There was clearly a lot of effort put into the core idea of this game. Play as ANYONE and build a legion of operatives/hackers to turn an oppressive private security force's technology against them. This idea was accomplished...as well as one could have hoped to. There is an outstanding variety of voices and dialogue. People have many different professions, skills, and quirks, and with some imagination, can become characters you, the player, even begin to like. This definitely increases the tension if you play on permadeath mode, which I therefore strongley recommend. Choosing the right operative for the job can give make things significantly easier, even if the game isn't very challenging to begin with. This idea acctualy worked!! I did have some memorable experiences such as stalking and recruiting a buckingham palace gaurd and using him to disable the propaganda setup at the palace. But unfortunately while the heart of the game is good, it hardly has much muscle surrounding it.
Everything else in Watch Dogs Legion is BASIC. Graphics are lacking. The AI is a joke. Shooting feels weightless and meek. Stealth is far too easy. Driving feels decent, but still does'nt display anything close to realistic physics. The world does have life to it, but is akwardly silent in too many areas, and lacks variety outside of iconic locations in London. Different sections of the city are not distinguishable on their own. With player upgrades and abilities replaced by the operatives system, the game tries to spice things up with upgradable gadgets, but this simply doesn't have a significant impact most of the time because the game is just too easy on the first two difficulty levels. Hard mode is only hard because enemies kill you in 2-3 shots and have perfect accuracy; don't play on hard. While Ubisoft has improved their mission variety in comparison to some of their other games, most missions can still be described as: "Sneak into a gaurded facility and gather intel about corruption amougst Albion and others" and ultimately, progress the story.
Speaking of the story, Watch Dogs Legion does portray relevant ideas of the dangers of surveillance, data collection, and private security forces. It has a couple core Dead Sec characters to to keep the story together, but includes other operatives in conversation even when you aren't playing as them. I like this; it makes you feel like a legit unit rather than a tag team. The game does have more personality than I would expect for having randomly generated characters. Once again, this is well done, and where all the effort went for this game.
Minor spoilers ahead: Considering the near future setting, it's message is supposed to be how easily these things can happen if we're not careful. However, the game really slaps you in the face and breaks immersion when it decides to include incredibly stupid nonsense such as mind control and kill chips in people's heads and a certain scenario where a guy shoots THE POLICE COMMISSIONER of London in the head (because he disagrees with the new security protocols) and blames it on "terrorism", even though he was sitting in a room with multiple high profile witnesses and presumably, plenty of cameras. These are not the only examples of LAZY writing and unnecessary Sci Fi garbage that undermines the effort to draw parallels to current day events. I can belive thag a security cooperation could stage terror attacks to increase demand for it's service. I can't believe in stupid, lazy crap like this. What a gutless fail.
People, get this game in 6-9 months when it's 20$ cheaper and has more content. Multiplayer is not out yet at the time of this review. The base experience is easy to advertise as something incredible, but it's really not.
Everything else in Watch Dogs Legion is BASIC. Graphics are lacking. The AI is a joke. Shooting feels weightless and meek. Stealth is far too easy. Driving feels decent, but still does'nt display anything close to realistic physics. The world does have life to it, but is akwardly silent in too many areas, and lacks variety outside of iconic locations in London. Different sections of the city are not distinguishable on their own. With player upgrades and abilities replaced by the operatives system, the game tries to spice things up with upgradable gadgets, but this simply doesn't have a significant impact most of the time because the game is just too easy on the first two difficulty levels. Hard mode is only hard because enemies kill you in 2-3 shots and have perfect accuracy; don't play on hard. While Ubisoft has improved their mission variety in comparison to some of their other games, most missions can still be described as: "Sneak into a gaurded facility and gather intel about corruption amougst Albion and others" and ultimately, progress the story.
Speaking of the story, Watch Dogs Legion does portray relevant ideas of the dangers of surveillance, data collection, and private security forces. It has a couple core Dead Sec characters to to keep the story together, but includes other operatives in conversation even when you aren't playing as them. I like this; it makes you feel like a legit unit rather than a tag team. The game does have more personality than I would expect for having randomly generated characters. Once again, this is well done, and where all the effort went for this game.
Minor spoilers ahead: Considering the near future setting, it's message is supposed to be how easily these things can happen if we're not careful. However, the game really slaps you in the face and breaks immersion when it decides to include incredibly stupid nonsense such as mind control and kill chips in people's heads and a certain scenario where a guy shoots THE POLICE COMMISSIONER of London in the head (because he disagrees with the new security protocols) and blames it on "terrorism", even though he was sitting in a room with multiple high profile witnesses and presumably, plenty of cameras. These are not the only examples of LAZY writing and unnecessary Sci Fi garbage that undermines the effort to draw parallels to current day events. I can belive thag a security cooperation could stage terror attacks to increase demand for it's service. I can't believe in stupid, lazy crap like this. What a gutless fail.
People, get this game in 6-9 months when it's 20$ cheaper and has more content. Multiplayer is not out yet at the time of this review. The base experience is easy to advertise as something incredible, but it's really not.