Tag Archives: Watch Dogs Legion

Game of the Year 2020: Bottom 5

This year has seen its fair share of great video game experiences worthy of both praise and recommendation, but it’s also seen plenty of stinkers too. Now this list isn’t meant to imply that these games are the worst games of the year, because they simply aren’t. These are just some games that I happened to play this year that I really did not enjoy for one reason or another. A lot of the games in this list either already have or will eventually see significant fixes and updates that can technically fix a game I had issues with, but some of the games on this list are beyond what a bug fix can rectify.

GHOST OF TSUSHIMA

Ghost of Tsushima isn’t a bad game, but it definitely left me wanting something more engaging and technically proficient than what I played back when it launched. I wrote about my issues with the game back when it released, focusing on a bevy of story issues and just the mechanical weirdness I had encountered during my truncated play time. I found the camera to be the most formidable foe in the game because I would die more often than not due to its ineptitude.

But that was all back in July. I would imagine that after several months of existence some of the rougher edges of Ghost of Tsushima would have been ironed out through patches and updates, ultimately leaving the game in a much better place. This could very well be the best time to jump back in, especially considering that there’s a new cooperative mode where you and 3 other friends fight demons and stuff. That alone kind of makes me kind of want to boot it back up, but considering I lack any friends who have any interest in doing that, I don’t know that I’ll be able to enjoy that particular aspect of the game.

While that all sounds cool, it doesn’t change the fact that I was deeply underwhelmed by Ghost of Tsushima upon release. Unlike most of the other games on this list however, I do think that with a lot of the technical jank fixed Ghost of Tsushima could be a really fun stealth/action title. It’s one of the few games here that I would actually consider revisiting, and that’s kind of the highest honor one can achieve on this list.

CYBERPUNK 2077

Where do you even start when talking about Cyberpunk 2077? I tried to capture as much as I could in a short post a few weeks back, but there’s so much to take issue with in that just thinking about all of my grievances is exhausting. What I will say is that it’s a buggy mess of a game that falls apart the second you look too closely at anything, boasts a introductory sequence that’s just a real slog, contains an abundance of convoluted and confusing menus, and doesn’t even feel especially fun to play. I don’t see the silver lining around Cyberpunk 2077, and I don’t think I ever will.

From lying about mandated crunch for their employees, lying and misleading investors, getting pulled from the PlayStation store, and having a couple of retailers issue refunds for the game, Cyberpunk 2077 has destroyed the goodwill that CD Projekt Red earned throughout their time working on the Witcher series and the GOG platform. It’s absolutely nuts to see how hard everyone turned on the company for their unfinished and unpolished game in just like two weeks, although it seems entirely justified.

The worst part is that even if the game worked perfectly, I still don’t think it would be very fun. People have told me that the game doesn’t really get going until about 8 hours in, which is an insane requirement for someone to endure in the hopes that they might be interested in a game. Aside from that, I don’t think the combat, driving or conversational stuff is that good, at least from the little of it that I saw. Truth be told, I think Cyberpunk 2077 fails to encourage players to stick it out for 30 or 40 hours of gameplay, and it doesn’t sound like that argument ever really gets made.

WATCH DOGS LEGION

It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that I had some issues with Watch Dogs Legion. From its nonexistent story and its horrendous performance on PC, I found that Watch Dogs Legion felt like an afterthought rather than sequel to a very positively received game. Watch Dogs Legion‘s failings are only exacerbated when compared to the previous game in the franchise, Watch Dogs 2, a title that had its fair share of issues but was way more of a cohesive and complete product than this latest release.

I’ll stand by the assertion that the core gameplay mechanics are still solid and rewarding, but outside of that, Watch Dogs Legion offers nothing new or interesting aside from the incredibly lame ability to “recruit anyone” in London to fight alongside you. The mechanic sure sounds nifty, but in practice it’s an incredibly tedious element of the game that I eventually abandoned because you would just get cooler playable characters after completing story missions anyway. The incentive to hunt for NPCs with unique and helpful characteristics and abilities vanishes under the weight of being upstaged by story progression unlocks, and by how monotonous it really is. It also feels so firmly rooted in the traditional “Ubisoft open world formula,” that it’s just a complete bore to progress through.

Watch Dogs Legion just feels like a complete misfire of game that failed to not only capitalize on what made Watch Dogs 2 so successful, but completely abandoned any attempt at providing a cool story or characters in favor of a stupid mechanic that wears out its welcome after a few hours. If I haven’t made it obvious enough yet, I really did not enjoy Watch Dogs Legion. It’s yet another example of a game that even if it was technically solid, it would still be an absolute slog to play through.

MARVEL’S AVENGERS

Unlike my severe distaste for Watch Dogs Legion, I don’t actively dislike Marvel’s Avengers. In fact, I’m not even that disappointed with the game because I never really had any expectations for it. For as long as I’ve wanted a good, big-budget Avengers game, when the news came out that it would be a live service game I kind of just wrote it off.

The weirdest part is that it’s a pretty decent game, but by being shoehorned into this business model that just didn’t make sense for the license, it just felt overly convoluted and messy. Unlike other games on this list, I can’t really point to one aspect of the game that’s particularly bad. The issue is that there’s nothing particularly good or bad about Marvel’s Avengers aside from being a really weird and oddly dated feeling live game. I would love a great Avengers game, but this isn’t it.

The main issue is that the game is constantly undermined by being a live service product. With an abundance of tiered gear and currencies, Marvel’s Avengers, despite having a decently interesting superhero story, was diluted by being a licensed game that tried to offer a lasting live experience for players without being able to get too wacky with the property. None of your gear was visually represented thanks to Marvel being overly precious about their characters, which led to a bunch of invisible items that just made numbers in the background go up. The whole game just seems like it was designed by committee, which left it feeling bland and forgettable.

SKATER XL

I was so excited for the return of skateboarding games, especially when you had some of them trying to illicit the same warm feelings people got from the Skate series. Skater XL seemed like the game that would bring that pseudo-realistic style of skateboarding game back from the dead, but it was more of a wet fart than anything else.

Skater XL allows you to ride a skateboard and do all sorts of tricks and grinds, albeit in a messier way than expected. The thing that made the Skate series so approachable was the way it made you feel like you were being technically adept while not having to really do that much. All of your tricks were done with the right analog stick and maybe another button for a grab or spin. It was simple but required a level of competency to pull off more advanced tricks and lines.

Skater XL on the other hand ditches that approachability in favor of turning your controller into a game of Twister for your fingers. The controls are overly complex and require you to do unnatural things like steer with the triggers. It never felt intuitive or satisfying because for every successful trick I managed to pull off, there was a trail of blood and viscera behind me that chronicled my failure. Also, there’s not a game in Skater XL. There’s no story or challenges or anything that could qualify as connective tissue. It’s just a level select with some overly convoluted controls at this point.

To be fair though, it’s been a while since I’ve actually checked in with the game, so maybe they’ve incorporated more usable control schemes or some sort of progression system. But I genuinely have no interest in returning to the game after the bad taste it left in my mouth when it launched.

DISHONORABLE MENTION: SHITTY CONSOLE LAUNCHES

That’s right motherfuckers, I took some time off of complaining about this, but by far it’s my least favorite trend of 2020. I have been inducted into a miserable realm of the internet where I’m following people who track the stock of consoles in several different retailers. You might be thinking, “Ari, that sounds insane,” and you’d be absolutely correct in that thought. It’s beyond wild that I’ve had to invite a bevy of Twitter notifications to light up my phone whenever they please just for the opportunity to spend $500. It’s maddening.

Overpriced bundles, terrible website infrastructures, scalpers and bots, all of it is absolutely infuriating on its own, but nothing is more annoying than these Twitter accounts trying to capitalize on this sudden surge in followers by constantly trying to build a community around people who are being fucked over by retailers. I don’t want to watch a live stream of you checking retailer websites so you can announce a stock drop. I get it, you gotta capitalize on whatever little slice of fame you can get, but when all I want is to know when I can be disappointed by Best Buy, getting notifications for YouTube videos, shouting out other people who are tracking the same shit, and the really bad memes, are all things I could do without.

I don’t mean to go so hard at these people who are just trying to help, cause I do appreciate their efforts. But every tweet that isn’t about stock availability is just another reminder that what I am doing is crazy, and it didn’t need to happen. Look, I know that COVID went and fucked up everything this year, especially manufacturing and shipment lines, but despite knowing how constrained stock was going to be, neither Microsoft or Sony did anything about it. Because at the end of the day, seeing an entire company’s stock of their console vanish with seconds is great news for them.

You could write this off as me being salty about not being able to get my hands on one of these new funny looking boxes, but it’s been genuinely demoralizing to finally be in a position in my life where I can actually afford to drop half a grand on console, but I just don’t have the chance to. Every logical part of my brain screams at me when I feverishly click on links to retailers because deep down I know that there isn’t really anything to play on these boxes. I also know that eventually I will be able to get my hands on one of these things, but that’s the power of consumerism I suppose. I don’t need this thing, I just really want it. Unfortunately the whole release of these consoles has been a colossal shit-show from top to bottom, which is hands down my least favorite gaming trend of 2020.

This has been day 3 of The Bonus World’s Game of the Year 2020 coverage. Check back tomorrow for our final list about video games from this year.

Gut Check: Watch Dogs Legion

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When I think about my time with 2016’s Watch Dogs 2, I’m reminded of its many ups and downs both in terms of gameplay and story, but at the end of the day it’s a game that had a lot of heart and charm that managed to make it a memorable and satisfying experience. Watch Dogs Legion however, lacks any of the joy and fun that its predecessor had, contains repetitive and frustrating missions, and also runs like hot garbage.

Watch Dogs Legion is a game that focuses more on the hacker organization DedSec instead of any single character by allowing you to effectively recruit and control any person you find on the street. The goal is to rebuild the organization with these recruits, each of which have randomly assigned traits to them that make them more or less viable candidates to add to your ranks. You might find a guy with a cool car, or a drone expert who knows how to hack more effectively, or even a lawyer who can bail your team out of jail faster if they happen to get arrested. It’s an interesting concept that rarely feels worth engaging in and unfortunately presents its own suite of complications to providing a cohesive gameplay experience.

The lack of any primary character to really focus on in the game wouldn’t be such an issue if Watch Dogs Legion wasn’t also trying to make you care about the narrative. The quick version of the story is that DedSec was framed for a terrorist attack on London that prompted a private military company (PMC) called Albion to turn London into an oppressive police state. While the story itself doesn’t do a great job of handling or presenting any of these topics with the care they require, the whole narrative falls flat because every character you play as just spouts the same bland responses to everything no matter what the context is.

For instance, there’s an early mission where you find what effectively is a prison camp set up by Albion that just exists in the middle of the city. You literally just stroll on in there to see the many, justifiably distraught people just kinda hanging out. Interestingly enough, they all have their cellphones on them which is a weird thing to let political prisoners have, but whatever. Yet after completing the mission in the camp and casually waltzing out the front door, the voice of your boss chimes in and remarks about how terrible the situation is. My character, a bland and procedurally generated ding-dong, proceeded to simply respond with, “I could get used to this DedSec thing,” or something to that effect. That kind of thing happens almost every single time you complete a mission, and it really robs Watch Dogs Legion of any real chance at telling a compelling story by having your blank slate of a character just spit out random one-liners in the hope that it makes any sense contextually.

On the topic of procedural generation and characters, Watch Dogs Legion tries to inflate the “uniqueness” of the citizens of London by pitch-shifting their voices to artificially expand the diversity of people you might encounter. As you might imagine, this leads to a lot of people with the same voice, just one happens to be unnaturally deeper, talking at each other as if you were listening to two robocalls try to scam each other.

Even the missions are bland and uninspired, regardless of whether they were procedurally generated for a recruitment mission or if they’re part of the main story line. These procedurally generated missions will often make you return to places you’ve already infiltrated for either story or region unlocking purposes, and the region specific missions are wildly dull and carry the stupidest implications with them. The main conceit of these region unlocking missions is that you do enough to inspire the people of a certain part of the city to enter a state of “defiance” and rise up against Albion. Even wilder is how Watch Dogs Legion considers putting up a cool DedSec banner over an Albion one to be just as important as uncovering an organ-harvesting operation. The level of cognitive dissonance that’s on display at any moment in Watch Dogs Legion, combined with the lack of any charm or character, really overshadow the few existing high points in the game.

Cognitive dissonance aside, the core gameplay loop of Watch Dogs Legion is still extremely solid despite the overall game feeling like a shell of its predecessor. Being able to take down outposts without ever stepping foot inside of them by utilizing cameras, drones, and traps littered throughout any given locale is still really satisfying. I’ve been able to play most of Watch Dogs Legion without ever firing a gun, with the exceptions being the missions where you’re thrust into combat scenarios against your will. There’s just something infinitely enjoyable about terrorizing a bunch of PMC dipshits without ever laying a finger on them.

But the same could have been said about Watch Dogs 2, hell, even the original Watch Dogs was good at making you feel like a hacking god. Whereas Watch Dogs 2 made its digital version of San Fransisco feel alive and packed with things to do, Watch Dogs Legion feels oddly empty. You can go buy a bunch of clothes, do package delivery missions, get drunk and play kick-up with a soccer ball, but that’s kind of it. For as big and dense Watch Dogs Legion‘s version of London is, it still feels surprisingly empty. It’s even more upsetting when you remember that Watch Dogs 2 gave you reasons to explore the city and hunt down famous landmarks in San Fransisco. Watch Dogs Legion could have really benefited from having something like this present, encouraging people to get to know London and its iconic locations.

But I could get past all of those issues if it weren’t for the miserable state of the PC version of this game. My computer isn’t new and I recognize that, but there is no reason that I should have to play Watch Dogs Legion on its lowest settings, and still be unable to have it run at a steady 30 frames per second. The game is so heinously optimized that moving around the world, getting into combat, or even turning your camera too fast turns the game into a slideshow. It’s all the more upsetting when you look at the console versions that look much better and run more stably despite being on hardware that was released in 2013.

Despite all of this however I kept playing Watch Dogs Legion because that core gameplay loop is still satisfying. The problem is, Watch Dogs Legion has a few missions that strip you of your ability to get creative, opting for a more linear experience. These crop up from time to time, but they were rarely anything that I couldn’t overcome with enough bashing my head against a wall.

However, after ~13 hours of playing I finally ran up against a quest that was so bad and so infuriating that I finally decided that my time with the game was over. Without spoiling anything specific, the mission in question is a forced stealth section where you are basically stripped of any tools you have and have to just kinda of worm your way around the threats. During this time, you’re forced to listen to a plot dump about the leader of Albion via what essentially boils down to an audio log, and then you can progress further. However, if you are spotted, the mission restarts and you have to do it all over again. I must have heard this stupid info-dump about 6 times before I decided that Watch Dogs Legion isn’t worth anymore of my precious time on this earth.

Watch Dogs Legion is a pale reflection of its predecessor, lacking any aspect of charm while failing to actually do anything interesting or insightful with its setting. Bad characters, bad missions, and terrible performance, all combined with Ubisoft’s pathetic attempts to tell an apolitical story about a post-Brexit, police state version of London results in a game that fails to deliver on any of the good will that Watch Dogs 2 built up. In short, Watch Dogs Legion is a colossal disappointment and I don’t think it’s worth your time.

Blog: Distraction – 10/28/20

E3 2019: Ubisoft

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One thing you can always count on from a Ubisoft E3 conference, is it’s gonna be weird, people are gonna be dancing, and they’re going to continue to act like their games are apolitical. So here we go, let’s take a look at the stuff Ubisoft brought to the stage that I considered worth writing about.

Keep in mind, a lot of this conference was about updating the games they have out at the moment, and considering I don’t really live in any of those ecosystems, don’t expect to see much of that in the feature below.

ODE TO A SOUNDTRACK THAT NO ONE REMEMBERS

Opening the show was something called the Assassin’s Creed Symphony, playing a lovely medley of of what I assume is music from the Assassin’s Creed games. A weird choice considering this year we’re not supposed to get a new entry in the franchise, and also, I don’t know that any of the music is particularly memorable. It’s good music for sure, but not something I could ever recall if you asked me to.

But the reality of it was that this was some hype for the Assassin’s Creed Symphony tour that’s coming up. That’s neat.

WATCH DOGS LEGION

I love the aesthetic that Watch Dogs Legion is hitting upon here, this slightly futuristic, post-Brexit London, where extremists and gangs rein supreme. Things are kicking off in a major way here though, with so many different gameplay elements being highlighted. Particularly the part where they went from playing as a street thug, died, and then started playing as an old lady. She’s a hacking old lady who used a freaking drone that’s just jumping on people’s faces. Then she pulled out a gun an iced some fools.

The whole pitch here is that you can play as anyone in the city. You recruit new resistance members based on their stats and abilities. Some people were better hackers, fighters, drivers, etc. It actually seems like an awesome idea that probably took a long time to make work well.

Slightly disappointing was the amount of gun-play in the game. I was hoping to see more focus on using your hacking powers and hand to hand combat than just shooting fools. Like, sure, in games shooting stuff is fun, but I was hoping that with the gun laws in London, that would be more apparent in the game.

Also, I’m very unclear of how an actual story will weave together when anyone can be a main character. Either that isn’t the case, or the story is going to feel so nebulous and vague that it feels disjointed.

After the gameplay demo, the director of the game reiterated the fact that anyone can be recruited and played as. I’m assuming that there are going to be pretty influential NPCs that will kind of shepherd whatever the player character is forward. At some point, player voices and backstories will have to be reused, right? It’s gotta be something where, there are like 5 different kind of old ladies in the world with their own voices and animations, and it reused over and over. Or not, who knows.

It’s out next March.

MYTHIC QUEST

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a5tWM5yQZA

It’s a show from the creators of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia about a game studio that made the biggest MMO in the world. Here’s hoping that at least an entire season or two focuses on unionization in the games industry.

20 bucks says that if this show goes well, someone will actually make this fake MMO game into a reality.

The show looks like it could be okay, but boy howdy it’s got one hell of a mountain to climb. It’s coming to Apple Plus, a service that I’ve only just heard of, right now.

BRAWLHALLA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQWPLKHv2TU

The free to play Super Smash Bros game is getting some Adventure Time characters in it. I like both of these properties and it’s nice to see that they’re still supporting this game with new content. I gotta say, I don’t know if the show is still going or if it’s relevant at all these days, but it seems to be a cool content infusion for a game I forgot existed.

GHOST RECON BREAKPOINT

I didn’t hate Ghost Recon Wildlands, it was just a very repetitive game that I didn’t have people to play with. Jon Bernthal is in the game as the lead villain which he seems to pull off very well. After a CG trailer of Mr. Bernthal being angry and hyping up his army, he walked out on stage with an adorable pit bull who looked very scared of being there. I have no idea why he was out there, but I’m very happy he was.

Then we cut to a trailer of people shooting other people in the woods and doing some military hand signals at each other. I’d play this game only to get more of Mr. Bernthal’s acting. My only hope is that this time around, they put in a button that allows me to snap to cover instead of that auto-cover nonsense.

And here’s something for the hardest of the hardcore Ghost Recon fans, an exclusive streaming and content portal just for fans of the games. It was weird, but probably something the fans will really appreciate and hopefully actually use.

Yet again, there’s another Terminator crossover in this game, cause of course. It comes out on October 4th.

ELITE SQUAD

Uh, they’re making a Tom Clancy themed mobile game. It’s some tactical shooting game called Elite Squad. They put Sam Fisher in it which is the meanest thing they could’ve done quite frankly. This is what they do with one of their most recognizable characters – put him in a mobile game instead of his own title.

JUST DANCE 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtiXKHNAFew

They’re doing it! The big elaborate dancing sequence where a person in a panda bear costume comes out and dances with a bunch of other brightly dressed dancers. It was just as weird and uncomfortable as it always was. Thank goodness for Ubisoft.

Also, I guess they’re putting another one of these games out this year. Whatever.

RAINBOW SIX QUARANTINE

How do you feel about a spooky scary Rainbow Six game where you and two other players take on some monsters or something? Claiming this to be the Rainbow Six Siege of PVE games, it’s a big claim that I bet could work well. It’s weird though, cause Rainbow Six was always about some tactical, military realism, and this very much seems like a departure from that.

Hopefully it works out well for them.

UPLAY +

You know what this is. It’s another game subscription service you can pay into to play all the latest releases along with a catalog of classic games. The service is coming to Stadia, allowing you to utilize this service anywhere in theory. The price is in line with other services like this, at $14.99 a month, it seemed almost inevitable that this would happen.

ROLLER CHAMPIONS

“A skill-based, team PVP sports game.” That’s what they said about the game. With no real details, they came out and just dropped this trailer for a game without any real information, then said that you can download a demo for the game today. So that’s cool. Then, almost as if they had messed up and announced the demo too early, they showed off a gameplay trailer, which also didn’t tell me anything about this game.

It looks like a mesh of NFL Street and a roller derby. I’ll try the demo though. Why the hell not?

GODS & MONSTERS

The last trailer of the conference was for a game that I guess exists that had absolutely no information about it. It was colorful and made it seem like it would be a more lighthearted adventure game in the vein of Assassin’s Creed. They said it’s a game that heavily focuses on mythology. So who knows what that means.

And it just ended. For a Ubisoft conference, it felt kind of lifeless and straightforward. Also, where the hell is Splinter Cell? It’s getting to the point where they keep putting Sam Fisher into their games, without providing players any modern context for who the character is. The last Splinter Cell was in 2013 and was on the Xbox 360. We’re rapidly approaching the point where we’ve had a generation without a game in the franchise, but the lead character has shown up several times.

What I’m saying is that it’s a crime that there isn’t another Splinter Cell game, and I’m upset. But Watch Dogs Legion looked cool. The rest of the conference was a little muted for my taste. It felt like they’re playing it safe until the next generation of consoles come out.