Watch Dogs 2 will hack your open-world gaming expectations
What's the point of being an all-seeing, all-powerful hacker if you don't aim your powers at the biggest targets possible?
This question went unanswered in 2014's Watch Dogs, an open-world adventure game that gave its gun-wielding, car-stealing, parkour-hopping hero a super-charged smartphone but failed to make us care about using those hacking powers. Ubisoft's first shot at the Watch Dogs franchise offered players a chance to fight crime (and have a decent time doing so), but its confusing plot and ho-hum use of tech buzz words didn't keep players rooted in the experience.
The series returns in this week's Watch Dogs 2, a game that now lets players fight more than crime. This go-'round, they fight the entire system, man. What's more, they do so with more powers, more choices, and a much better mix of plot, dialogue, and likable characters.