AC1: Video Game Review - Watch_Dogs 2

Its been two years since we last got a chance to experience hacking through a video game and while the first Watch Dogs was a disappointment for some, but a great game for others, most of us know that its only until the second game that a franchise gets fully realised and then its milked for all its worth from that point on. But knowing Ubisoft like I do, with no big Assassin's Creed game out this year, they make up with Watch_Dogs 2 which takes place within the same universe anyway (though the connection was more of an Easter egg in the first game, but there you go) so it kind of counts as an AC game, but its not quite killing people in the past through some kind of simulation device. But anyway, enough nerding around, let's start hacking (in the game that is):

So after having set up ctOS in Chicago in the last game, San Francisco becomes the next city for it to be installed which connects everyone with everything. A 24 year old hacker from Oakland, California by the name of Marcus Holloway (voiced by Ruffin Prentiss) is punished for a crime he did not commit by the upgraded ctOS system (dubbed ctOS 2.0) which categorizes him as a suspect. Realising the big flaw of the system with it being able to bring harm to those who are innocent, he joins the group DedSec to take down the new system as well as the company behind it, Blume. Much like its predecessor, it plays out like before with you being able to hack things and hack more things over time which gives the player the advantage over everything else. What has improved here is that when you use the in game phone, it feels more like an actual phone whereas before, it just looked like a generic menu of sorts. I kind of also felt that the last game had very depressing colours so its just as well that this game rectifies that by putting in colour so that's another good thing. It was experimented in a DLC for the previous game on the idea of using RC machines and now its one of the main parts of the game so its good. The game is trying its best to fit into modern times and its great. Now with every open world game, of course the world would get bigger as each game progresses and San Francisco is twice as big as Chicago in this game so more stuff for us to do. Plus unlike Aiden from the first game, Marcus has similar parkour and free running abilities that many assassins from the AC games have used for centuries so that's another good thing.

So its mostly an improvement over the previous game and there's nothing really to criticise about it. Its improves over almost every aspect of the previous game, its got more colourful grounds and has a less serious tone than what the first game had which goes down well for those of us wanting to have fun which is the biggest rule in gaming 101. It does however have a couple of glitches here and there and there's no option for us PC gamers to use the option seen in most PC games that removes the line problem seen in various games. But other than that, its a great game. It still doesn't make you a hacking master, but there is enough here to enjoy and maybe we'll see more games in the future. 9/10