(Queue the DJ Khalad Vocals)...Another one.
What are the Specifics?
What's the Game: Watch Dogs: Legion
What's the Style: Action-Adventure
Release Date: October 29, 2020
Previous Game: Watch Dogs 2
Company: Ubisoft, same group that does Assassin's Creed, FarCry, and Division series.
Synopsis: Deadsec is your home, your tribe, a rebellious darkweb hacking collective active worldwide and dedicated to personal freedom, truth and exposing corruption. Framed for a terrorist bombing, reputation damaged, assets seized and allies kidnapped, you have to rebuild your branch and your brand from scratch in London, England. Paired with smart-talking artificial intelligence super Jeeves, Bagley, you work to clear your name. In the process, you expose some truly eye-opening secrets into London's controlling factions: Albion (para-military organization), Clan Kelly (sex trafficking gangtas with Cockney accents), and Signals Intelligence Response Service (SIRS - CIA-like government organization).
What Persuaded Me to Pick It Up?
Call me a loyalist! I have played the puzzling development scrappy first edition of the series based in Chicago, WatchDogs and the Bay Area based second edition Watch Dogs 2. I'm pretty much running at auto-pilot and made plans to buy as soon as it was announced.
What Do I Love About It?
Ubisoft's ability to recreate real city landscapes and details overlayed with unique ecosystem grounded in the lore and story the video game presents has always been impressive. Cruising around major London landmarks and interacting with them is always a joy in a COVID anti-travel world.
Unlike it's predecessors, Watch Dogs Legion didn't put you into a predefined character with a backstory. You were put into a group collectively trying to clear your name. Thus, you could recruit anyone (and I mean anyone) off the street that has a particular set of skills. You would think this functionality would be a stab at character development, but to be honest you get engrossed in these characters, their accents and their reactions to events. Though there were instances where you could trade out people of certain skills, you still care if one of them winds up injured or dead. I absolutely loved the diversity of the selection of characters too! I had a spy with vitiligo, a Bangladeshi woman that was a doctor, and a Thai man that was a professional getaway driver. You could also recruit people of various factions in the game which allowed "Uniformed Access" to certain faction locations where missions, loot, and preferred recruits are held. Unlocking boroughs also gets you new highly preferred recruits that come with amazing features (i.e. personalized shock drones, higher resistance to physical damage, or specialty weapons).
My favorite guy by far in the game was a Jamaican man named Constantine. He had the Construction Worker role which was honestly the most valuable (every dirty deed was done on a construction site). Construction Workers can blend in easily to a construction site for missions if you walked slowly, you could call a cargo drone which can lift you and large containers to high heights. This becomes clutch when you're trying to avoid guards, get objects on roofs, or to plot an entry for a complex layout. You also get a sweet nail gun that's just fun to use on guards or faction enemies.
What Do I Not Like About It?
Until the final missions taking down some of primary antagonists in the story, the hacking got extremely competitive and turn-key. You get the spider-bot fairly early and for the majority of missions, regardless of the type, building or guards, every encounter was pretty spider not friendly. At one point you could upgrade him to be invisible (for a predetermined amount of time) and he can take down enemies/guards right out the gate. Because all of the locations have vents and ducts to get to almost any area that's needed and the spider bot can grab or access or hack most items. Once you get the hang of it, the anxiety or the anticipation of doing a new mission depreciated. Of course, the maps and the missions had increased difficulty and complexity towards the end where it limited the use of the spider bot, but they could've upped the anty on that way earlier.
Any Section That Stands Out?
There's three sections that actually stand out to me. The Nathan Cress boss battle, the Stormzy mission and the Skye Larson House for very different reasons (SPOILER ALERT!).
The Nathan Cress Boss Battle was actually pretty intricate. From demobilizing personnel, hitting key targets on the oversight killing machine, while making sure that you didn't die yourself, it was not an easy mission. From the previous monotony of consecutive spider bot retrievals and disposals, I actually had to use some thought in getting through this battle.
The Stormzy mission was just pure fun! Ubisoft got the multi-talented British rapper Stormzy to guest star and lead a mission! Ultimately you had to wipe out guards and hack into a network to get Stormzy access. And what did he do with that power? He lead a virtual concert! It was so cool hacking away to beats and revealing his face on the side of a building just upped the cool factor in a big way. For a video game of hackers and activists against the establishment, Stormzy was a street cred addition.
For those that have played WatchDogs 2, everyone remembers the Skye Larson house. It wasn't overly complicated to complete or challenging to execute, but it was CREEPY AS HELL. Whatever avatar you choose has to break into Skye Larson's personal residence to find a laboratory of her plans. What you end up finding is a perfect recreation of her childhood home, memories, and a weird "who-dun-it" regarding Skye Larson's mom. With the dim lighting, haunting home settings, and creepy voice overs, it was one room of doll-babies away from a full creep horror fest. Definitely notable mission leaving an impression. Kudos to the writers for the creativity!
What Can You Get Out Of It?
Honestly, you can get a wicked good time running through a photo future-realistic London with some realistic hacking elements. You don't have to be an expert at playing video games and it does provide you with the basics in dexterity, shooting, and navigation if you are a new PS player. Will you come away from it knowing the basics in cybersecurity, no. But it will give you some tidbits that are great for off-cycle reading!
My Verdict? SURE
Did I have a good time? Yes. Did I spend hours pondering how to get through a mission or thinking about the story after the PS4 controller was set down? No. I enjoyed it while I played it. It wasn't groundbreaking and there were definitely kick-ass moments, but after the final cutscene it was put back at the top of the shelf, no need to replay or dive back in.
If you guys have played it or any of the other installments in the series, please let me know!
Happy gaming, everyone!
Comments