While driving to one of the many missions scattered throughout Watch Dogs 2 's San Francisco Bay Area setting, young hacker Marcus Holloway kills time by asking one of his cohorts an important question: Who would win in a fight, Alien or Predator?

Watch Dogs 2 was announced by Ubisoft all the way back at E3 this year, and once word of it had gotten out, there were mixed feelings. On the one hand, the concept of the series had always been good and this looked set to introduce a new approach to the world of hacking, however, there were also...

The original Watch Dogs was seen as the poster child for the PS4 and Xbox One upon release. For many years until release, with each passing trailer, our hopes and dreams for the original sky-rocketed.

The original Watch Dogs was a polarising game. Personally, I thought it was fantastic, but it was massively crippled by Ubisoft's antics and the fact that the main protagonist had as much personality as a wet piece of cardboard.

The new tone is incredibly captivating | Interesting and fun characters | New hacking options open up a lot of gameplay possibilities | Massive amounts of content with a sizable main story | San Francisco is a wonderful setting | The pop culture art and design direction is wonderful | Buttery smooth...

The driving is a tad wonky | Massive ludonarrative dissonance | Visuals of some assets feel cartoony and on the wrong end of realism | Combat encounters can become repetitive after a while | Some references and imagery are a little heavy handed

With so many promising games coming out over the past few weeks I thought Watch Dogs 2 would take a backseat to Titanfall 2, Skyrim Special Edition, and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.

Fantastic mission variety; Successful sandbox execution; Beautiful world

Tags

The premise for Watch Dogs 2 expands directly on its predecessor. The Blume company who prototyped ctOS (the semi-fictional infrastructure control software) in Chicago as a method to centralize management of things like the electrical grid has expanded nationwide.

Likeable protagonist; Sharp and funny writing; Bright and colorful world of San Francisco; Plethora of varied main and side content; Never takes itself too seriously

Secondary hackerspaces don't do much; AI can be a little dim; Infrequent framerate wobble

I wondered if they'd be able to top the original Watch Dogs, but I can safely say that they have done just that. Watch Dogs 2 surpasses the original with it's improved setting, characters, story and activities.

Watch Dogs 2 is meta at its best. Here you are, the player, controlling a hacker, hacking a game's open set of systems as dynamically and as haphazardly as you please. You could say you're almost a hacker yourself, with Marcus Holloway -- the game's hacktagonist -- your backdoor into Watch Dogs 2's...

"We've finally arrived." The highly touted reinterpretation of the smart city of Chicago became a marketing disaster, the ones that take anyone's attention to the rating screen. [...]

Greatly improved core gameplay mechanics; Fun and Realistic San Francisco; Creative and Strategic freedom to players including Skill Tree; More meaningful hacking; Interesting Side quests; Interesting NPCs - Wrench and Miranda Comay; A Visual Treat

Cover Mechanics; Soundtrack; Vehicle Gameplay

Watch Dogs 2 Is a Sequel that Easily Surpasses the Original