Okay so I am still at the very start of Act II. I haven't even done the first mission of Act II. I decided to play this on mute while listening to all the late shows this week. And doing so I set the goal of completing all side missions while doing this. I knocked a lot of it out. However, not all of them are available to me right now. I am missing a bunch of things on the map. So a few questions.

Do these populate based off how far you are in the main story? Or do they only populate based off you using the phone to spy on people to make them show up. I've had fixer missions and what not just pop up while I drive around. And the towers that make all the grey mission icons appear are done. But I am still missing a bunch of those. (investigations)

I'm thinking its story progress related. But I am not sure. Right now I only have (not appearing, not able to do) 1 Convoy, 9 fixer, all 11 human trafficking, 3 burner phones, 3 missing persons, 1 weapons trade and 5 songs. That is all. I've yet to see a Human trafficking symbol on the map also.

More side missions become available to you as the story progress such as the human trafficking. There are some missions that pop up as you drive around but they are permanently marked on the map once they are discovered so you don't need to do them immediately. Some of the songs are unlocked through story progression as well.

Cool. I guess its time to play some story then.

And I will say, at first I thought the side missions would be terrible and repetitive. And maybe its just how I played, while listening to all the great shows. But I had a blast with them. They were not super repetitive, each one had some mix ups and there really is not that many of each kind.

Hey, I did the same thing! I listened to Jeff's drive down to E3 while doing all of the Fixer Contracts, Convoys, and Gang Hideouts. Just a heads up, even though you'll get the last reward/trophy/achievement for 40 Fixer Contracts they'll keep popping up on your map anyway. I guess it's to grind XP if you need to? I did everything before finishing Act 3 and I had enough XP to hit lvl 50 before the final mission.

@sterling: It's not very clear but yes some things become available through story. For instance the arms-dealer investigation suddenly dried up for me - no more crosshair icons on my map. Then they eventually showed up later on. It's weird but in a way it kept me from sticking to one thing constantly and helped me rotate to other abilities.

I will say that rewarding the player with bonus weapons and perks for completing side objectives is a great idea.

I would have never tried the drinking game if not for the promise of a new shotgun, and it's actually a really clever and pretty fun mini game. Likewise I would've never tried some of those VR phone games and those are also pretty neat.

It's a shame this game gets so much smack talk for being a good game instead of an amazing game because theres a lot of really good design here that other developers could learn from - yet Watch Dogs seems to carry the reputation of worst game ever made in the universe.

@humanity: I agree. Its not the greatest game ever made, but its damn fun. And there are a lot of the little things that they did right.

@thelastgunslinger: Thanks for letting me know that. I might have just kept doing them without realizing for a while.

Can I just say that I'm really fucking tired of open-world games locking off side stuff until I progress in the story? If I want to finish it all right away, why can't I just do that? I know Watch Dogs waves off this annoyance by having stuff in the story open a bit of the side stuff, but it's still really annoying for someone like me who likes to finish all the side stuff and THEN move to the main story.

Gameplay-wise, sure. It's not bad. The story? Man, this may be one of the worst stories I've seen in a game for awhile. It made me regret the time I spent playing through it.

@wemibelec90: I didn't find it particularly offensive in any way - just average but it had a few high points like the auction. You want to know a story I felt was a complete waste of time and was terribly written? The main plot in award winning game of the year Skyrim. What a bore and complete waste of time that was, but hey you can get a giant to hit a cow and it will go flying so yadda yadda game of the year.

Different strokes for different folks though. While Watch Dogs doesn't have a Pulitzer prize winning story, people do tend to nitpick at it way more than any other game. Dood was doing a job, things go bad, dood loses a loved one, dood goes on revenge quest - the story of a million and one games out there.

@humanity: What? The drinking game is bullshit, from lvl 5+ and you have to do it 3 times if you want to achieve 100%. I just gave up on it, I have like 98% completition and enjoyed all the other side activities, but this one is straight up bollocks!

Get ready for kind of crappy pay-offs for some most of them.

@adequatelyprepared: The payoff for the QR code thing was especially lame, good thing I actually liked getting those codes...