I recently platinumed Watch Dogs 2. Platinuming WD2 wasn't too hard. Most of the trophies were pretty easy. You have the expected "complete missions, side missions and try some side activities" combo. Some of the cool easy ones I liked are "go this particular store and buy pink crocs", "hack a robot". The ones I didn't like were the ones that seemed to be dependent on RNG like "take a photo of a drunk person vomiting" and the multiplayer ones as they took a long time and were unpredictable. Given the game is 4 years old, it took me quite a while to find 5 separate bounties and kill other players. Still, if your game is going to include online trophies, I feel this is the most bearable approach. I feel the game could have had some more "cool gameplay tricks" trophies like "balance your jumper on the drone". I prefer trophies like this because while they can be easily done, they teach the player a trick they can carry with them throughout the game. I did have to use a guide several times to find many of the collectibles and places for other trophies.
The game itself was pretty good. I love the added options to hacking and the generally open-ended approach to mission design (don't use guns. The game is much more fun when you get creative). It let me complete missions how I wanted and express myself through my approaches and can feel hilarious if you do something that shouldn't work but somehow does. One of my favourite tactics is when a mission wants me to go in a building but the doors are locked. Rather than using my drones, I called the cops on a guy inside because NPCs like cops can automatically open doors locked to the player even when it doesn't make sense. Creative use of your other abilities like making a car drive backwards on its own to run a guard over, using your drones to divert guards away, causing a blackout to get yourself access to place are all fun and practical. Stuff like that is why I rank Ubisoft's open-world games as better than much of the competition like Rockstar and Guerilla because they either make basically linear adventure games that happen to be in an open world where the player is failed for trying to be creative or the open-world rarely ever is used in the missions which tend to be more standalone or the Open world hardly has any tools or creative uses to function as an extension of the player.
The Multiplayer is also quite fun. The way it's seamlessly integrated at times into the world (like, you can be walking around and be presented with another player to hack, or be hacked yourself, or a bounty in progress etc) is great because it can make any part of the map suddenly host an activity even when they don't have regular activities. You can be exploring a small shopping area on a pier and then suddenly you have to find the guy trying to hack you. Or a chase where you try to nab another player takes you across parks, beaches and an entire walkway across buildings. The only modes I didn't like were the classic deathmatch and King of the Hill type modes as they lack the dynamism and unique mechanics of invasions and bounties. They just devolve into bog-standard 3rd person shooting. The Co-op infiltrations missions are cool for a bit but they get repetitive.
I dislike that some mission types from WD1 were removed like Criminal Convoy. I feel the added options for vehicle hacks would have been quite fun. The game has Armoured Convoys for multiplayer but I feel having some wandering around in Singleplayer as well could have been fun. Digital Trips have also been removed.
In terms of story and tone, I prefer WD1's approach. The darker and more gritty approach lets more of the mechanics be justified in the story. Like, I can imagine Aiden from the cutscenes using guns, using the profiler and blowing up steam pipes. His whole deal is that he's not really a good guy and at least a bit unhinged. But Marcus and Friends are 20 something-year-old goofballs that are presented as the good guys. The story makes a huge deal about how moral they are (they're upfront about their app. They refuse to use the profiler to recruit people as then they're no different than the companies they're fighting). Yet, many missions require Marcus to hack and blow stuff up. Your additional abilities can cause a lot of collateral that can hurt many innocent people. Most of the time, Marcus' enemies are just regular security guards.
I think it could have been an interesting opportunity to tie progression into how the player manages followers.
When the game first came out, I wrote the following on r/watchdogs:
"If I were designing the reputation system in WD2, I'd make the following change to it
Reputation, Followers and progression are tied into the same system
.There are 3 kinds of followers: Casuals (stealth and passive bonuses), Anarchists (destruction), and Stunters (vehicles)
The player's actions during gameplay determine which group of followers increase and decrease which determines which upgrades and abilities the player will lose and gain
For example, if the player starts killing a lot of cops; the anarchist following will shoot up, thus giving the player more destructive and non-subtle abilities. But will cause the stunters to decrease slightly (making the player lose some car abilities) and cause a lot of casuals to leave (making the player lose a lot of stealth and passive abilities). This means the player will have to consistently keep an eye on their actions and manage these followers to get the best they can. This would also mean the player is always leaving a mark on themselves based on how they play. This could factor into the story as Marcus's crew has one of the 3 follower types and their feelings towards Marcus and missions could change depending on his actions. And people of the followers could even have helped out Markus in game. e.g Anarchists could help use violent force to help out Markus in firefights with gangsters and cops, stunters could provide higher quality vehicles lying around and even mark escape routes and routes to take down fleeing vehicles, Casuals could lie to the cops and make it harder for people to recognize Marcus etc. This would also make the game and world feel more alive, responsive and cool. It would hurt the story and tone as WD2 has a very lighthearted story despite the dark gameplay, but at least the gameplay would be better. "
Looking back this suggestion. there are some challenges to consider: how do you balance multiplayer? Invasions require the target not be killed. So Players who'd invested in The Anarchist and Stunter playstyles would be at a disadvantage. And the opposite would happen for Bounty Hunts. The story would need to be rewritten to accommodate the styles. Still, I think it would have been a much more cool way to fit gameplay and story together."
But let's ignore that and look at the story we do have:
I enjoyed the crew and interacting with them. All of them (except Horatio) had distinct personalities, skills and place in the team. I wish there were MGSV style calls and GTA V style hangouts and Saints Row style team-ups you could do with them to get some more character interactions out of them. I like that they all contribute and help Marcus so it feels like Dedsec as a whole are making progress rather than it being the Marcus show. Horatio was a bit disappointing because his role in the team seemed redundant and we got very few interactions with him before his death. He's not even available in the hideout to have optional chats. Other hideouts have no-names that have a couple lines but not a guy who's in the main character's group? The crew also don't have much of an arcs or individual stories. Wrench gets his time to shine. Horatio shows his stuff despite not getting much beforehand. Sitara and Josh don't get many missions exploring their characters in the spotlight or giving them an arc.
Marcus also doesn't really get an arc. He joins Dedsec and instantly hits it off with all of them. He doesn't really change his outlook and is still the same character by the end. He hardly even gets any negative repercussions of his actions. Marcus has his identity restored and marked as a most-wanted threat like twice and both times do very little to affect him. While I know this idea kinda goes against the lighthearted nature of the story, I wish the game gave him an arc where he questioned his purpose or something. Imagine if the story starts out with the crew welcoming Marcus in but are still skeptical of him. He works missions to win over each member (thus also giving them a spotlight). He starts out being idealistic about how Dedsec is going to improve the world but as the story goes on and the opposition gets heavier, he is forced to slowly start doing some less ideal things. Like, initially, he loves how Dedsec doesn't steal others' data but as the police try and arrest him and the crew, he has to steal their data to get everyone out of there or something. Stuff like that so when the villains show up, they are presented as having a point because Marcus and crew had to get their hands dirty and do what their enemies did in order to even be able to fight back. This would add some more substance, moral ambiguity and even realism to the story. And Marcus and crew would have to grapple with the fact that they aren't as perfect as they're trying to be and that would be far more interesting than the crew basically being the same and the only issue they face is that world's equivalent of Facebook gave them some fake bots as followers (yes, there were other consequences from that but it seemed so insignificant as a blow to Dedsec).
The overall plot of Dedsec exposing things companies are doing is cool and engaging. But many of the missions feel disconnected. There is very little sense of rising action and climax. When the final mission started, I was like: "ok, so this is happening" because it hardly felt much different than past missions you did. The main antagonist, Dusand, is also kinda uninteresting. I get that he's supposed to be the one connecting all the missions together and using Dedsec's success to scare more companies and governments to turn to Blume and CTOS but it feels disconnected. Whenever he would show up, I would be like "wait, who's he again?" for most of the adventure.
Compare this to Watch Dogs 1 and its main villain, Damian. Damian kidnaps Nicky so Aiden has to play along and try and outsmart him. Damian continues to taunt Aiden throughout the story which reinforces his presence and makes the player want to take him down. When Aiden initially gets the better of him, Damian exposes his identity which hurts his relationship with his family and requires them to leave Chicago. In the last mission, Damian gets full control over CTOS and uses Aiden, and the player's own tools against them. You'd think the CEO of Blume would have more tricks up his sleeve.
I think it would have been a lot better if Dusan was more hands on and present throughout the story. Have him fight Dedsec more directly so his goals are either he gets rid of them and thus ends a problem, or if they manage to get wins despite his actions, it drives companies to align with Blume so it's a win/win for Dusand either way. The game already tries that latter part but I feel making Dusand more involved makes him even more of a threat and makes it all the sweater when the player does take him down.
The Side Missions tend to be cool.
You have "Side Stories" that are mechanically simple, either infiltrate a place and get a thing or hack and interact with objects. They're more used for narratives rather than pure gameplay. Stuff like hack into ATMs and choose how to deal with customers, hack into Ubisoft and leak their next trailer are cool because of the context rather than because hacking into them is a challenge. I'd argue the Driver San Franciso missions also fall under this camp with the gameplay being driving.
Research Points, Key Data and other collectibles often require solving mini-puzzles in the world of how to get close to them to get them. They're decent.
Races come in different flavours: Drone, Boat, Bike and e-kart. They're also pretty fun. I wonder why there aren't street races or custom races by players?
-Other Stuff
I wish there was an in-game social media like how GTA V had Bleeter and Spider-Man had its feed. It would have been a cool way of letting the player see some feedback for their actions.
Past a certain point you stop getting EXP. Granted, I already had most of the skills but I wish the game didn't have a cap for levelling up.
The map is really detailed and well done. NPCs have tons of animations and interactions, Restaurants have fully detailed menus. There are so many hidden details you can find through ScoutX, hacking phone calls and text messages. And the game is only 40 GB. I'd rather we have games like this rather than 80+ GB behemoths that have more detail but with diminishing returns.
So yeah, WD2 is a really good game and an easy game to platinum. The gameplay is quite good and the story is a decent time if a little lacking. Is it better than WD1? I'd say yes for the gameplay, no for the story. The integration of multiplayer makes great use of the open world as thus most of the mission design.
I'd recommend this game.
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