So I've come to understand my biggest complaint about the game, and one I'm really surprised to see reviewers pass by. The missions are all exactly the same, and the story is never told through gameplay.
I wanted to get really into the game; I was hyped when I started playing, and I got even more giddy riding into town to go to the hacker-space for the first time. It looks so good! The city really is alive! I figured I'd focus on the main missions, but I just could get connected or motived for the longest time, and I didn't get why. Today, after beating quiet some mission in succession - one of them literally being to show up a place to get the setup for the next mission, then I had to drive somewhere to start the next mission - I figured out just how similar every single mission is. Imagine stripping all the story. Imagine being plopped down at the beginning of the gameplay part of each mission, and every single one would be exactly the same. You're at a location, you've gotta find a way to get to an objective inside a restricted area. You need a key, you need physical access to a panel behind the key, and you need to reach the physical objective. The RC Jumper can be used, or you can get there yourself. The missions offer variety in how to approach it. You can run everyone down with a fork-lift, or you can find a way to get to the objective without being spotted. That part is good, and it works, but every single mission is like this. Compare this to Watch Dogs 1:
1) Tutorial mission
2) At the motel - get introduced to intercepting crimes
3) Go to your sister, get introduced to those characters. Have to chase down someone in a car and take them out.
4) Suddenly in a new part of the city you don't have ctOS-access to, so your next mission is to get that, and get introduced to gaining ctOS-access.
5) Get hacked
6) Pick up some guy in a car and get him out without being spotted by the police
7) Hack to get access, reach a thing to hack and get out. (WD2 type)
8) Hack around to open up some place to reach a person (WD2-ish)
Watch Dogs 2:
1) Tutorial mission
2) Get introduced to side-missions (optional to pursue, however they are all like this, too)
3) Hack a place, get a key, get access to a physical thing (I'll just write H(ack)K(ey)A(ccess) when the missions are like this)
4) HKA - (this is where you
, so one could argue that this is less HKA)
5) race
6) HKA (office)
7) HKA (camp)
8) HKA (
)
9) start mission, mission over
10) HKA (truck)
11) HKA (home)
12) HKA (main offices of
)
13 HKA (tower)
See what I'm saying? They're all the same type of missions, and they're so bite-sized. It feels very disjointed. The story is never told via the gameplay. It's very "OK gang! We need to this this one thing, so Marcus, you have to go get access to the server and get the thing. Then you do you hack, get key, gain access. Then the story continues. You could take away the gameplay parts and put "Marcus did the thing" in caption between the cut scenes and get a fully functional movie. It starts feeling like a chore to get the story to progress, especially given that the T-Bone DLC of WD1, where you have endless missions that are exactly like this. It reminds me very much of that.
I think the HKA-missions are well done. You have tons of variety to go about getting it, as I've already said. The problem is that this game doesn't tell any of its story with the missions itself. The karting side-missions were exactly the same. Go a place and get a part. The research-point side missions work, much like exploring in WD1 worked. However, the biggest gripe I have with WD2 is that for the good characters and amazing backdrop they've created, with an interesting premise of evergrowing databases of personal habits that we don't care that corporations have, the game has a hard time engaging me because the story are small segments between gameplay, where I have to repeat a very similar gameplay thing to progress the story. The lack of cohesion, where gameplay disjoints the story, creates, to me, a lacking impact of the story, and makes gameplay resemble a chore where the reward for completing a mission is another small part of the story. WD1 did a remarkably better job at the story mission being what the story was about.
I'm not far in, so it could change it up, but so far, that's how I feel about it.
I wanted to get really into the game; I was hyped when I started playing, and I got even more giddy riding into town to go to the hacker-space for the first time. It looks so good! The city really is alive! I figured I'd focus on the main missions, but I just could get connected or motived for the longest time, and I didn't get why. Today, after beating quiet some mission in succession - one of them literally being to show up a place to get the setup for the next mission, then I had to drive somewhere to start the next mission - I figured out just how similar every single mission is. Imagine stripping all the story. Imagine being plopped down at the beginning of the gameplay part of each mission, and every single one would be exactly the same. You're at a location, you've gotta find a way to get to an objective inside a restricted area. You need a key, you need physical access to a panel behind the key, and you need to reach the physical objective. The RC Jumper can be used, or you can get there yourself. The missions offer variety in how to approach it. You can run everyone down with a fork-lift, or you can find a way to get to the objective without being spotted. That part is good, and it works, but every single mission is like this. Compare this to Watch Dogs 1:
1) Tutorial mission
2) At the motel - get introduced to intercepting crimes
3) Go to your sister, get introduced to those characters. Have to chase down someone in a car and take them out.
4) Suddenly in a new part of the city you don't have ctOS-access to, so your next mission is to get that, and get introduced to gaining ctOS-access.
5) Get hacked
6) Pick up some guy in a car and get him out without being spotted by the police
7) Hack to get access, reach a thing to hack and get out. (WD2 type)
8) Hack around to open up some place to reach a person (WD2-ish)
Watch Dogs 2:
1) Tutorial mission
2) Get introduced to side-missions (optional to pursue, however they are all like this, too)
3) Hack a place, get a key, get access to a physical thing (I'll just write H(ack)K(ey)A(ccess) when the missions are like this)
4) HKA - (this is where you
steal the car
5) race
6) HKA (office)
7) HKA (camp)
8) HKA (
temple
9) start mission, mission over
10) HKA (truck)
11) HKA (home)
12) HKA (main offices of
haum
13 HKA (tower)
See what I'm saying? They're all the same type of missions, and they're so bite-sized. It feels very disjointed. The story is never told via the gameplay. It's very "OK gang! We need to this this one thing, so Marcus, you have to go get access to the server and get the thing. Then you do you hack, get key, gain access. Then the story continues. You could take away the gameplay parts and put "Marcus did the thing" in caption between the cut scenes and get a fully functional movie. It starts feeling like a chore to get the story to progress, especially given that the T-Bone DLC of WD1, where you have endless missions that are exactly like this. It reminds me very much of that.
I think the HKA-missions are well done. You have tons of variety to go about getting it, as I've already said. The problem is that this game doesn't tell any of its story with the missions itself. The karting side-missions were exactly the same. Go a place and get a part. The research-point side missions work, much like exploring in WD1 worked. However, the biggest gripe I have with WD2 is that for the good characters and amazing backdrop they've created, with an interesting premise of evergrowing databases of personal habits that we don't care that corporations have, the game has a hard time engaging me because the story are small segments between gameplay, where I have to repeat a very similar gameplay thing to progress the story. The lack of cohesion, where gameplay disjoints the story, creates, to me, a lacking impact of the story, and makes gameplay resemble a chore where the reward for completing a mission is another small part of the story. WD1 did a remarkably better job at the story mission being what the story was about.
I'm not far in, so it could change it up, but so far, that's how I feel about it.
