Below is my written and podcast impressions of my time with having hands on time with Watchdogs2 during the inner circle event from August 10-12 at Ubisoft Montreal....
Thanks to Ubisoft for the opportunity of this event, in which all developers, game companies should be doing yearly or with big releases, and in meeting the Senior Producer Dominic Guay, spending alot of time with us during crunch time, Game Director Danny Belanger, World Art Director Sido, she and her team are amazingly awesome, and this world is just so damn nice and beautiful... The devs working 12-14 Hours, six days a week and seeing whats goes on behind the scenes, I couldn't be more happy to see how all it all comes together...
Thanks to Chase, Hanny, Lauren, and Federica, Comm Devs and Comm Managers, they are going to be running Ubisoft one day, they are amazing and beautiful people...
My written impressions and a link to my audio impressions at the end...
Driving-Smooth as silk, easy learning curve, the best in an open world i have experienced, it Ripped the WD1 vehicles from the ground up and Ubisoft Reflections worked on WD2.
The weight, speed, and feel of each vehicle is a huge difference than WD1. WD1 driving was meh, this is so much improved that going 150 MPh over the golden gate Bridge felt so damn satisfying, the speed in a sports car makes you feel so damn good. The amount of fun driving is greatly improved and it's night and day compared to WD1. This is the epitome of driving in a video game.. More thoughts in the podcast below...
Drifting, and donuts all day, and taking corners is so damn much fun... I usually am not a huge driving guy, but this was electric and buttery smooth. Each vehicle has its own vibe, and weight to it, there is something for everyone... No heavy shitty, can't turn vehicles, with no sense of speed. The jumps are Fucking awesome, they are everywhere...
World-Fucking Huge, each area is beautifully crafted with so damn much Awesome AI and interaction... Spent an hour in Pier 39 just messing with hacking, cars, npcs, watching what people do, and the AI is so damn impressive, so much variety compared to WD1 where npcs just walk down a sweet, these npcs feel and look like tourists visiting the bay area at pier 39 wearing cameras around the neck, wearing all types of clothing... Npcs everywhere doing everything from jogging, yoga, in parks, beach, just all over doing something different.. So much variety in npcs, didn't see the same ones over and over... Wait till you visit Alcatraz... Holy Shit... No way in hell even touched a quarter of the world in my two days playing the game... I test the AI, vehicles, shooting, drone, and RC jumper... All handle nice and have some really cool gadgets... First person drone flying feels nice and east to control.
Selfies-Yep, nice array of different categories to choose from. Move camera and Marcus where you want, when you want...
Obviously with new tools, hacking every car, npc, and having all four face buttons to use in hacking, the controls will take some getting used too. All new games take time and this will also. Everyone that played also had to get used to the controls. After my first game session of hour or so, the controls felt better, and after each hour it got better and better... It's a learning curve but it will be satisfying when you get a hold of the controls. Driving is pick up and go, and getting used to the controls didn't take away any fun...
Shooting-So much can be said about the difference in gun sounds. This was one of the first I checked out, guns feels nice with some recoil, but sounds are really impressive with nice pop sounds from handguns, satisfying shells hitting the ground, and reloadingredients the clips, was so much more improved than WD1.
So many tiny details, art everywhere, there is always something going on, this is a real living breathing world with the sounds of the city in the background like in a GTA game, with all nice extra sounds you hear when walking around or driving...
Police AI- Addicted to getting npcs arrested. It's not just npc hands go up and that's it, much more and little things happen which dropped my jaw... Never gother old. The police AI didn't come after you for hitting a vehicle or punching so.eine in the face a couple times, but when they do come it's a nice change, they were tough and brutal when coming after you, but with all the tools on hacking shit, it's great to be hearing the sirens, and going 150 MPh getting away from the cops... So glad there's no bump into cars or punching people and 5 cop cars pull up, they give you some freedom on just having fun with AI. I caused a crash with two vehicles both npcs get out and argue, I hack one car and run them both over, so satisfying.
Police show up to arrest npc, I watch it unfold for a minute, then hack the police to run over everybody, nobody knows what happened and I walk away down the street without any worries... I hack from my drone up high and I mean high, messing other npcs and police and they are clueless, no 5 cops on your assistance for having fun and messing around...
I ride my RC jumper into npcs and they don't like it and will kick it, dogs bark at it, throw rocks or shoot it down, no worries you just craft another one...
Fast travel-As we know it's clothing shops and HeadQuarters... HQ=Epic, they listened again... don't give me a shipping container, devs laughed and no more shipping containers...
Punching feels very damn solid for this first iteration. This was a pet peeve of mine in WD1, I wanted fisticuffs on npcs, and boy I lunched every one I saw just about, but no dogs, only petted them. The combat is press a button and Marcus punches the npcs, but so much variety and animations, so satisfying... Punching npcs into the water, or while they are taking selfies... Hey they even punched me when I was an asshole and that nice to see.. Don't think just taking a car has no consequences it does, not from the police though...
Parkour with the R2 held down is smooth as butter, jump in places you couldn't in WD1, much more freedom... it's got some amazing animations, I feel young again ?
The team listened to the what the community wanted and as you lurks the forums all the time, listening to everyone's tastes and game play styles. They hit each point so far in what they wanted to accomplish, first driving, which is really just epic... I loved being able to take a turn on a dime, crash into debris on sidewalk, drift around the entire corner while listening to msome great tunes... This is what driving should be in an open world...
