with a tactical baton no that's entirely appropriate for the situation this guy's robbed one wallet so we should kick his head in but five minutes later we're walking down the street siphoning thousands from bank accounts I'm not really grasping this game's moral compass not like the police we're gonna stop him but thanks to the rap system they'll have a lot more luck stopping you it takes hours of grinding crimes to get your rap up to a decent level yet you can say goodbye to all of that if you ever use any amount of force against the force negative rap exists to make you feel like an [ __ ] but I just want to play the game I just want to use the combat system because it's fun or at least to save my own skin by kneecapping an officer in my way kneecapping is actually a non-lethal option here which is great but it's nowhere near enough I don't want to have to choose between having fun with the police and the entire rap system fun fun that's the corner Ubisoft have back themselves into and it doesn't end there but to talk about that first we got to discuss something a lot more infamous the driving according to video game donkey the driving in this game was developed by a gay rattlesnake named Fabio enchilada being gay now come on my heart's read your hearts read that wouldn't have changed a damn thing being a rattlesnake on the other hand now I can see how that might have caused some issues but guess what I think the physics are fine yeah I said it I love racing games and I love GTA's physics it's not like I don't have anything else to contrast this against in fact I think it was the assumption that GTA is the gold standard for driving physics that caused this meteoric backlash the sense of speed comes across smoothly thanks to the motion blurring of the rear of the car you can J turn like an absolute pimp and they nailed the power sliding my complaint is that the cars are a little too weighty which is where it conflicts with a rap system you slide very wide in these cars which often takes you on too sidewalk and therefore into civilians you want to have fun with the driving or you want to maintain good rap having to choose now doesn't seem so logical so there we have it the rap system in all its glory which is none because every subsystem that ties into it is either broken or directly conflicts with fun I choose fun and that's why I spent most of my current playthrough as an anarchist well into the red screw it we live in a society so what's my punishment well negative rep taejun will occasionally appear on breaking news broadcasts and because Aden is a muppet he always wears the same outfit for some reason CTOs can't use this to find you but people do NPCs recognise you and unless you shut that down the police will be dispatched it's an immersive touch but something tells me that even Ubisoft one happy with a rap system because if that's their idea of punishment and I just might take up some corporate espionage Christ on a bendy bus any hopes of playing a vigilante is DOA thanks to this half-baked mess the crimes being boring and broken and the fact that your superpower is a QuickTime event this games getting less unique and more special by the minute tell you what though what I didn't expect was the Adan wouldn't need superpowers because he's already The Punisher watchdogs actually reminds me quite a lot of vanquish you can play that game as a cover shooter and if you do it'll be safe but they'll be slow and tremendously boring it's when you start setting aside your predispositions and experiment with the combat that you transform from a little into a supersonic acrobatic rocket powered battle TWiT with watchdogs it's the same thing except you become John wick watch and see [Music] [Music] bet you didn't know you could do that there's no talking about John wick without talking about visceral carnage the youtuber who popularized this play style with his gameplay compilations it was watching those that I realized how much more there is to get out of watchdogs combat system and that's what gave me the biggest push to get started on this video at a basic level watchdogs is a smooth refined third-person shooter there's a wide variety of weapons including assault rifles snipers shotguns pistols grenade launchers and specializations within those groups some weapons are silenced some shotguns are automatic one of the snipers is an ant I'm a trifle which is great for disabling the police as for the guys you'll be using those weapons against the AI is completely unremarkable but adequately aggressive what's important is that you'll never feel like the AI is too stupid to get you at any given position the variety ain't half bad either basic gunman then veteran which is that with body armor the snipers and the shot gun wielding in forces - who come with a full suit of body armor there's no range of which the enemy is ineffective the final piece of the watchdogs puzzle is the cover system which is probably the best thing you bazoft has contributed to the genre thus far it sure as hell ain't perfect dying to snapping to the corner facing the enemy rather than a way is a consistently frustrating issue but otherwise it's easy to control and it's very clear exactly where you're going my favorite feature is the fluidity of unsnapping which is done by pulling back instead of pressing a button all of that in one pot makes for a good third-person shooter but just like vanquish there's a lot more to find here the aggressive play you've seen is incentivized primarily by the gorgeous insta-kill takedown animations which work for every weapon type bar grenade launcher obviously without these you wouldn't have a reason to get up close and personal without the vault kills you wouldn't have a reason to parkour in combat but you do of course you can't melee everyone aggressive play is made viable in this case with the focus mechanic there's a button entirely dedicated to slow-mo which makes headshots and perfectly timed hacks easier and midair grenade detonations possible it all said when I was hacking on the run without sacrificing too much real time and of course it makes everything look badass with highly effective explosive options gorgeous takedowns and easy headshots the slow-mo becomes an addiction it's the closest thing to a John wick video game ending distance and I'm counting John wick hacks I've always been of the mind that the coolest ways to play should be among the best ways to play and watchdogs a Ubisoft game even has that going for it you want to kill your enemies quickly best way of doing that is combining an explosion with chain headshots finish off anyone who gets too close with a takedown there's no denying it's vastly riskier if you screw up out in the open you're a dead man but that's exactly what the highest level of play should look like wouldn't be impressive if there was no risk however if this system is so flawless you'd expect more people would know about it huh well it is among the best ways to play but the best way to play is lower risk and takes far less skill at the end of the day if the low risk strategy of sitting behind cover spamming slow-mo headshots and grenade launcher is effective then that's what players are going to do there's no threat in the game that would force you out of that setup nothing that pushes you to attempt more skillful plays you want watchdogs to really shine well your face gonna need to be shown that it can shine then bring your own intrinsic motivation to make it so additionally the weapon balance can get thrown way off by the grenade launcher the game never tells you to buy one or even when they become available but once you've got it the best solution for dealing with in forces and vehicles devolves from fun and interesting to the press of a button traffic battles for example ain't so intense when you can just introduce the cartel to a different type of blow with no vehicles or enforces though wiki and combat is still the quickest and among the best ways to play for the sake of science I dedicated myself to playing this way for the duration of the captured playthrough and it was without question the highlight of the overall experience Aiden Pearce is the Punisher of video games and I think that's incredibly strange in a game marketed on hacking surely this would be the third person shooter to have weapon limits in scarce ammo right instead we have an arsenal slow-mo regenerating health and John wick takedowns why is it this good at something completely off topic at any rate I'm sad to say Ubisoft use it as a crutch combat is dynamic by nature but otherwise there's not a lot to get from the campaign's gameplay surprise surprise tailing is used constantly but Ubisoft outdo themselves this time with reverse tailing where you have to be as close as possible to maintain the day to download it's the deepest the campaign's gameplay scenarios get stealth is occasionally forced but since guards can't hear the pistol' these encounters are trivial what Jacques seems to think that silenced weapons are actually silent doesn't take an expert to say that firing one three feet away from an enemy should tip them off not so here and as such training headshots with it is the only worthwhile strategy if you're looking to go unseen I just wish the spec ops 1911 wasn't such an early unlock because it makes most for stealth encounters trivial where stealth is optional skilled combat is quicker and someone will notice you eventually but the James Bond approach definitely should have been held back and is easily one of the sandboxes greatest flaws despite the campaign having the most basic objectives you've ever seen watchdogs still suffers from one of the worst conventions of modern game design needless restriction now this is nowhere near as garbage is Red Dead Redemption - but still you kill someone in a tale mission even when they're clearly no longer important you fail you come out to microseconds early in a random crime you fail your target is too far away even when you're rapidly gaining on them you fail because the nonsensical timer said so you came up with an interesting way to get into bloom HQ nope invisible wall screw you it navigates worse than where needless restriction is paired up with broken systems and let's make this clip the losing your target timer is straight-up broken it seems to trigger at random times and the limits of how far away you can be feel arbitrary you can be thirty meters away which is fine but then right after twenty meters is too far I think there's a line of sight system at play here but this only works as intended when it's in a good mood to be fair to the designers there are occasions when restriction isn't so needless if you need to steal a briefcase undetected because its contents will be compromised if there's any evidence of your presence then it seems like the fact that I've just iced everyone albeit undetected should cause problems well it doesn't or how about when you need to drive t-bones truck away from a squad of pursuers I blew them all away as soon as they came anywhere near me but the game still acts like they're right on my ass up until the end perhaps the solution isn't to have guaranteed failed states for killing someone here better it's to create interesting gameplay out of forced go stealth or force non-lethal traces using your hacks to distract guards in interesting ways or to manipulate the environment in significant ways if that's too costly then circumvent the problem entirely just don't have objectives that require perfect go stealth dipole the story and end the mission as soon as I've dealt with the problem even if I'll miss out on a few lines of dialogue that even add replay value it's honestly depressing that in a game with such a unique idea I'd be talking about the exact same issues as every other open-world game it's almost insulting that the only application other than QuickTime events of hacking in the campaign would be following some lines and an iPad mini game but you know what I don't think we're the only ones who were surprised because the story doesn't seem to keep up with what this game is it always assumes you're playing stealth like us before release it thinks this is about hurting but I didn't play watchdogs that way I wanted to mess people up and I did which kind of broke the immersion at times for example when Aiden is breaking into Rossi Fremont he says that there's no way he can get in alone so he'll need CTOs access it's supposedly a fortress but I've just John Wick's 20 armed men sneaking into Rossi Fremont doesn't seem so necessary from my perspective half of the story would be entirely irrelevant if we were just allowed to kick the door in and bust some heads imagine if that happened anyway you know I think it's kind of funny or is it kind of sad but the story does the exact same thing as the gameplay you'll see the almost stunning lack of our mission in watchdogs story is without question the most disappointing part of the whole experience this was a very novel concept for the time the entire city has rigged up to a privatized network but you have a way in from the touch of your phone the city itself bends to your well it's an extremely attractive idea to the game's target audience which shouldn't be insulting people like phones that's just how it is hackers can now be superheroes what an idea so what's the premise well Aiden was working a job with his partner who we don't know at a place we don't know for nothing more than money until something we don't understand happened and Aiden's niece who we don't know got whacked so now he wants revenge pretty generic can't to be invested but there's potential wait we get half of our revenge almost immediately you see the real story is going to be about rescuing Nikki an uninteresting character who we don't care about and to do that we're going to spend half the game's entire runtime trying to infiltrate the hood and then the other half poncing around with some or blackmail which itself is only relevant to the unknown one percenters of one city don't think I'm exaggerating most of watchdog's focuses on ways of getting into one building every interesting character or subplot is given the bare minimum attention default to missions t-bone what like three or four one building about 15 blooms CTOs forget it that's all background to the real story it's not unambitious given the concept it's unambitious for a generic revenge plot they don't even try with making you want to save nicky which is Aiden's primary motive for 90% of the game watchdogs went to all the trouble to great an interesting concept and then proceeds to do everything it can to be as uninteresting as physically possible the plot is almost entirely as I describe it above that's what happens in watchdogs but even being as unambitious as it is far too often this weirdly structured generic disappointment doesn't even make sense when you have to rescue Jackson for the second time it's because he went out looking for the kidnapped Nikki and the very first place he looks just happens to be a mafia stronghold oh of course earlier in the rossi fremont saga that comes a point where aiden just decides he's going to shoot everyone that impenetrable fortress we spent half the game trying to penetrate well Aidan's decided he's had enough of that now even though Iraq knows who we are and what we want because he caught bed bug snooping around for us that's another thing I don't get why on earth does a raclette bedbug lived Eirik tried to have bed bug killed a couple missions ago but now that he's unquestionably a traitor Iraq just lets him live we don't see what happens but if bed bug is able to call us right after Iraq dangles him out of a window something's not adding up how about when Aiden tells Damien to his face that he doesn't need him and then immediately says that he needs him right afterwards the story hits its all-time low when Nicky discovers that you're the vigilante are you being serious what did she think it might have been a different aiden pearce who wears trench coats and baseball caps the news literally displays Aiden's full name and image on the daily and I thought my jokes were bad the story has very few legs to stand on thankfully one of them is that watchdogs is a video game the narrative doesn't have to go to much effort to immerse you in the setting the hacking doesn't have to be deep to be of octave and it can stand on the merits of the gameplay - grunt tension and action while hacking in the story is certainly shallow the most evocative aspect of controlling cyberspace is the ability to pry into people's private lives there's not much gameplay associated with hacking Elena - cheese phone but lining about all aspects of her private life a family life and using it to set up a trap so she leads us to our uncle that's the kind of thing a hacker superhero would do being able to pry into anything you want it gives you the same feeling that being invisible would free to see anything and free of consequence another example of that would be watching people argue fight and shagging rossi fremont ain't nothing like watching a gangbang and getting head from a Tesco value security camera or discovering the details of the deepest criminal arrangements that the most dangerous people in the city is so very sure completely hidden knowing people's dirty secrets is extremely appealing to us deep down and this came off and uses that to draw you in similar privacy invasions are littered around the map and true to reality not everyone's darkest secret is something you want to know Oh where's Geordi he doesn't know we're watching Geordi is among the first things that come to mind when you're talking about what shrugs a story it's largely agreed that the characters of the story's greatest asset you might remember such statements after the reviews came out in 2014 I agree to an extent the characters are the best part of watchdogs story but that implies there's some level of consistent quality and there just isn't Nikki who'da player needs to want to save is the most generic human being to have ever been conceived some supporting characters like default are interesting and entertaining while the arch villains of the plot are so shallow they make zoella look like Plato we rarely interact with Damion Nikki's captor in any meaningful way and when he does contact you it's always some spin on we used to be partners Aiden what happened now get my data or I'll feed your sister into a meat grinder he's unchanging and dimensionless thank God for his voice actor lucky Quinn the mob boss who hired maurice appears about three times and he has even less to him than damien he's a mob boss that's the start and end of it critically important characters are barely characters at all and that's without doubt the story's greatest sweetness but the best of the characters are without doubt the story's greatest strengths who else to start with but Geordi his erratic archetype is a bit cliche today but was fresh in games at the time he's fantastically written voiced even better and he fits so well because he contrasts so severely with Adin Adin is a no-nonsense man and neither is Geordi but Aiden's upfront about that Geordi takes a eulogy to get to the point their personalities clash and as it is with contrasting duos that brings out the best of their personalities t-bone is much the same except he's a redneck instead of a neurotic sociopath he beats you up he puts the moves on Clara he blows dinger ding dang my dang along linglong through your headphones while he roasts the local militia with a spider trap the contrast is there and thanks to his legendary status as raymond kenny top CTOs Don he's very interesting too how was the people he got killed in the 2003 blackout affected him what really went down at Blu Clara is far less exotic but like the others she's similar and different to Aiden she's elusive careful and wants to see justice done but she's new to the violence for that kind of thing insights she's incredibly smart and also far more positive than Aiden she's willing to joke around with him there's a lot of depth to her motivation to as he find out that she's the one who sold you and Damien out to Quinn the guilt of having played such a large hand in Lena's death is the real reason she stuck around for so long watching Clara dies that guilt consumes her makes for a somewhat impactful death bedbug is no hacker but he is the focus of multiple missions in act 2 and he brings that part of the game to life he's in a complicated situation having failed Iraq and on the brink of being killed for it but also having a sky-high ambition when Aiden blackmails him into stealing Iraq's data the two even end up bonding in a very natural way bed bug is fully capable of understanding why Aiden is doing what he is despite the pair being from different worlds Aiden even becomes highly protective of him by the end creating a significant sense of guilt in the player when we think we've got him killed that leaves us with the cover guy the Fox Aiden is the driving of watchdogs characters because everyone thinks he's rubbish except for me before you call the police let me explain I love the ways Aiden operates I hope I've proved that he's kind of a badass but it's the mind games that interest me the most Aidan's skill in psychology is what drives much of the plot he very overtly attempts to manipulate Hara with intimidation he uses it to figure out what Damien knows and what he doesn't know what I'll say and what you want a live viewing of Iraq's confrontation with bedbug we learn how close bedbug is to the grave and Aiden uses that fact to ceremoniously blackmailing where Damian was able to exploit weak lines of code in the machine Aidan did it in reality people are his biggest weapon he hacks them as much as he does the city that's compelling and it makes everything he accomplishes so much more believable Aiden is in many ways hacker Batman and I like that driven by tragedy almost certainly unhinged and very questionable amoral Batman will do anything it takes to protect the innocent but if he isn't willing to kill the villains he helped create how was he not in some way responsible for the deaths that follow Aiden meanwhile is more than willing to kill everyone anyone who gets in his way it was a mistake that did Lena how many Lena's do you think died so Aiden could get his revenge how many families lost their fathers the ending of watchdogs struck me Aidan smashes the Merlotte's defense and corners the lucky Quinn who spent his entire life thinking himself untouchable into a small panic room with only a pane of glass between them bulletproof glass stops bullets but not signals so we hacked Lucky's pacemaker stopping his heart dead you've just reduced an entire criminal organization to Ashe and Aiden says that he doesn't feel empty he feels alive like he can breathe again Damian is next to the block this final fight is uncharacteristically climactic for watchdogs you spend the entire game hacking small objects from a phone now hack all of Chicago from a satellite you use blackout in a small area to slip away from the cops now take down the entire city you use the road network as your weapon now it's being fired at you the rules you took for granted are all being made something more but t-bone is the living example of what happens when you play God his well-intentioned blackout killed 13 innocent people and now you're doing the same damn thing for revenge when the credits rolled and Aiden gave his final monologue I wasn't impressed I don't look back anymore I don't regret I look forward everything is connected and I'll use that to expose to protect and if necessary to punish that wasn't badass was scary because we're seeing an unhinged murderer trying to convince himself that he knows what is right and who deserves to live or die it's delusions of grandeur and a terrifying reflection of bloom itself CTOs has given aid in a power no one has ever had before and he does with it whatever he feels is that not exactly the reason Aidan fights blue because they abuse the system because that level of control is immoral in many ways they're the same at first I thought this might not have been intentional but it's a fact that Aidan's character was partially inspired by Walter White his selfishness hurts hundreds including those around him why does he have to be likable he just has to be interesting and I for one think he is be a hell of a lot better if I was motivated by the same people he wants my favorite touch was the very last moment of the campaign you get to choose between killing or forgiving Maurice Aden begins the story believing that scum like him are everything wrong with the world but by the end he wonders if they're that different at all Aiden is someone else's Maurice do they deserve a second chance who decides that I've always taken this choice is putting Aidan on a final path if you kill Maurice you've made your decision you think you know what's right and you'll kill anyone who thinks otherwise if you let him go maybe there's enough good in Aidan to hold on to maybe they can both be better and I think that's a very powerful place to end it so then campaign objectives suffer from being too restrictive and too repetitive it relies on the strength of the great game play alone and does nothing to provide interesting or unique gameplay scenarios the story is unambitious treating its most unique aspects is nothing more than set dressing it frequently makes no sense whatsoever and it's thoughtlessly structured it's spending most of its time focused on one boring goal but almost none on far more interesting threats like default or dedsec or bloom watchdogs his campaign entertained me because I found the way that you hacked into people's lives either through the invasiveness of CTOs or the perceptiveness of Aidan's mind to be surprisingly evocative Chicago's beautiful atmospheric environments kept me consistently immersed the gameplay had me chasing the next rush like an adrenaline junkie and I greatly enjoyed the handful of adequately fleshed out characters Aidan most of all he wasn't hugely compelling he wasn't deep or thoughtful he certainly wasn't likable but I found the way that they applied the Walter White archetype to a vigilante remark intriguing I just wish some better writers got a chance to expand on his story instead of whoever's responsible for what we got it wasn't hard for me to get a grasp on how I felt about this story but I don't think I'll ever understand why it truly felt like it was trying to be uninteresting it's not like you bazoft had a bad track record four stories in their games so what's next for watchdogs well that was just the concern what do you do in watchdogs besides the campaign I remember when I watched the trailer that supposedly had the answers for the very first time I can't say I didn't have a seat on the hype train we were told that there'd be chess poker infiltrating criminal organizations criminal convoys all kinds of driving contracts digital tricks AR games the wealth of content seemed incredible the inclusion of chess was what blew me away the most because it said to me that they had so much content that they just started throwing in board games and you know what that trailer left plenty of things for us to discover at release two there was more in the game than advertised who are you and what have you done with my industry so how on earth did I still manage to come away disappointed simple because it was as wide as an ocean but as deep as Paris Hilton those AR games yeah in the trailer they said cash run was where you'd put your parkour skills to the test what skills you're following a preset route so this is just holding a single button to initiate automatic parkour animations but n vision makes that look like Mirror's Edge you're firing unimpacted bullets at wave after wave of aimlessly floating enemies for upwards of 25 minutes its boredom taken to a science chess poker in the betting Street game are all impressive in the trailer but in practice why would you ever play these in watchdogs what the game brands are site missions are criminal convoys Fixer contracts and gang hideouts yeah there's a whole three types that's sure to keep you entertained hideouts are some guys in an arena it's just a combat encounter except you have to melee one specific enemy in the pack to succeed if you enjoy the combat you'll enjoy this but it adds nothing except more basic encounters copy and paste it 15 times fixer contracts are racist though admittedly I appreciate the amount of variation in the 46 that exists many ages checkpoint to checkpoint but some have you evade the police some have you get to a destination with as little in your car as possible some have you switch into different cars made race to fall CTOs it's harder to get bored of these and to someone who has no issue with the driving in this game the first 10 were decent fun the other 36 I'll get back to you that leaves us with criminal convoys and it's easy to point at these as the ultimate example of copy and paste same idea 18 times over but that doesn't matter if the event is dynamic and unrestricted enough because it's likely you'll have a different experience each time you know the enemy routes straight off the bat which immediately creates interesting decisions you know that part see you get to choose where to begin your assault you're looking for somewhere with protection and that the AI have no easy escape that's usually a single Road with walls no offshoots in your car blocking off the frontal escape you could go further along their route but have to wait for longer you could go closer to them but risk not having enough time to set up good decisions risk reward it's satisfying to get a successful outcome when the game doesn't hold your hand how you choose to approach the assault depends on whether you need the target alive or dead dead is typically just great launcher and IEDs but if you miss you better act quick because they'll bolt alive requires a much more careful application of explosives and a conventional weapon traffic battles are always great fun in watchdogs thanks to the manipulable and highly destructible cover along with the civilians who you can rescue or sacrificed in an explosion if the enemy escapes hey you get a car chase grenade launchers can make these trivial if you prevent their escape well enough which is an issue but if you need the targets alive these don't face the same problem criminal convoys are nothing short of excellent that's what happens when freedom and dynamism meet but I don't know if any of these should have been considered side missions and it's a shame about the other two huh 18 out of 79 isn't exactly what I'd call a successful turn out side missions in watchdogs are a collection of basic objectives with minor variations that rely entirely on the strengths of the gameplay where have I heard that before what this is is a clever disguise in any other game should I say any other Ubisoft game a gang hideout is just on the map naturally a criminal convoy would simply be found while driving around the open-world here they put them behind a little icon and a loading screen so that they could be counted as side missions they aren't their bog-standard open-world encounters that aside from fixer contracts would have been better unseparated and on anyway time to smoke some crack crack dealers are marked by blue default icons on the map but you can also order some from your phone I guess the watchdog's world has finally figured out how to download Ram because in this game you can just download drunks who knew there are four flavors of drug in watchdogs and you can consider the micro games they present is about a third of the game site content we'll start small the first flavor is called psychedelic where you trampoline from giant flower to giant flower closer you get to the middle the more points you get and there's extra if you go through the hoops I have no idea why this is in the game but I'm not complaining why not right psychedelic doesn't have much to it you can't talk to aliens or trees and you can't watch our three dimensions fold up into an origami and you can't watch as your true place in the universe is bluntly placed before you causing your ego to shred away like tissue paper but on the other hand I do think Joe Rogan would like this next up is spider tank it's a tank but it does everything a spider can it's super strong it's never wrong and it's got a radioactive doll can it swing from a web it would rather blow off your head hadar there goes the taxpayers money this is a rampage essentially but that doesn't make it easy there are 15 levels each one is an objective from a possible 5 and each is harder than the one before it you can get destroy a set number of vehicles destroy an armored truck kill the right amount of police officers and so on I wouldn't say there's a whole lot of depth to this it's really just a matter of conserving cannon ammo and getting close enough for the Colora tank but it's still good fun until the novelty wears off hanging upside down from the railway as you open fire on the police force is a very unique action experience why is it found in watchdogs who knows but it's here so sure ok man if only real crack was like this I'm kinda new to judging acid trips in games especially ones that take themselves this seriously but I'm trying my best here this is madness the third trip not the idea but that's debatable because madness is essentially Carmageddon you're being egged on by Damian who I guess is cosplaying Satan to kill as many demons as possible color of the fire determines the points and for every soul you consume you charge your abilities each of which kills more demons so it's a positive feedback loop positive feedback is exactly what I'm giving here this trip is legitimate fantastic and I'll admit a lot of that's down to the sexy synth way than the background but the gameplay is just as strong like spider tank there's a progression of objectives killing X number of demons getting X high quell streak escaping the cops and driving a far enough distance fairly basic driving challenges essentially but in madness the driving can truly shine the cars are too weighty for the tight streets in Chicago but you're aiming to make a mess here you want to be power sliding into groups of pedestrians and that feels amazing it's deep it's exciting it's absolutely great but alone alone is genius this is clearly some kind of depressant because you're alone in a city where everyone else is gone and the streets are ruled by robots all searching for you their leader Nikki she hates you this is Aiden's nightmare which makes it almost personal alone gets to feed off any investment you have in the main story Chicago is shrouded in darkness and that darkness comes from generators the game is to sneak past the robots up to the generators and hack them you do that the veil is lifted and the robots die you win when Chicago is entirely purged symbolic perhaps for Aiden's outlook on CEOs it might sound basic but there's a lot of game here at the core the skill at the forefront is stealth you've got to weave your way through the lights which can crisscross and progressively offer smaller and shorter windows to get through you can move faster with sprint but robots can detect the noise you can sacrifice momentum and risk being spotted for a melee tank down which is balanced by continually fresh spawns as you get closer to the generator once you hack it you get a skill points every trip other than psychedelic has its own tree and for the most part that's just for replay value but alone is different every upgrade is invaluable hacking the generator from a higher range abilities to disable all robots in a given area an EMP gun every skill point you assign will save your life at one point or another and so just like the gameplay leveling up consistently presents interesting decisions alone is stunningly deep and it gets better your detected do you want to go lethal or non-lethal lethal is a greater risk because you have to slow down but non-lethal has them back on your tail in less than 10 seconds you can't afford to be wasteful because ammo is scarce it gets better still positioning the boundaries between the light in the dark realms are not equidistant from the generator in other words the generator is not at the center of every dark realm so it's up to you to choose which part of the city to insert from Kars lose power as soon as you cross the border so it's a very high-risk time saver to build up as much momentum as possible and Ram the veil allowing you to coast for 10 or 20 meters when that gets you detected there's quite a skill cap in running to EMP grenades our hackable so it can be smart to throw the bomb ahead of you and wait for the enemy's pursuing from the front and the back to meet before detonating alone is not only deeply symbolic for Aiden but it also has one of the most striking atmospheres I felt in games the name couldn't be more appropriate it's deep tense fun and the outfit for freeing the city is a badass reward alone is easily among the greatest sight content I've ever played in a game the entire digital trip menu is a brilliant surprise how this magnificence found itself hidden behind an app in a smartphone but 15 copy-and-paste combat encounters per titled sight mission baffles me you just can't compress these to severely contrasting extremes into one rating the site content is both a media is slog and absolutely fantastic I can only hope we see digital trips return for Legion so what's next for watchdogs I've asked this question before but all of us ask it twice once after we're done with the campaign and once after we're finished or bored with the site content usually the answer is nothing move on but there's a reason I'm still playing GTA 5 in 2019 because it has easy access gameplay that's the goldmine of replayability very very few single-player developers look to tap why do I come back to spider-man web of Shadows after all these years because I can load it up in seconds and I'm interacting with the best gameplay it has to offer swinging and combat no hindrance I can just jump in and blow off some steam that's the exact reason I'm still playing prototype and it's the same thing for GTA but GTA is just a bit different the driving is decent but there's no exciting combat encounters for me to engage in around every corner is there technically there is police a consistently strong action experience that plays out just a little bit differently each time and the reason for that is dynamism dynamic game is unscripted cause-and-effect you make a move the game makes a proportional move back you respond the game responds that's how the world works and that's how you end up with a thousand different possibilities in any situation if you fight the police they fight back if you keep fighting they fight harder if you move they move bringing combat encounters to any region of the map everywhere is the arena if you run they chase if you continue to run they block your path if you dodge it they might be slowed down if you continue on to the sea they follow in the appropriate vehicle if you get far enough away you hide if you hire do they attempt to find you so you ensure you're out of sight and if you're detected it all starts again until one side is overwhelmed the wild always has a response there's a consequence to every action which creates a constant conflict in which the situation is always changing the gameplay is consistently challenging and the decisions you make are always interesting that's why police systems can do so much for replayability when they're refined as well as GTA's because great gameplay is there whenever you want it and is very often something fresh I won't act like GTA has mastered the police system far from it but there's a reason I'm playing GTA and not watchdogs for fun in 2019 dynamic gameplay is a chain which is as strong as its weakest link the consequence of a decision needs to be proportional to the severity of that decision for example if I whip out a grenade launcher and the game drops a nuke on me that kinda breaks the chain Fleetwood Mac would not approve watchdogs like Belle Delphine fans is burdened with a number of kinks if you choose to hack the l-train the police have no response you can leave your game and come back an hour later Aiden will have escaped without a scratch similarly if you at any point choose to get in a boat the police cannot respond they have no coastal force not even helicopters because the snipers can't shoot through the roof and they give up in seconds sometimes though the tables are turned helicopters come out at two stars but they're all packing highly accurate snipers who will kill you in three shots or less if you don't start running or get in a vehicle this is made vastly more severe by the fact that Aiden Pearce doesn't work his greatest weakness apparently is the inability to look up you have to be able to see the helicopter to hack it or shoot it so when it hovers directly over you your donald duck three significant imbalances weaken the chain immensely but the police aren't off the hook yet the dynamically created gameplay isn't always fun because it isn't always fair God have mercy on the soul of whoever okayed this big green petri dish prick it's like that horror movie it follows because that's what it does it chases you across the map which makes the same mistake GTA does it forces you to focus all your attention on the mini-map and as a result has you crashing into everything because you're too busy playing this iPad game the frustration comes into play when you find yourself in a situation that you physically cannot escape either because they follow faster than your car moves or because multiple appear directly in your path check out this bridge here what have I meant to do activate my warp drive I'm in the fastest car in the game when CTOs is after you your fate is in the hands of God which is as annoying in game as it is in real life though there are consumables for slowing it down these aren't good enough when the system is fundamentally bad you can imagine how immensely frustrating the inconsistency is when you need to get to a marked location on the map without the police following my next issue is the AI the police in this game Ram at light speed first ask questions in hell in some ways this is decent sticking with you keep things tense and it allows you to run your pursuers into the environment or oncoming traffic the problem is their disregard to personal space results in you slowing down not speeding up which feeds right into the helicopter problem and the reputation problem Aden only uses lethal weapons on foot but you're gonna be on foot to win the police of RAM car into the fifth dimension you've got kinks in a dynamic chain you've got counterintuitive AI and I'd honestly rather be detected by Charles Manson than this green bastard one more time if the police are incapable of producing consistently enjoyable easy-access gameplay then what does watchdogs have to offer long term the answer to what's next for watchdogs is wait what uh-oh of course everyone compares watchdogs to Dark Souls and I mean it basically is just art souls with guns both games have two words in the title both games have only one s in the title and both games have invasions easily one of the most impressive features in watchdogs is the way you can seamlessly appear in someone else's single-player world without them knowing a thing once you've found the poor innocent unsuspecting player who still plays watchdogs in 2019 you must either follow the player for a set amount of time or begin a hack it's your job to stay undetected until the download completes it's theirs to find you before that happens if they do you run they follow and soda bullets if you escape you fail far less severely than if you were killed this cat-and-mouse can be incredibly tense due to the time limit and the scarcity of good places to hide you could find yourself duck down in a car as the target sequentially blows up every vehicle nearby you might need to rapidly adjust positions to avoid being profiled or blend in with a crowd so you don't stick out it's a remarkably unique gameplay experience what stocks can be proud of that I'm incredibly impressed that they didn't just make this a basic PvP invasion and leave it at that this is what was next for watchdogs and it still is today I was being invaded regularly on my playthrough just a couple weeks ago but unfortunately I didn't always jump with joy when I realized that smoke weed for life 4/20 was trying to rob my six gigs of lairs ography because the thing with invasions is they're involuntary I'm just trying to get to the next mission I'm not always in the mood to play cat and mouse for five minutes in many ways Dark Souls is more forgiving because you choose the risk when you take the benefits of going human this frustration has resulted in most people I know turning off invasions in the menu which means far far less unique experiences it's a damn tough situation for Ubisoft there's no win-win my suggestion would be AI invasions the first time you're ever invaded in game is i nai that's not a real player so just take that and make it an enemy type you wouldn't feel so frustrated when there's no social consequence to losing and you could still get a degree of that gripping gameplay on top of invasions you have multiplayer deathmatch races and free roam course with watchdogs being in direct competition with GTA and GTA being what everyone goes to for a multiplayer city sandbox these modes weren't exactly popular but there still was a lot of fun to be had especially in free roam I remember getting together with all my friends in a lobby heading over to the bridge under construction and setting up our own little deathmatch course I never told them that I had the destroyer which could punch through concrete so every time I wall hacked them they could only assume it was down to my leet skill ah good times I remember once I had a friend search for me but because the game never told you when a player left I had him convinced for about 30 minutes that he was just a hair away from finding me all the while I was doing hideouts in single-player that's the worst thing I've ever done in my life yeah I had good times on watchdogs he didn't it's a shame that watchdogs greatest form of long-term appeal is something that too many people will choose to avoid leaving them generic multiplayer modes they could get anywhere else and a deeply flawed police system this game has my eternal respect for having the balls and the creativity for the invasions they're special enough that they can keep people playing I've seen it but that's for the few for the many it was time to move on I'd like to take some time in this video to talk about something I don't think anyone will expect music and I'm not talking about the OK radio it was the original soundtrack that impressed me the most if you go ahead and listen to it now you'll probably agree the music and watchdogs is boring uninspired trash wait but yeah there's a bit of a problem here you see most of the worthwhile tracks in the game are all unreleased they had to be ripped from the game files stitched together and uploaded to YouTube the reason behind the disorder was that the music would dynamically respond to your actions that works great but it means that the track has no set order and no set length that's probably the reason all of these gems were left hidden of course the absolute legend shavax II who just did it himself proved that that reason wasn't really good enough the bunka mission is literally just walk around an island doing basic puzzles but because of the gorgeous track in the background it's not just that it's Aiden feeling a sense of happiness for the first time in days it's the rediscovery of a mysterious legendary place but the core of what Aiden is fighting against hold on kiddo is nothing more than a bog-standard trafic battle but thanks to the pounding synths playing as you fight it's not standard it's a fight for the only thing in the world that matters to Aidan it's do or die collateral is a typical arena fight with typical reinforcements and typical escort mechanics but the music makes it so much more than that sounding a lot like the dream is collapsing collaterals elegance and power ramps the intensity off the charts the gems continue throughout the game and they never stop drawing you into the moment Ryan red cell should have won awards for this instead the soundtrack was forgotten and no one talks about it to this day there's certainly groups of people out there who believe the same thing is true of the entire experience an underappreciated gem that still holds up today I disagree but I also disagree that watchdogs deserved what it got what it got was annihilation the very title of the game unfairly plagues people's preconceptions of its sequel its DLC and Legion watchdogs isn't trash I've never seen anything in my dumpster that has entertained me for 15 hours with interesting characters and fantastic gameplay the digital trips are some of the best site content I've ever played the multiplayer is creative and unique Chicago is beautiful and immersive the music is nothing short of amazing watchdogs deserve deep and severe critique not a scorched-earth policy and yet I understand why they dropped the nukes watchdogs marketing was a betrayal of not just itself but of people's expectations of next-gen gaming as a whole you could see the collective disappointment from the surface of the Moon and Ubisoft needed to know that what they had done was unacceptable in fact let's have a look at some of the trailers so you can see for yourself why this happened everyone knows about the drastic graphics downgrade that in-game could be a Best approached with mods on PC some YouTube demonstrations of what is supposedly ray-tracing shaders were uploaded a short while ago and even they don't match the e3 demo but don't assume that was the only way we were manipulated onto the hype train you hack into anyone's life tap their phones their music their accounts identify criminals disrupt communications you just can't know it's like this was written by a lawyer because they're just skimming the edge of what is technically true identified criminals can only happen in the exact same way during random crime events and you can't hack anyone's life unless you assume that everyone's life is as deep as an income and a single defining sentence and if you cross the wrong citizen you risk a bounty on your head that's simply not in the game pursuing enemies are just reinforcements not a dynamic bounty system as implied again this isn't dynamic the use of a conditional is misleading there's never a threat great enough to force you anywhere in the open world and threat levels certainly don't change based on your actions here we see a black out from the surrender position I think this is one of the most iconic moments from all of watchdogs marketing but you can't do that in game there's no surrender animation for drawing cops close enough for a takedown some of it is straight-up lies and though a lot of it is legally true it blatantly implies something more when people jumped into Chicago on May 7th 2014 with no warning thanks to the review embargo a Herculean backlash was inevitable what happened to watchdogs is exactly what you were soft deserved it's just not what watchdogs deserved I think it's incredibly ironic that a game with themes of corporate control abuse of the system abuse of power would end up as a demonstration of greed more so than cyberpunk watchdogs presents what seems like an inevitable dystopia futuristic dystopian walls consistently feature a class disparity so great that the powers that be can buy their superiority in increasingly more meaningful ways Deus Ex shows us what happens when those who can afford it simply buy a better body a faster mind watchdogs isn't so literal they buy the eyes of a city they buy people's secrets they buy the power to make their will or reality a political problem stands too close to a steam pipe ah what a shame it just happened to detonate even what bloom does in-game with the power we know they have for is surprisingly limit what happens when CTOs doesn't let you get on the train when it doesn't let you use your accounts or open your car door what happens when your life can be turned off remotely because the system said you are a criminal and there's nothing you can do to fight it CTOs is a very elegant way of introducing the same level of control as microchips in the body without the need to open you up it's a terrifying one deeply relevant to our today there are places where you can't travel if you speak out of turn there are places where you can't turn a corner without eyes I appreciate watchdogs for presenting a modern dystopia it isn't a future the parts already exist they need only be combined I will truly never understand why the game having developed such a world chose to tell an irrelevant story at least I can speak for the maturity with which ctos is tackled bloom deal under the table with fixes and hackers to take care of problem CTOs can't they employ blackmail instead of overt murder to maintain a public image they use that blackmail to install puppet politicians a game with themes like this should take itself seriously it should aim to be as believable as possible I mean hacking the world from an iPhone and Aiden being The Punisher with no training is what one might consider unlikely but the tone is right another shot with better writing that could have been perfect which of course brings me on to watchdogs to this game's plot actually focuses on its themes bloom is the primary antagonist but the ridiculous levity with which it tackles them totally undermines any weight the game could have heard yeah let's just outright slaughter half of bloom security force caused worldwide blackouts and carve our way through every known mob in the city forget PTSD or losing oneself or any real consequence to going after the most powerful people on the planet let's make bad jokes in our hacker cave as we laugh at the nerdy slogans on each other's t-shirts and stuff our faces with pizzahut when you tackle mature themes in such a childish way you don't get to act like you've delivered a productive message too much control bad can't be taken seriously when you've chosen to tell it through a ridiculous goofy comedy with no stakes and no consequences fight the power comes across as we live in a society the Teletubbies would be better suited for this than [ __ ] boy slim and his band of Rage Against the Machine groupies this franchise still hasn't lived up to his theme what dogs could have had a deeply meaningful story instead it serves as a warning of a different kind Ubisoft still pays the price of lies so what's next for watchdogs of course there's more as a disproportional cast in the form of DLC how does the saying go plan for success prepare for failure they certainly plan for success just didn't realize that after the incident no one in their right mind would pay for watchdogs again smartly their first move was a new digital trip conspiracy you shoot cyborgs in their weak spots that's it it makes psychedelic look like a masterpiece moving on watchdogs is flagship story DLC bad blood is just a little depressing to look back on because I've never spoken in all my time gaming - one other person who played this understandably some but bad blood didn't deserve to be ignored though that's not what I was thinking when I started it straight off the bat the game pitches a new hackable object the door creative I know the idea being you Delora guard into an office lock the door behind him and there'd be that why on earth would you go to all that trouble when you have a silenced pistol and a big R spanner I don't know it was a waste of development time and your own gotta admit the bug that got me killed by turning my direction inputs into wild uncontrollable spinning didn't help bad bloods case or the bug three minutes later that wouldn't let me get into the l-train or the bug 30 seconds after that that sent the l-train into the Shadow Realm while I was still in it it's safe to say that this DLC did not make a healthy impression but then things got going bad Vlad does what a DLC should it's not just more of the main game instead it uses the main game as a base and expands upon it to be fair t-bone is just Aiden but with a huge throbbing wrench instead of this tiny little stick but it's the mission design that does the work in the second mission tobias Frewer a man who has had to pay for t-bones mistakes is kidnapped and thrown into the trunk of a car you have to track him down before his phone battery runs out seems easy but the twist is you only get a small blip of signal followed by five seconds of nothing this way you'll never know when they've taken a turn you've got to predict where they're headed and plan an intercept at the most problematic spot for example if they're headed towards a highway you can't know if they'll get on it but it will be the biggest problem if they do so that's the place to be a very fresh logic-based challenge created by a very simple imitation I love it later you're walking Tobias through the city in an attempt to lure fixers out of hiding the profiler uses the crime probability meter on every suspect which creates a consistently tense atmosphere as you wait for the fixes to pounce well they do which is an understatement a shear battalion of them assault Tobias's hideout but his chronic paranoia finally pays off the surrounding cameras are now armed with machine guns and grenade launchers since they work on a cool down system the idea is you hop from one camera to another constantly changing your angles and providing a usable weapon hacking used for mass murder Aiden would be so proud the most fascinating mission mechanically is without doubt Blum Forge why well because you can see watchdogs too being built before your very eyes Blum Forge immediately reminded me of the sequel's level design through the verticality outside and the more casual friendly aesthetic inside first stop on the tour are the laser grids which make for some pretty decent movement challenges we certainly had lasers in watchdogs too but I don't remember it being taken this far in the same spirit we also get our very first in Walt hacking puzzle the perspective shift encourages a bit of movement to make sense of all the angles and directions it almost doesn't feel like a flip phone minigame not impressed enough well say hello to Eugene yeah it's the jumpers daddy which we use in much the same way using vents to hack otherwise impossible obstacles kicking some ass with an inbuilt stun gun it's like a demo for the sequel and it's easily the best mission in the expansion for a 10 mission long campaign I'd say those mechanics are more than enough to keep the experience interesting but bad blood continues to provide fresh and exciting levels even when it's relying on basic watch dogs gameplay' the narrative of bad blood is that default is trying to be the Joker sure seems like the type because one of the eleven people killed in t-bones blackout was default suicidal brother inbred mau5 is hell-bent on destroying you stopping that from happening takes you on a merry chase from using a crane for fighting fixes in a cargo ship to boating over to a dilapidated mansion now being used as an illegal hospital - escaping that same area as the police and fixes go to war the variation in setting works wonders for both the story and the gameplay which finds its spectacular climax in defaults madhouse you get some gorgeous combat arenas you get stunned within four sonic sound in a room made of television screens and finally you come to a maze the idea here is that you guide Tobias through the maze using the cameras which ends up being remarkably tense the default then transforms amazing to cover and it becomes another arena considering how damp many of the final few levels were primarily composed of giant combat arenas it's impressive that the level design was able to keep things fresh easily the strongest encounter in the DLC is the home invasion I said when I came into the lower levels of the silo for the first time that if this ended up being a combat arena later in the campaign I'd call the police on you bazoft well it turns out that's not considered an emergency so I'll tell you instead just by looking at this place you know exactly what's going to happen here developers don't make intricate arenas because they're pretty so I knew our charming base was going to be bathed in blood seven missions before it was an easily avoidable oversight that said The Bachelor takes place here is certainly worth the wait it's a damn fine arena and it's filled with hackable traps too just like the junkyard except without ding a ding dang a tangle or linglong the gameplay on offer from bad blood is already strong because it uses watchdogs as a foundation but it builds off that in all the ways I hoped for by providing creative gameplay scenarios interesting new mechanics and fantastic arenas to put your John wick skills to the test there's not a great deal to be said about bad blood story it is only 10 missions but I will say that it shows the exact same strengths as watchdogs the characters are what you're here for we understand why default hates t-bone and we see that in defaults characteristically mad style I found myself far more invested in t-bone this time - he's burdened by the guilt of the people he got killed in 2003 and he's been fighting to redeem himself ever since tobias lost his job because of t-bones blackout and now the fix is hunting the pair of them for revenge t-bone is in many ways responsible for pushing the already paranoid Tobias to abusing meds we owe it to DES buyers to fix this and we want to see t-bone succeed that's a big green tick though he isn't quite as expressive as his watchdogs appearance t-bone still has a lot of personality where it counts a no Tobias might be slightly irritating at first he gets a remarkable amount of character development we see him go from a terrified paranoid who blames t-bone for all his problems to someone willing to fight back against default and bloom in a satisfying way the epilogue cutscene they share at the end is shockingly sweet for a game that takes itself so seriously bad blood delivers a highly enjoyable campaign it's easily worth the money at a discount but it doesn't stop there what's next for bad blood is a truly impressive wealth of side content the main attraction is Street sweep still nothing dynamic sadly but surprisingly challenging imagine gang hideouts with guaranteed reinforcements if you're detected two targets for non-lethal takedowns and about a hundred thousand guards standing in your way the extra non-lethal target makes preparation and thinning the herd with hacker balls worthwhile for the first time since combat has such a high chance of killing the guy you had to work there's a lot of fun to be had with stakes this high an ubisoft clearly want you to test yourself what with the flaunting of leaderboards oh how I love constantly being reminded that some guy from Bhutan beat my street sweep score you also get a sweet version of fixer contracts which require your car to stay above a certain speed they're fairly tense but the download' Street sweeps are fairly rubbish the range bass download in no way separates this from a normal combat encounter you can just kill everyone and then nab the files with no hassle it's a good thing then that you don't have to do them all like with the trips your incentive his outfits and a skill tree though this is no alone there's nothing even remotely interesting here the value of the mode is a consistently enjoyable fully playable endgame type side mission I'll put my hands up and accept that these belong behind a loading screen the last thing to check off on our to-do list is bad Bloods investigations the base game had these two but they were typically just collectables in a copy-paste side mission at the end incredible well they're back the bad blood makes them a hell of a lot more interesting fox hunt was my favorite it's always nice to see an expansion set after the base game deal with the fallout a small-time hacker discovers the bunker she calls blum blum finds where eden plans to save for the time being and set loose their bounty hunters you put a stop to that they were gunning for jackson's therapist in any one livin at Nicky's place to picking the Hitman out from the crowd is a unique scenario but I don't quite understand why you have to go non-lethal given the fact that they can just try again I yeah that's an oversight but there's a lot to love here Aiden's ridiculously edgy voicemail and best of all Aiden attempting to make banana bread the other investigation is called the Council of dabes focusing on the edgy - OOP dedsec and Clara a member you find an audio log recorded by Clara that explains that she's been working with a hacker who likes to wear a mask he's a genius but he can act childish especially thanks to his anger issues they're looking to find the bunker but she's worried about what he'll do with it she is of course talking about default yeah a default turns out she was working with him before Aiden further into the investigation you find out the dead sex leadership is turning up well dead they're being targeted all of them the entire Council of Dave's I think the fact that the leaders of dedsec are all canonically called Dave is possibly the best thing to come out of watchdogs it makes me wish eighth and watch with Chicago dead SEC more often and that is everything bad blood has to offer bad blood is appropriately named it's yet another victim of Ubisoft mistakes because no one played it and no one cared but it has value it's a great expansion to a solid base game and if you enjoyed watchdogs or plan to revisit it bad is easily worth a buy on sale so what's next for watch stocks after 2014 some thought death of both the franchise and its memory it didn't die it persevered and in 2020 we'll get to see what that was worth but I feel like any move watchdogs makes is still tainted by the reputation of the first game it hurts to watch the sins of the father are not the sins of the son watchdogs too caught flak before release and after just because of the shared name an assassin's creed suffers a similar curse I remember how people talked about origins as just another Ubisoft game as if it was wholly derivative of its predecessors which is not just falls out right but it proves people weren't even trying to be fair Legion is trying to pull off something creative something unique something that for the first time in a triple-a open-world title could create dynamic narrative investment in characters and as such create never-before-seen replayability should you pre-order only if you enjoy watching history repeat should you be hyped just control expectations should you give Legion as fair a chance as every other game yes watchdogs is not doomed it's been improving consistently since 2014 and I want to see it reach as far as it can thank you for watching as always if you'd like to help make these video sustainable patreon donations are hugely appreciated and make projects on this scale way the hell easier to justify thank yous with the cherry on top go out to Lex Williams just anima Ludvig Sahlin leon cotton doll Holi shift chants Tucker Douglas Griffith combat wombat sim Noah be subtly Thomas Lyndell Juris pure ins ABI L Hudson Raza Benjamin Carter Bishop Nelson John lammle Fabian flack Zachary Scott shade quarter gamer captain excellent Noah for Sega snazzy Mazzy and Dominic Jaworski I hope to see you next time goodbye [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Whitelight

Views: 1,865,881

Keywords: watch dogs, watch dogs gameplay, ubisoft, watch dogs bad blood, watch dogs review, watch dogs review 2019, watch dogs bad blood review, watch dogs bad blood gameplay, watch dogs john wick, watch dogs john wick style, watch dogs critique, whitelight, white light, watch dogs chicago, aiden pearce, watch dogs downgrade, watch dogs dlc, watch dogs e3, watch dogs gameplay pc, watch dogs in 2019, watch dogs multiplayer, watch dogs music, watch dogs ps4, watch dogs video essay

Id: Kk2G6zc5pKo

Length: 75min 11sec (4511 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 25 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/bluebottled]

With some effort and modding you can get this looking pretty great on PC now. I played it recently and had a lot of fun with it, especially since it has mechanics that Ubisoft couldn’t easily slap onto every other IP. The only thing that remains awful is the driving.

[u/RawImagination]

Watch Dogs 2, despite the tone difference, is a far superior and engaging open world. It really felt alive with the multitude of interactions and how you could hack a building whilst sitting outside.

[u/Jer9-Carver]

I don't really agree on him about the notoriety system, but that's probably because I played it as a full-on ghost stealth game than the john wick game. You can still make errors or accidentally hurt civilians, it's not like dishonoured where you kill a few guards and your entire good playthrough is ruined.

Going on a rampage and shooting every guy that gets in your way sounds exactly like being an anarchist the system says you are, whereas my playthrough always just confirmed that i'm more of a vigilante. Though I agree it seemed to collide weirdly with the overall plot at times, regardless how good or evil you played.

While he enjoyed the massacre and violence, I really enjoyed being able to play a game where stealth didn't just mean "kill everyone silently" kind of way. You can use your hacking abilities to never even set foot into enemy territory to complete some objectives. The game gave plenty of ways for full ghost mode and I really enjoyed that. I really miss the stealth genre.

[u/Nimonic]

My strongest memory of Watch Dogs is the nearly overwhelming sense of dread when finding the victims of the serial killer.

Killing him was rather cathartic.

[u/GeneralApathy]

I can't believe it's only been five years since this game came out. I played it for a few hours a while back and, while it was serviceable, it didn't draw me in at all.

[u/Dreossk]

Loved the two games, the cities, the freedom and especially the multiplayer. I really liked Watch Dogs 1's tailing mode. I would infiltrate people's game unbeknownst to them, find em and follow them all around town while the timer was filling up. When I was able to, I would often end the tail by waiting to the last 97-98% and getting in a car and flooring it while aiming for the target. At 100% I would disappear from their game (and them from mine) but the empty car would stay and smash them. I couldn't see but I knew. So much fun. I loved it, played many games, and eventually got to top 4 in the world in tailing. I was sad to see the mode not making it in Watch Dogs 2.

The map is very good in the sequel but as many said, the characters are extremely cringy and annoying and the story makes no sense. Aiden was no saint but I preferred him to Marcus. Also, it sucked to see the weapon inventory being limited to two, that pretty much forced the player to always take the silenced assault rifle and the one shot sniper to defend against invasions. I don't like when they add limitations for "realism" in a game that's supposed to be about fun and freedom. I felt like the gunplay was dumbed down too compared to the first one where it was excellent. Still loved the multiplayer and having to hide in the great verticality of the map, always planning an escape route. Even a failure could be fun!

I'll get the third one in London that's for sure. I'll hope they'll bring back tailing mode and more importantly, the bigger inventory of the first game and its gunplay. Working for an anti-terrorist organisation might help justify the guns more that then the hippster from the second game. Skateboarding could be fun too if it's true.

[u/KinoTheMystic]

I'm in the minority because I absolutely loved this game when it came out. I was so immersed, I would always walk around the city with my hands in my pockets, casually hacking those around me.

It was pretty cool how, before being arrested in the story, you could surrender to the cops, and then cause a blackout to escape (like shown in one of the trailers).

The invasion PVP was so amazing and intense. I remember I hid behind a counter in a shop, the guy I was hacking noticed me and I climbed over the counter, ran out the shop and drove off in my car, all while being shot at. There was also a time where I parked my car in an alley, and I "hid" in it, then when he wasn't looking, I got out of the car and put myself between him and the car while he was trying to look for me.

[u/whitespacesucks]

My favourite part of the game was that hack that shut the power off for several blocks, looks great at night and is a lot of fun.

Unpopular opinion but I also really loved the driving, perfect balance between GTAIV's road boats and GTAV's on rails handling.

[u/Noobie678]

Kinda wanna buy this again for my PS4 (originally owned it on PS3) just to play Alone and Spider Tank again