Watch Dogs 2 Review

"Your face is too dark

for my sensors to --"

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

"Tell your sensors to calibrate that."

"I have no reference for "black."

"No. Of course you don't."

In our hyper-connected world,

where most of us carry around handheld devices

that keep us linked to the

internet at all times

and tech companies monitor our behavior

and purchasing habits constantly,

a game in which you harness that

technological web to disrupt

the schemes of powerful corporations~

makes perfect sense.

But with 2014's Watch Dogs,

Ubisoft failed to turn this premise

into a compelling game.

Watch Dogs 2 makes some meaningful

improvements on its predecessor.

It gives us a more memorable hero

and supporting cast,

and a San Francisco that exudes a

bit more more personality

than the first games' setting did.

Unfortunately, Watch Dogs 2 still fails

where it matters most:

trotting out a series of crushingly-repetitive

missions that never come close to making you feel

like a hacker extraordinaire.

Nearly every main story mission

has you infiltrating some heavily-guarded facility

or another, in order to steal something,

or hack something,

and once you find a strategy that works for you,

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

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

Your character, Marcus Holloway,

can't take much punishment,

and the environments are filled with enemies

who will immediately call for more reinforcements

at any sign of trouble --

so you're discouraged from relying on the

all-out, guns-blazing approach.

This makes sense in a game that wants you

to use your hacker abilities to tackle

the situations you're faced with,

but because failure in this game can be

so punishing,

and send you back so far,

I tended to complete most missions

using the same tactic;

the core of my strategy was hanging back,

hacking into the building's security systems,

and picking off the enemies who could call

for reinforcements one-by-one,

by forging criminal records and having the police

come in and arrest or kill them.

It was passive and often tedious,

but it got the job done.

Of course, sometimes it's a strength

when a game punishes you for failure.

In games with precise combat,

the prospect of a significant setback

can raise the stakes,

encouraging you to master the mechanics,

and making your victories all the more rewarding.

But Watch Dogs 2 is no such game.

This is no Dark Souls.

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

with mediocre gun play and systems that interact

so erratically, that all you can do is try to

manage them well enough to complete

your objective and get out alive.

As shabby as the mission design is,

the game deserves some credit for its

obviously well-intentioned efforts to acknowledge

the existence of structural racism.

At one point, the young black protagonist, Marcus,

discusses the racial profiling tactics that

tagged him as a criminal risk.

And his brother-in-arms, Horatio,

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

comments frankly on the racism and

condencension he experiences as one of the only

people of color in an

overwhelmingly-white company.

"You haven't experienced

corporate life until you're the only brother

in a meeting and have to represent

all of blackdom."

"Jesus!"

The presence of Miranda

a black trans councilwoman

who does what she can

to help Marcus and his colleagues

in the hacker collective known as "DedSec"

is also welcome.

On the other hand,

Latinx people in Watch Dogs 2 are

primarily represented as the most clichéd

kinds of gang members imaginable.

As important as it is that games give us heroes

and supporting characters who break from

the long-established molds,

there's more to great characterization than

simply ticking off a few boxes

on a diversity checklist.

And Watch Dogs 2 falls short here.

Its characters relate to each other more in

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

than in anything that actually reveals to us

who they are,

and what makes them tick.

So it's hard to get invested in their struggle

and their relationships with each other.

"Come on, Wesley Crusher! Launch waits!"

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

"Jake Sisko?"

"CAPTAIN Sisko."

The San Francisco setting of Watch Dogs 2

is recognizable but doesn't feel authentic --

despite being packed with landmarks

and familiar locations,

including San Francisco's greatest treasure

the sea lions down at Pier 39.

It's great to see Pride flags flying in

certain spots around the city,

and Watch Dogs 2 makes no effort

to minimize or deny the existence of

SF's queer community.

But for all that, the game's concerns

feel oddly detached from the real issues

that face San Francisco today.

Graffiti that reads

"ARTISTS USED TO LIVE HERE"

poignantly speaks to the fact that

entire communities are being driven out of the city

as tech companies make life here unsustainable

for so many.

And the occasional passerby may make mention

of the gentrification that's taking place:

"Super gentrification! It's wretched!"

So why isn't DedSec using its power

to stand up for marginalized communities?

Why isn't DedSec fighting for affordable housing,

and fighting against the police injustice

that specifically targets people of color?

Why not confront the things

that are really happening here?

The things that really matter to

the people who call San Francisco home?

Perhaps the strangest thing of all

about Watch Dogs 2, though,

is its uneasy relationship with power.

Ostensibly, DedSec is all about

waking up the populace,

getting them to understand

how power is abused by politicians,

tech companies, and government agencies

to limit people's freedom

to think and act for themselves.

But what DedSec never does,

is turn that questioning lens on its own use

and abuse, of power.

It was never lost on me that,

playing as a young black man

who had been profiled as a likely criminal

because of his race,

I then harnessed the power of techonology

to forge criminal records for dozens and dozens

of innocent people,

and watched them get marched off

by the cops themselves.

But hey, what was I gonna do?

I had a mission to complete.

"We will not stand idle while that happens."

"DedSec has given you the truth."

"Do what you will."