Watch Dogs 2 - Catch All

As pure single player (I turned off the online interactions), I am absolutely loving the random chaos I can create when doing pretty much anything in game. Need to get at a money bag, climb a building, shoot a gang member near some civilians, civilians call the cops, cops and gang members get in gun fight, I wait till its over, then saunter in and grab the bag. Or, cause a disturbance, gang members run to it, drive to a fence and hop it, get reward, or find a spot with a thing to hack, no fork lifts nearby, jack a sports car, use it to 'move' the crates enough to get at the hackable object. The list of random fun moments just goes on and on, am loving my time.

I am finding the menu/phone a little awkward to use. I really need it to pause the action for me so I can quickly leave my PC and do something else. It also seems a little bit unresponsive as sometimes my button presses don't highlight any of the apps.

Very early in but really liking it as I get used to the controls.

Infyrnos wrote:

As pure single player (I turned off the online interactions), I am absolutely loving the random chaos I can create when doing pretty much anything in game. Need to get at a money bag, climb a building, shoot a gang member near some civilians, civilians call the cops, cops and gang members get in gun fight, I wait till its over, then saunter in and grab the bag. Or, cause a disturbance, gang members run to it, drive to a fence and hop it, get reward, or find a spot with a thing to hack, no fork lifts nearby, jack a sports car, use it to 'move' the crates enough to get at the hackable object. The list of random fun moments just goes on and on, am loving my time.

Hmm, could be cool. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to activate my code or try to trade it with someone for something else. I tend to get bored with open world games if I'm doing the same kind of stuff over and over without some type of story motivation or the activities changing things up.

The story in GTA V was funny enough so I pressed on through the story and finished it, but after that I have no motivation to return. I got bored pretty early on with Just Cause 2, because it felt like i was doing the same thing over and over. The Assassin's Creed games get too repetitive for me. I'm trying to decide if Watch Dogs 2 would have enough variety and / or good enough story to keep me playing.

robc wrote:
Infyrnos wrote:

As pure single player (I turned off the online interactions), I am absolutely loving the random chaos I can create when doing pretty much anything in game. Need to get at a money bag, climb a building, shoot a gang member near some civilians, civilians call the cops, cops and gang members get in gun fight, I wait till its over, then saunter in and grab the bag. Or, cause a disturbance, gang members run to it, drive to a fence and hop it, get reward, or find a spot with a thing to hack, no fork lifts nearby, jack a sports car, use it to 'move' the crates enough to get at the hackable object. The list of random fun moments just goes on and on, am loving my time.

Hmm, could be cool. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to activate my code or try to trade it with someone for something else. I tend to get bored with open world games if I'm doing the same kind of stuff over and over without some type of story motivation or the activities changing things up.

The story in GTA V was funny enough so I pressed on through the story and finished it, but after that I have no motivation to return. I got bored pretty early on with Just Cause 2, because it felt like i was doing the same thing over and over. The Assassin's Creed games get too repetitive for me. I'm trying to decide if Watch Dogs 2 would have enough variety and / or good enough story to keep me playing.

I'm probably the wrong person to use to help make that decision, I love me some assassins creed!

Very entertaining so far. I'm actually relieved that the game doesn't punish you if you have to start taking folks out. I dislike when the "right" ending is only achievable through stealth (looking at you Dishonored 2!). Missions are funny as hell so far, and the Deadsec team has some great characters in it.

It's started pretty well for me, being doing Scout X missions like their going out of fashion. It's gets you followers plus I get to see San Francisco as I drive from location to location.

The stealth can be a bit weird at times but I absolutely nailed taking out 4 guards in a restricted area on a rooftop in some high rise corporate like buildings. Electric shocked 2 guys with an environmental hack, immediately took out another with a stun gun as he ran to see what the commotion was. I'd climbed up above all the guards & as I took the third one with the stun gun, I jumped down to choke out the alerted last guard, in true Far Cry style I landed on his head & instantly knocked him out....
I had no idea aerial takedowns were in the game, it was epic.

Just finished up the main story. Really enjoyed WD2. Took about 29 hours with some side missions and no multiplayer.

I really liked the tone. Definitely less serious and broody than the first game. Much more like GTA this time around. Also, shooting is pretty much completely optional (aside from the stun gun). They could definitely take out the guns altogether and not really lose anything gameplay-wise.

Overall, this is definitely worth people's time.

I downloaded it yesterday. After fiddling with settings and drivers to get decent framerate without flickering, I worked through the game until it opened up. I then spent a bunch of time just driving around - I've been in and around SF for 26 years. Next thing I knew, it was 2 am!

While they took some serious liberties with the geography it still felt like SF and the Bay Area. Familiar vistas around every corner it seemed. Even better, no traffic!

Bouncing around the cameras zapping guards is fun, but I wish there was a way of knocking them out for longer. They kept waking up and jumping me while I was "hacking".

Next bit of emergent fun - trying to recreate the car chase from Bullet.

Where's my key?!
I ordered and recieved my video card, the vendor said they would be getting keys on Friday and nothing was received. seems I'll have to wait till Monday.

This game causes a hard crash on the PC. It's been a long time since I've had this problem.

Finished it over the weekend. I've apparently missed a ton of research points all over the map because my followers is high enough that I don't gain research from increasing it, but I'm short 22 or so points from unlocking all the abilities. For all that people complain about them, I guess this is what happens when you don't have assassin's creed style map-revealing sync points (or purchase-able treasure maps).

I really didn't feel like I needed all the research. For instance, after the first couple upgrades, I never felt I needed the highest costing resource meter upgrades. Mostly I just wanted more upgrades to make satchel charges refresh faster for 'flying death drone of easily clear missions'

I wish the side-ops quest givers weren't hidden in the world map. I don't mind discovering the research points but not I'm thinking about the side-ops I'm missing.

I'm really enamored by the game. It's just different enough from other open world games that it's holding my attention. San Francisco is really nicely realized too.

Infyrnos wrote:

I really didn't feel like I needed all the research. For instance, after the first couple upgrades, I never felt I needed the highest costing resource meter upgrades. Mostly I just wanted more upgrades to make satchel charges refresh faster for 'flying death drone of easily clear missions'

Yeah, I totally agree that the extra upgrades are unnecessary (I did already finish the game after all). At least the extra resource meter is "nice to have just in case" the gun tree is the one where I haven't put many points.

I'm hoping that upgrading more of my softer skills will stop missions degenerating into bullet hell. If shocking guards would KO them longer - much longer - I wouldn't feel the need to be double-tapping my way around a film studio, for example. I'm not, after all, playing Mafia III

Stealth melee takes them out permanently. I almost never used guns during my playthrough.

If you drop bombs on them with your drone they dont get back up either....

the gang attack->gang war chain of abilities is super effective too but can extend things unnecessarily as the gang attack can cause reinforcements to be called. if you have a drone overlooking everything, ready to hit the reinforcement-caller with a distraction the moment they try to call then that can work out ok.

ruhk wrote:

Stealth melee takes them out permanently. I almost never used guns during my playthrough.

Every time I've tried "stealth" melee it became "kick the garbage can over" melee followed by "intruder alert" followed by "hail of bullets".

Ok, question. I've got a mission where the artist lady wants me to meet her on top of a building by the pier.

How the bloody hell do I get up there to start it? I've run around this damn building like 18 times now and I do not see a way up.

Demosthenes wrote:

Ok, question. I've got a mission where the artist lady wants me to meet her on top of a building by the pier.

How the bloody hell do I get up there to start it? I've run around this damn building like 18 times now and I do not see a way up.

Don't remember for sure, but you might need the ability to remote control lifts(?). There should be a car with an elevator type deal in a parking lot across the street or somewhere nearby.

Demosthenes wrote:

Ok, question. I've got a mission where the artist lady wants me to meet her on top of a building by the pier.

How the bloody hell do I get up there to start it? I've run around this damn building like 18 times now and I do not see a way up.

Scissor-lift simulator 2016!

Hawt sauce.

Finally got my key.
Playing TONIGHT!

Well, I just went from really enjoying my time to actively disliking the story in one quest. Good job f*cking things up, Watch_Dogs 2. I'll try to finish but boy did my opinion turn.

Big spoilers below:

Spoiler:

Horatio's death was terribly done. So far, it doesn't serve to push the main plot. Just seems as a way to say "This story can get dark!". Was poorly executed and the revenge was weak. Horatio and Marcus' interactions have been the best in the game. Really soured my experience with the game.

Vector: https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/arti...

Walker's closer is probably the most poignant.

Hyetal wrote:

Vector: https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/arti...

Walker's closer is probably the most poignant.

Yeah, I read that pretty much immediately after I completed the quest. I also knew something turned for him by listen to Waypoint Radio. Was happy to read others had the same reaction.

Vector wrote:
Spoiler:

Horatio's death was terribly done. So far, it doesn't serve to push the main plot. Just seems as a way to say "This story can get dark!". Was poorly executed and the revenge was weak. Horatio and Marcus' interactions have been the best in the game. Really soured my experience with the game.

Spoiler:

Right? It wasn't even Blume/Dusan. Instead it was the Tezcas who were motivated by...what exactly? They could easily have spun it so Dusan, disatisfied with being able to get Wrench to break by operating "within" the law, makes a deal with the Tezcas to get them to work over Ratio, but they couldn't even muster that apparently.

Phew, done with the main story line. Is there any other single player content that you'd recommend playing? I skipped most side content. I think I finished at level 20 and had a bunch of unspent skill points since I didn't find a lot of the items you need to unlock some abilities. I didn't see any leader boards for the mini games like the races, so I don't have a ton of motivation for those.

The more I played it, the more I liked it. I even warmed up to the characters more. It definitely does not have a top-tier stealth system - like Blacklist or something. You just need to play it on it's own terms. The AI could be pretty bad too, and it was kind of laughable how you could walk right by someone after distracting them with their phone. As far as gameplay, the highlight was just figuring out what combination of jumper, drone and distraction skills I use to infiltrate my target. The skills where you could sick a gang or police one someone didn't seem interesting so I didn't take them.

It's crazy how good environments games can have now.

Not a bad bonus for buying a SSD. I may have liked it more than Dishonored 2, it's close.

Just started playing and in the two hours I did I a.) trolled fake Martin Skrelli, b.) rescued a robot named Johnny 5, c.) had a discussion with Wrench about favorite Star Wars characters, and d.) Hacked fake Lucasfilm and am about to steal fake KITT. I love this game already.

Also, I never thought I'd live to see the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge be modeled in a video game.