WEBVTT

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"Your face is too dark

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for our sensors to read."

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"Bitch, I'm black and I'm proud."

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"Tell your sensors to calibrate that."

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"I have no reference for "black."

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"Whoa. Of course you don't."

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In our hyper-connected world,

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where most of us carry around handheld devices

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that keep us connected to the world at all times,

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and tech companies monitor our behavior

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and purchasing habits constantly,

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a game in which you harness that technological web

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to disrupt the schemes of powerful corporations

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makes perfect sense.

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But with 2014's Watch Dogs,

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Ubisoft failed to turn this premise

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into a compelling game.

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Watch Dogs 2 makes some meaningful improvements

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on its predecessor.

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It gives us a more memorable hero

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and supporting cast,

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and a San Francisco that exudes a

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bit more more personality

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than the first games' setting did.

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Unfortunately, Watch Dogs 2 still fails

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where it matters most:

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trotting out a series of crushingly-repetitive

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missions that never come close to making you feel

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like a hacker extraordinaire.

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Nearly every main story mission

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has you infiltrating some heavily-guarded facility

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or another, in order to steal something,

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or hack something,

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and once you find a strategy that works for you,

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it's very easy to fall into a pattern of approaching

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all of these missions in more or less the same way.

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Your character, Marcus Holloway,

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can't take much punishment,

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and the environments are filled with enemies

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who will immediately fall for more reinforcements

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at any sign of trouble --

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so you're discouraged from relying on the

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all-out, guns-blazing approach.

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This makes sense in a game that wants you

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to use your hacker abilities to tackle

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the situations you're faced with,

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but because failure in this game can be

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so punishing,

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and send you back so far,

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I tended to complete most missions

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by using the same tactic;

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the core of my strategy was hanging back,

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hacking into the building's security systems,

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picking off the enemies who could call

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for reinforcements one-by-one,

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by forging criminal records and having police

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come in and arrest or kill them.

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It was passive and often tedious,

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but it got the job done.

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Of course, sometimes it's a strength

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when a game punishes you for failure.

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In games with precise combat,

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the prospect of a significant setback

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can raise the stakes,

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encouraging you to master the mechanics,

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and making your victories all the more rewarding.

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But Watch Dogs 2 is no such game.

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This is no Dark Souls.

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This is a by-the-numbers, open world game

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with mediocre gun play and systems that interact

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so erratically, that all you can do is try to

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manage them well enough to complete

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your objective and get out alive.

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As shabby as the mission design is,

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the game deserves some credit for its

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obviously well-intentioned efforts to acknowledge

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the existence of structural racism.

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At one point, the young black protagonist, Marcus,

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discusses the racial profiling tactics that

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tagged him as a criminal risk.

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And his brother-in-arms, Horatio,

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whose day job is at the Google stand-in, "Nudle,"

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comments frankly on the racism and

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condencension he experiences as one of the only

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people of color in an

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overwhelmingly-white company.

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"You haven't experienced

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corporate life until you're the only brother

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in a meeting and have to represent

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all of blackdom."

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"Jesus!"

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The presence of Miranda, a black trans

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councilwoman who does what she can

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to help Marcus and his colleagues

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in the hacker collective known as "DedSec"

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is also welcome.

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On the other hand,

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Latinx people in Watch Dogs 2 are

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primarily represented as the most clichéd

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kind of gang members imaginable.

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As important as it us that games give us heroes

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and supporting characters that break from

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the long-established molds,

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there's more to great characterization than

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simply ticking off a few boxes

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on a diversity checklist.

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And Watch Dogs 2 falls short here.

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Its characters relate to each other more in

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geek, sci-fi references and cheesy one-liners,

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than in anything that actually reveals to us

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who they are,

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or what makes them tick.

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So it's hard to get invested in their struggle

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and their relationships with each other.

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"Come on, Wesley Crusher! Launch waits!"

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"Bitch, please. I'm clearly Sisko."

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"Jake Sisko?"

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"CAPTAIN Sisko."

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The San Francisco setting of Watch Dogs 2

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is recognizable but doesn't feel authentic --

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despite being packed with landmarks

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and familiar landmarks,

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including San Francisco's greatest treasure

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the sea lions down at Pier 39.

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It's great to see Pride flags flying in

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certain parts of the city,

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and Watch Dogs 2 makes no effort

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to minimize or deny SF's queer community.

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But for all that, the game's concerns

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feel oddly detached from the real issues

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that face San Francisco today.

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Graffiti that reads

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"ARTISTS USED TO LIVE HERE"

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poignantly speaks to the fact that

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entire communities are being driven out of the city

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as tech companies make life here unsustainable

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for so many.

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And the occasional passerby may make mention

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of the gentrification that's taking place:

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"Super gentrification! It's wretched!"

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So why isn't DedSec using its power

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to stand up for marginalized communities?

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Why isn't DedSec fighting for affordable housing,

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and against the police injustice

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that specifically targets people of color?

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Why not confront the things that are really happening here?

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The things that really matter?

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The people who call San Francisco home?

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Perhaps the strangest thing of all

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about Watch Dogs 2, though,

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is its uneasy relationship with power.

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Ostensibly, DedSec is all about

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waking up the populace,

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getting them to understand

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how power is abused by politicians,

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tech companies, and government agencies

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to limit people's freedom

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to act and think for themselves.

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But what DedSec never does,

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is turn that questioning lens on its own use

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and abuse, of power.

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It was never lost on me that,

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playing as a young black man

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who had been profiled as a likely criminal

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because of his race,

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I then harnessed the power of techonology

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to force criminal records for dozens and dozens

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of innocent people,

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and watched them get marched off

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by the cops themselves.

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But hey, what was I gonna do?

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I had a mission to complete.

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"We will not stand idle while that happens."

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"DedSec is given you truth.

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Do what you will."