Hurricane43
Member
Never fails... I just enjoy open world games, easy to please, after long day of investigations it's great outlet. Have fun and enjoy your time in the open world
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Watch_Dogs 2 Review Thread - Make Cyber-Love not Cyber-War
- Thread starter ekim
- Start date
Never fails... I just enjoy open world games, easy to please, after long day of investigations it's great outlet. Have fun and enjoy your time in the open world
I thought this would be an interesting exercise:
Watch_Dogs 2: Polygon: 8/10
Watch_Dogs: Polygon: 8/10
Wow, it improved on it's predecessor so much!
Watch_Dogs 2: Gamereactor: 9/10
Watch_Dogs: Gamereactor: 9/10
Watch_Dogs 2: God is a Geek: 9/10
Watch_Dogs: God is a Geek: 9/10
God is a Geek seems to have a thing with fatigue, they should take more naps.
As quoted above, that's the same score he gave the original.
So if you loved the first Watch_Dogs you should absolutely get out there and snatch this one up too, it's meant to be just as good.
Might be an interesting exercise, but it's a pretty pointless one. Same outlets, but different reviewers.
Great point for folks like me who might have not followed Jim before his Youtube solo days.
Oh, hmmmmm. WD1 released before I started using Jim for my reviews, as his views seem to match mine pretty close. However, if he also gave WD1 a 9, that may be the second time in ~8 big games where his views might not match mine hmmmm.
I'll have to give it a full read, then.
AusRoachman
Member
Glad to hear good things about npc reactions . I liked wd1 so I will definetely love this , despite the cringey hackitivist stuff .
Do they still have the special hacks where you see mini stories ? I.e someone wanting to comitt suicide etc , loved that in the first one . Would be especially cool if you could save them etc (ie person crying about paying bills , choose to boost there bank account etc )
Do they still have the special hacks where you see mini stories ? I.e someone wanting to comitt suicide etc , loved that in the first one . Would be especially cool if you could save them etc (ie person crying about paying bills , choose to boost there bank account etc )
ISee
Member
Music and sound is important but that wasn't the offputing factor for me. Your review gave me more of an impression that world building, story, characters and missions are descent to good (sometimes) but not really something special or unique.
And world building (story, characters, vo etc. etc.) really makes or breaks an open world game for me.
WD2 is on a whole different level to WD1. It's AC1 to 2 levels of improvement, no doubt about that. Surprised the first has an 80 to be fair, it was incredibly bland and uninspired.
I'll just quote myself again then:
Also gave BioShock Infinite a 10/10. Dying Light a 5/10.
i worry that a lot of reviews gave watchdogs 1 (a game i hated) the same score as watchdogs 2 (a game i'm interested in) am i in for another huge disappointment, despite the glowing praise?
I thought i was crazy when the first watch dogs got high scores, but now Watch Dogs 2 gets even better scores. I really can't understand it. I thought the first watch dogs was pretty bad and this one doesn't look that much better(other than the setting). And i'm a fan of most open world games like GTA and Sleeping Dogs.
I just don't understand how Ubisofts mediocre games can get so good scores. The Division also got high scores. There always seems to be a big difference between the critics and players when it comes to Ubisoft games. It's like the bad things barely counts for critics. Like the close to non existent story in Ubisofts games.
It really is a mystery to me.
I just don't understand how Ubisofts mediocre games can get so good scores. The Division also got high scores. There always seems to be a big difference between the critics and players when it comes to Ubisoft games. It's like the bad things barely counts for critics. Like the close to non existent story in Ubisofts games.
It really is a mystery to me.
Same outlet but different reviewers, read the reviews not the scores.
Maybe - just maybe - your personal taste doesn't jive with that of popular opinion. That's not a bad thing.
I like Ubisoft open world games just because it's so easy to zone out and listen to podcasts while playing them.
excaliburps
Press - MP1st.com
Our (PlayStation LifeStyle) review of Watch Dogs 2 is live just now: http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2016/11/14/watch-dogs-2-review-hack-the-world-ps4/#/slide/1
8/10 - Praised a lot of things except multiplayer (since there's a tendency to be annoyed more than anything).
Karak
Member
Yep. Thats exactly how I hope my reviews will work. I come to MY result but explain all the things that got me there hoping folks might go other ways if they can ignore some of it or like some things I don't.
I've never really bought this excuse.
Whenever I've heard reviews discussed by those in the games media (Jeff Gerstmann has done this a bunch, the guys at Eurogamer have talked about it, and others too on various podcasts over the years) there's always been a sense of the collective responsibility of an outlet.
Yes, individuals have opinions, and all a review ever is is an opinion, but there has to be some level of agreement across a publication about what review scores mean. If you're running a site with multiple reviewers, there still has to be some level of "normalisation".
Edge has always reviewed with a lower innate base than IGN. I know that Eurogamer has a different bar for Essential than PC Gamer has for Editor's Choice. Every site has their own review policy and scoring metrics. Comparing a site to it's own history is not, cannot be, meaningless.
I know this contradicts the thread and personally I do enjoy review threads but if you're comparing WD1 and WD2, it's a whole lot better. The story, characters, driving, graphics etc are all improved and better.
I'm trying to say that maybe you should ignore reviews, watch some streams instead and pick it up if it LOOKS appealing to you.
I'm trying to say that maybe you should ignore reviews, watch some streams instead and pick it up if it LOOKS appealing to you.
My review on SixthAxis went live a couple hours ago! http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2016/11/14/watch-dogs-2-review/
Karak
Member
That doesn't contradict the review thread. You literally gave a mini review lol
Key word there is: history. There may be a collective responsibility of an outlet. I'm sure all the staff at each outlet is roughly on the same wave length right now. But that may not have been the case two and a half years ago. I'm not going to delve deep into each outlet and look at staff turnover, but I suspect that each outlet is not the same as it was 2.5 years ago. Gaming has changed. Tastes have changed. Watch Dogs was certainly looked on a lot more favorably on release than it is now. That's how these things go.
It's funny you bring up Eurogamer. They gave the original Watch Dogs a 7/10, but they won't give this one a score. Because as an outlet, they've changed. Heck, even the reviewer of the original isn't with them anymore.
You might find value in comparing the two, but you're comparing two different authors, an outlet that's very unlikely to be the same editorial lineup and a gaming landscape that's changed. So just posting two review scores and going "look at how interesting this is" doesn't help much if you're not willing to concede that it's by no means a 1:1 comparison.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
It's almost like their catalogue isn't actually mediocre. Also the only games where the story is minimal are the ones with a focus on MP. Otherwise they typically create fully realized campaigns with decently sized and in a lot of cases well written casts.
Yeah, but still... I do enjoy playing most of them like i enjoy watching an action movie, but 8 and 9/10 scores just seems crazy to me(and did someone talk of goty?). There is seriously so much that seems objectively mediocre about the games that seems to go unnoticed. Like the driving, upgrade system, collectibles, gameplay, and the story. Every Ubisoft game has the same generic story with the most generic characters.
DomsPlaying
Member
Interesting. IGN seems an outlier, and do they usually score reviews in progress? That seems contradictory to the whole "in progress" approach if you ask me..
Glad to hear otherwise it's reviewing mostly very well if not excellently. I was one of the few that enjoyed the 1st game so even more excited now after these impressions!
Glad to hear otherwise it's reviewing mostly very well if not excellently. I was one of the few that enjoyed the 1st game so even more excited now after these impressions!
Haha, I was giving my first impressions. The game is better imo. All I'm trying to say is if people are giving WD1 and WD2 the same score, yet saying WD2 has significantly improved, people are going to find it hard to judge and may decide to not play an overall good game.
It's weird and I can't find the right way to explain.
Garrett Hawke
Member
I imagine Ubisoft games are very popular outside of the "hardcore" audience tho, based on the sales figures. AC3 alone for example sold 12m in a tiny window. They appeal to the people who buy CoDs and FIFAs who have gaming as a hobby but aren't necessarily enthusiasts.
R_thanatos
Member
This is a good news.i skipped WG1 because it felt incomplete to me and this one looks like it's gonna be great
nelsonroyale
Member
Encouraging reviews, although I am rarely a fan of Ubigames. I generally find them mechanically repetative and a bit sparse narratively. This one looks more interesting though.
The writing of the characters can be fine, the plots themselves are often uncommonly incoherent. The AC series being a prime example. I have never played WD though, so I have no real comment there.
The writing of the characters can be fine, the plots themselves are often uncommonly incoherent. The AC series being a prime example. I have never played WD though, so I have no real comment there.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
It sounds more to me that you already made up your mind about a game you haven't played, (like, how is the upgrade system even flawed or objectively mediocre when it's pretty self explanatory?). And even just looking at their catalogue of big games from last year the bolded is a laughably untrue statement.
Can you elaborate on that a bit? Part of the reason I enjoy their games so much is that the stories are usually very straight forward for an open world game, (so much so that just a straight playthrough of that while ignoring side content won't leave the viewer confused or whatever), and are comprised of mini arc working towards a greater goal that get more and more interconnected by the end. Take AC:Brotherhood for example where you have to complete missions for each guild while working towards wrecking Cesare's empire in Rome. In terms of player agency they've been embracing that style of storytelling more and more, FC
and more recently, Watch Dogs 2 being prime examples.
Karak
Member
Ahhhaaa.
I do now get it. The way you first wrote it didn't come off that way but you are right. If you gave something a 8 and then give the sequel and 8 and say its better in all ways the review should contain very clear examples of those comparisons and maybe even a reminder of possible review scoring changes since. Ya thats just courtasy really.
Yautja_Warrior
Member
So apart from the known issues with multi-player, it seems to be a solid game and a decent improvement over the first game, that's pretty much all I need to know.
Ubisofts characters are forgetable. Bland, generic, shallow and boring. People can barely remember the names of them. I can't even remember anyones name from the first watch dogs. It's like they asked their writers to write the most generic story they can come up with. There is a reason why you don't see any fan support for the characters like other games have.
Cardon
Member
The site I'm with has posted their Watch Dogs 2 review as well.
Overall my colleague enjoyed the game, loved the hacking and elements of the story, but was disappointed with the gunplay and lack of the story going more in-depth about certain topics.
Overall my colleague enjoyed the game, loved the hacking and elements of the story, but was disappointed with the gunplay and lack of the story going more in-depth about certain topics.
Two Left Sticks said:
bryanee
Member
Bruce Springsteen
Member
IGN actually gave a preliminary score? Are they trying to be a parody?
I'm absolutely willing to concede that, but I still think it's worthy to note that which has come before, and that comparisons are inevitable and justified
Gaming has a terrible memory.
Game development builds on the shoulders of giants, but too often forgets who those giants were. Games writing has a deep and rich library, but too few willing or curious enough to look through it. Games fandom has decades of content at it's finger tips, but is mostly willing to forget it all for a taste of the new hotness.
That many outlets thought so highly of the original Watch_Dogs, honestly and with conviction at the time yet in ways which seem laughable with hindsight, is worth noting. That these same outlets are responding so similarly to Watch_Dogs 2, both in terms of score, but also in terms of the specifics of language used, is also worthy of note.
Look I get where you're coming from, there certainly is a homogenized feel throughout Ubisoft's (modern) catalogue of titles despite how Crossing Eden might feel. The gameplay isn't deep and the story is simplistic and follows similar beats. They've got their formulas and they want to try new themes and settings within those formulas. But by and large despite the similarities, they all remain very playable, I guess is the word. To go with a pretty tired food metaphor, it's like going to a restaurant with a very large menu. It might not be as great as a specialized place that crafts things to perfection, but they do a lot of things, and a lot of things well enough that you'll enjoy a good selection of what you pick, enough to ignore the stuff you don't like. The selection/elements come together in a way that the general public and reviewers respond to, because there's enough to satisfy them.
And again, for me, the simplicity of the gameplay and the ignorable story makes it perfect to as background noise. Something like GTAV demands my attention. A Ubisoft title won't, and that's why I enjoy it.
Yeah, it's not like there's any fondness for generic clone characters like Sam Fisher, Ezio, Rayman or Jade & Pey'j. You won't find a single person who likes them. Not one. No one gives a shit about the possibility of Beyond Good & Evil 2.
It sounds like you're projecting your own feelings about Ubisoft onto the world at large. Please tell us more about your opinions on "objectively bad" game design.
I'm exactly in the same boat I don't know what to do ... The only character that doesn't seem THAT annoying is Marcus ... but his crew ... blergh