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Watch Dogs: Legion - wacky adventures in dystopian London

Drakron

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
The first game was kinda political in the sense it was about the abuse of power in a world with increasingly less privacy.

The second game seem to be they wanted to do the opposite tone of the first game and they werent sure of what it should be about and the entire plot ends up being a rehash of the first game plot but even dumber (the first game plot work in the sense of how people were playing each other).

This is just Ubisoft REALLY WANTING FOR WATCH_DOGS TO BE A THING! because lets face it, the first game wasnt that well received and it wasnt because of the plot and Woke_Dawgs Too sold even worst because they managed to create a game people that played the first didnt want to play and the people that didnt play the first were not going to play the second just because it was woke and "funny" and "witty". Most of the pitfalls of the series lie with it being a "Generic Ubisoft Open World Game" with all the tick boxes ... and the fact they lied with the E3 tech demo.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
The only way they can remotely pick up my attention is when they drop this tropey shit of "We are the resistance. " and actually allow me to be a criminal asshole that only think on myself and don't give a shit to oppression, GTA style games are games about freedom and mayhem and not this bullshit of developers shoehorning their tropey by the numbers "We are the resistance" story on your throat.

On the trailer, that lady said some of the most generic self help BS to that drone specialist guy and he just joined in convinced by that bullshit to save the world from the evil Drumpf followers despite almost dying a few minutes ago, all of this on a game where you can just afterwards take an assault rifle and kill everyone you see like a maniac to just return to save the world from the british Drumpf like a goody two shoes good hacker cuck again.

At least GTA has the good sense of making you play as criminals and assumes it is a parody to not be taken so seriously. They could just go with an Ocean Eleven style of plot, recruit a bunch of people and try to apply the biggest scam of the history and piss of the organized crime and the FBI, are you going to survive? They could learn something with Hitman devs on how to design sandboxes, previous Watch Dogs was only avoid the brain dead Ai, do pipe puzzles and press the Awesome button for fucking hours.
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
Unless they radically changed how they present their stories in all these games I wouldn't expect choice over who you work for or what the goals are. It does sound like lethal/non-lethal is going to be a focus though, like Deus Ex.
 

Markman

da Blitz master
Patron
Joined
Dec 31, 2002
Messages
3,737
Location
Sthlm, Swe
Serpent in the Staglands Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Resistance thing is mostly commercial angle to sell you the game. The game is still gonna be about derping around playing high tech mischief with sneaky and puzzle elements.

Its scenery changed and its back to a bit darker tone like the first one only this time with cockney accent.

The NPC recruitment thing seems also bit meh with lame bonuses like 20% extra damage vs turrets that could be easily solved with more interesting itemization. IMO, its mostly a fluff thing. There's nothing one char can do that the other one cant. Granny will just do it in a slower pace.
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,326
Location
Flowery Land
Taking open world recruitment and pairing it with something Peace Walker's personnel system* would be nice in a good open world game. Like in Saints Row you could have teams that do different types of crime (replacing the magical income every day) while you're off screwing around with open world nonsense.

*where not only are the characters someone you can play as with varying ability baselines and perks, but also do non-combat tasks like R&D. Even combat minons could be used in "outer ops" dispatch missions.
 

Drakron

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
At least GTA has the good sense of making you play as criminals and assumes it is a parody to not be taken so seriously.
Yes, the first Watch_Dogs did take itself serious and it did had some serious shit like the slave auction that would not fly today because women being sold as slaves? that sexist (despite the fact its true but modern white slavery that been happening for a long time now goes against the narrative) that kinda worked on the tone, Aiden being a vigilante? it was kinda weird because sure you could but felt off but then again Aiden one-man-crusade was part of his state of mind.

The problem still is Ubisoft wants to sell Watch_Dogs but thinks the problem is the narrative of the game, this is why the tonal shift from the first to the second and now to the third because people didnt like DedSec much there, its still being political because its 2019 but like the memes in the first game, the political message is obsolete and this is why you dont try to insert contemporary political issues on a game because chances are when it comes out, nobody gives a shit anymore and they will be dated and possible cringe in retrospective.

This is also GTA worked because they never did a contemporary setting and were always about some decades back as it allows then to actually capture the feeling of that time just right. I am sure if they did a Britexit they would make a load of jokes about "are we out yet?" and the state of a parliament that REALLY doesnt want to do it and drags its feet and accuses the others from dragging their feet.
 

ADL

Prophet
Joined
Oct 23, 2017
Messages
3,680
Location
Nantucket
The first game was kinda political in the sense it was about the abuse of power in a world with increasingly less privacy.

The second game seem to be they wanted to do the opposite tone of the first game and they werent sure of what it should be about and the entire plot ends up being a rehash of the first game plot but even dumber (the first game plot work in the sense of how people were playing each other).

This is just Ubisoft REALLY WANTING FOR WATCH_DOGS TO BE A THING! because lets face it, the first game wasnt that well received and it wasnt because of the plot and Woke_Dawgs Too sold even worst because they managed to create a game people that played the first didnt want to play and the people that didnt play the first were not going to play the second just because it was woke and "funny" and "witty". Most of the pitfalls of the series lie with it being a "Generic Ubisoft Open World Game" with all the tick boxes ... and the fact they lied with the E3 tech demo.
I really hope this one does well because their current formula which started with Assassin's Creed Odyssey really clicks with me. Everything they've put out since 2015 has been :incline:
 

wblocksidge

Barely Literate
Joined
May 11, 2019
Messages
4
Yahtzee Croshaw says he contributed some writing. I'll take that as probably a good sign that they'll get the tone right?
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
Unless they radically changed how they present their stories in all these games I wouldn't expect choice over who you work for or what the goals are. It does sound like lethal/non-lethal is going to be a focus though, like Deus Ex.
And like Deus Ex Mankind Divided, it will be boring as fuck, on those games non-lethal weapons are as easy to use as lethal weapons what kinds defeat the purpose of you doing a non-lethal play through as it will be pretty much a carbon copy of a lethal play through but with some slightly different cutscenes at the end what is lame as fuck. I doubt they will try to do things like the Dishonored series where non-lethal playthroughs at least required a few extra steps and exploration if you wanted to do a 100% non-lethal playthrough. Ubisoft is lazy as fuck and I doubt they will implement those mechanics on anything that isn't the most basic implementation possible.
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
And like Deus Ex Mankind Divided, it will be boring as fuck, on those games non-lethal weapons are as easy to use as lethal weapons what kinds defeat the purpose of you doing a non-lethal play through as it will be pretty much a carbon copy of a lethal play through but with some slightly different cutscenes at the end what is lame as fuck. I doubt they will try to do things like the Dishonored series where non-lethal playthroughs at least required a few extra steps and exploration if you wanted to do a 100% non-lethal playthrough. Ubisoft is lazy as fuck and I doubt they will implement those mechanics on anything that isn't the most basic implementation possible.

If you haven't tried that Deus Ex prison mission DLC you might want to. It offers some pretty nice "hardcore" options like non-lethal and no powers that have logical reasoning behind them and the mission seems designed around it. Beating that thing with no cybernetic powers was pretty challenging and felt actually rewarding, unlike non-lethal which just feels like using different ammo for storyfag reasons I don't even agree with.
 
Joined
Sep 16, 2016
Messages
296
I'm in an apparent minority who really enjoyed the first Watch_dogs game. It had a pretty huge emphasis on stealth, though admittedly of the more "move quickly and punch people in the back of the head" variety than the Ultra Sneak Thief kind. I liked that the story leaned into being a sort of noir niche where bad shit happened, the main character was far from a saint, and you got to brutally murder the villain in the finale. No sudden heel-turn and "No I won't kill you I'm better than you" wimpy bullshit.

Furthermore, WD1 actually fixed the core issue that the sequel immediately began struggling with. That whole "You are the Resistance" thing. It had an in-game system to track public opinion of you, incentivizing the player to keep a low profile and avoid murdering civilians if at all possible to avoid getting the cops called on them constantly. Conversely, if you just wanted to blow stuff up, it would punish you by increasing the chaos in the world and... give you more stuff to blow up. I played fairly carefully, avoided confrontations with the police like the plague, and in an unavoidable shootout with them in the final mission, I kneecapped several cops to make an opening, stole a car and escaped. It actually felt like a sandbox where you could try different things and crap like that, and having consequences for your actions was icing on the cake.

It wasn't without flaws (poor vehicle handling, Ubisoft open-world checklist design, lack of polish) and was hardly amazing but holy shit the sequel was fucking awful. Zero personality, no central plot or legitimate motivation to do the things you were doing whatsoever, and no more public opinion meter. You're a hacker, not a violent vigilante, but you can use firearms with no consequence. Mow people down in the streets but go back to being a man of the people two seconds later. It felt like a bunch of poorly made side missions from some of Ubisoft's worst games strung together as a full release. I have no confidence that Legion will be any better.
 

typical user

Arbiter
Joined
Nov 30, 2015
Messages
957
Furthermore, WD1 actually fixed the core issue that the sequel immediately began struggling with. That whole "You are the Resistance" thing. It had an in-game system to track public opinion of you, incentivizing the player to keep a low profile and avoid murdering civilians if at all possible to avoid getting the cops called on them constantly. Conversely, if you just wanted to blow stuff up, it would punish you by increasing the chaos in the world and... give you more stuff to blow up. I played fairly carefully, avoided confrontations with the police like the plague, and in an unavoidable shootout with them in the final mission, I kneecapped several cops to make an opening, stole a car and escaped. It actually felt like a sandbox where you could try different things and crap like that, and having consequences for your actions was icing on the cake.

On the other hand I was mass-murdering everyone and respawning after the AI threw enough bodies for me to run out of bullets. The game did not change in any way. You still get cops on you and for me it was like another day in the office. The whole thing is even more dumb when you consider WHY there is a morality system - in a game where you steal cars and shoot people to death. You can't be a vigilante if you run over pedestrians at bus-stop chasing some corrupt gov in SUV or steal money from guards who are just doing their artificial job.

Watch Dogs 2 is worse bacause the game is trying to tell you are the good guy even when your methods didn't change.
 

Quillon

Arcane
Joined
Dec 15, 2016
Messages
5,214
London's too depressing, there is no sunlight even in the released game footage :P
 

anvi

Prophet
Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
7,530
Location
Kelethin
I am dying to play this game. WD2 was really underrated. Fun game with far more mechanics and ideas than shitty GTA5. Some of the missions where you have to infiltrate a big office building were really good, I also loved the one at a big mansion that you raid at night. A grittier version of that with some tweaked gameplay would be amazing. I also love the idea of permadeath, it is one thing that really bugs me in games like this, the fact that nothing that you do matters. You can just run around shooting cops and whatever because you just drive away and lose them, and if worst comes to worst, you reload. WD2 had better cops that chase you further and have better AI so you could die trying to escape. Combine that with no reloads and it could be really exciting.

Shame it got delayed.
 

Dodo1610

Arcane
Joined
May 3, 2018
Messages
2,155
Location
Germany
They have done it again they made Bretix apolitical since you are not fighting the government but a PMC and a crime syndicate:lol:
 

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