50 Best Games of 2016: #2 – Watch Dogs 2

Watch Dogs 2

Our 50 best games of the year countdown isn’t in any order, we’re just going through fifty of the finest the year has given us. Find out more here.

It came as a surprise to many people when Ubisoft dropped the bomb at E3 and announced Watch Dogs 2 was being released that year, just in time for Christmas. To those of you who remember the first game, it crashed horribly and there is a good argument that we were misled during the E3 trailer that they showed us.

I actually enjoyed Watch Dogs. To me it was the ultimate story of revenge, but with hacking. It was new and it was different. But with Assassin’s Creed Syndicate taking a hit from its predecessors, Ubisoft had no other choice but to mix it up a bit. And Watch Dogs 2 was their answer.

It takes a totally different approach to the other game, and throws you into the shoes of a gifted hacker trying to join Dedsec. As the storyline progresses, the overall idea of the game is to perform outrageous publicity stunts to gather followers on social media, leading to them downloading the Dedsec app so they can use the combined CPU power to bring down Bloome and the cTOs system.

With an amazing open world for you to explore and lots of little side quests from spray painting billboards to the incredibly fun battery powered Go Kart races, there is plenty to distract the player from the tedious story line.

Fans of the original will be pleased to know that the clunky driving mechanic has now been improved, but instead I felt the combat system had suffered because of it and they also decided to change the nuts and bolts of the hacking system, which made it a lot less fluid and if I’m being honest, a bit boring. Put this together with the incredibly irritating main characters, then I really started to tire of this game and fast.

But if you put all of that to one side and play the game for what it is then you really do have a game that is a little bit special. There is a lot to do and plenty to find and although the story is a bit bland, I did find myself getting behind the idea of it.

Watch Dogs 2 isn’t for the hardcore gamer and is instead a little bit of fun, so if you get the chance, then grab a copy. Just ignore the DLC that the game throws in your face right from the beginning…

Available on: PS4 | Xbox One | PC

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