Poll needs more options in my opinion. It isn't difficult to be an improvement over the first game, but I think the improvement will be marginal at best. Time will tell.

Ubisoft doesn't improve their open world games. They just add more features.

@ezekiel said:

This.

Maybe some features will make for a better game (I consider no Aiden to be a feature), but it is hard to tell at this point. The Ubisoft way to iterate on open world games has always been to throw every variation they can thought out and see what sticks, keep that and combine it with another round of brainstorming.

And the previous game was not marred by its lack of variety.

As much as I think Aiden was an awful character, I actually really enjoyed the first game and I think the second one looks a lot better. That being said, I'm not sold on the tone of this game at all.

Well, it can't be worse than the first one... can it?

Its impossible to not be an improvment but i still have no hopes for that game.

I think it'll be an improvement, but the original has such a dark cloud over it due to the expectations vs reality Ubisoft set that it'll sell way below expectations. The marketing campaign is also trying a little too hard to be edgy, which will be a turn off to some I feel.

Objectively? Sure. It'd be hard not to be better than the first game.

As a game I'm more interested in playing? Nope. I already have GTAV. I don't need "GTA But With Hackers".

Much like Alex is the resident Mafia 3 defender, as the resident Watch Dogs defender I'm clocking in to say that there are plenty of open world games worse than Watch Dogs 1 - like Mafia 3 for example.

The tone of this game really rubs me the wrong way. The whole "I was tagged as a criminal by the system - I know, I'll go do a bunch of criminal shit to get back at the system!" storyline is as tone deaf as any open world game has been up to this point in time.

You might have hated Aiden Pierce but at least his "losing sight of himself and his actions because he's wrapped up in his quest for revenge for a murdered family member" storyline made a bit of sense (in the video game tradition of being also pretty dumb).

@whitegreyblack: Yah I'm not sure if I'm sold on this whole WOW social media, wacky teens doing wacky stuff with selfies and jokes jokes jokes. The self serious tone of the first game fit it just fine and man I like some goofiness and lighthearted humor but I dunno if Watch Dogs 2 needed such a dramatic makeover. Just like Mafia 3 it seems like they looked at comments from people who didn't like the first game and made those changes instead of building on the solid base they already had which plenty of others already enjoyed.

Assassins Creed 1 to 2

Far Cry 2 to 3

Even Red Steel 1 to 2

It takes Ubisoft a game or so to iron out the kinks before their franchises really get good. I'm hopeful about this one.

I don't know. I can say that the youtube adds with what I assume are 'let's players' have been real embarrassing to watch.

It would be hard not to be I'd imagine

Lots of WIP reviews at the moment, but here's a few finished ones.

Destructoid 8.5/10

Jimquisition 90/100

Polygon 8/10

Seems like an ok game that does improve from the first one. Like suspected, the whole tongue-in-cheek tone of the game doesn't seem to hit it's mark as well as it could've, even though it doesn't seem to be maybe as bad as the marketing had suggested.

I'm not sure what exactly I expected from this game. All I know is that I didn't expect it to be received this positively. More great games is always fine with me though. I don't have the money to shell out for anymore games this year, but I'm definitely gonna pick this up when the deep discounts and sales start rolling in next year.

Between this, Doom, and Hitman, is this the year of "way better than everyone expected they would be" games? If, FFXV can deliver, I think it just might be.

@glots: 85 on Metacritic is not just an "OK" game.

@lp_green: Alright, how about "Possibly even great, but not an amazing game" then? I guess that would actually be more appropiate to use for a sequel to the blandness that wast the first game.

The tone looks really grating.

@babychoochoo: Check out FFXV: Judgement Disc on the Japanese stores if you can.

Game seems pretty cool.

@glots: Hey I thought the first game wasn't bland at all. All the small hacking stuff really made me feel like I was playing in an at least semi-interactive world rather than this static hard environment most open world titles present us with. Different strokes for different folks but that game gets a terrible rep for some really weird reasons.

@altonbrown: Oooooo, good to hear. I'm really excited for it, got it preordered and everything, but I've seen enough footage haha. I haven't watched anything they put out in months because now I just wanna go in as blind as possible. As excited as I am though, there's always the worry in the back of my mind that it may not turn out as well as I had hoped, but people seem excited about that demo, so that's a good sign imo.

@humanity: I haven't played the first game either so maybe I'm just talking out of my ass, but I assume that game gets a terrible rep because it's one of the many instances where everyone "fell for the hype" and the game failed to deliver in the eyes of many. In Watch Dogs' case, it was supposed to be the first big new AAA blockbuster for the new consoles. Even if it wasn't a bad game per se, it wasn't as good as it was "supposed to be" so I feel like a lot of people lash out at it rather than take a step back and examine it rationally. I know, I used to do it with FFXIII all the goddamn time for no good reason lol.

That's not to say any sort of criticism against that game is invalid, because every game has it's fair share of faults, but...well, look at No Man's Sky. It was propped up by some to be the second of coming of video games and now half the internet thinks it's literally worse than Hitler.

@babychoochoo: That is a great point and I think the expectations-vs-reality angle does explain a lot of the "wurst gaem evar lawl" attitude that any mention of Watch Dogs garners. You are also correct in that there were plenty of things it could have done better, but in my humble opinion (and I realize I'm in a vast vast minority on this) it did a whole lot of things really well. I'm a little worried about the sequel because from everything I've seen so far it doesn't seem to be building on those things the first game did well, but is rather putting a whole lot of effort into making a hard left with tone instead of focusing those energies into fleshing out that existing potential. People will probably love it though as the same thing happened in Assassins Creed. First game was kind of a serious affair with an ambitious story that didn't really deliver all the way. Then Assassins Creed 2 went full "game mode" instead of simply taking that first entry and fleshing it out. Everyone loves AC2 too while I'm one of the very few that wish they kept Altair around instead of introducing this spunky, one-liner spouting playboy character. Focus testing can really turn an IP on it's head.

Another lifeless city with poor driving, that's my prediction.

Can't stand ubisoft games. They just feel cheap to me. Can't recall a single game from them that I actually enjoyed.

My only hate for the original watchdogs is that the devs lied about the graphics downgrade weeks before it came out and also the song list was really bad only a few alright songs driving was bad also. As far as Aiden goes I'm not on the bandwagon that thinks he was a awful character just a bit a bland but I'll take him anyday over that annoying character with the black mask in watchdogs 2. I think his name is wrench I like to hit him with one. I'm kinda looking forward to Watch Dogs 2 just hope the PC version is better optimized.

It can't be any worse... Heyo!!!!

I didn't exactly hate the game myself, even if I've probably always been negative about it each time I've posted something related. I did play through the whole thing and I've given up on several other Ubisoft games, so it had that going for it (though one of the reasons for that might've also been the fact that PS4 wasn't exactly blowing up with big releases at that point...), but I just thought it was boring in general. None of the characters were very memorable and Chicago as your playground was quite disappointing, especially with GTA's Los Santos and Seattle from Second Son freshly in mind. Some seemed to like the driving, but I found it bad overall. It didn't help that the radio only had really bad songs to offer. Maybe not a huge thing for some, but for me that's half the charm of driving around in open-world games like GTA.

But like you said, different strokes! Besides Dishonored 2 right now and The Last Guardian in next month, there's no big releases coming out this year anymore, so who knows, I might grab this to play for myself. Hopefully there'll be a live QL tomorrow to sway me towards one direction.

It's hard to think this game can be worse than the first.

This sort of stuff is my biggest concern with this game. Hopefully it's easily overshadowed by the gameplay, or better yet doesn't have a self-righteous narrative paired with mission design that directly goes against it. Ludonarrative dissobobadoo, everyone's old friend.

Also I really hope Focus (slow-mo) is still in this thing, but I haven't seen it in any gameplay footage yet. :(

@theht: I believe there's a few other examples like that, but I think the game also does try to occasionally question if what you're doing is any better than what any the big corporations are doing. At least if the reviews are anything to go by.

I think you can also play through a good portion of the missions by stealthing around and hacking, while also using a stun-gun/melee weapon to take down your enemies. But there's nothing stopping you from getting that 3D-printed shotgun and mowing down a dozen cops, then acting like that never happened during the cutscenes. Granted, this is not the only open-world game being guilty of that.

If it has people pooping/urinating in the street i'll probably give it a 4 out of 5 just for realism.

Played about an hour so far, seems like an overall improvement. Driving still sucks though.