Hey guys, did any of you play Watch Dogs 2? Is it a better game than its predecessor? I heard some good things and it's getting cheaper so I wanna try it out...
I’ve played both thoroughly. I’m an acknowledged open-world game addict, so take my enthusiasm with a grain of salt.
TL;DR: The second game is better in every respect.
The main character does about the same amount of parkourish movement, but rather than scouting locations by using established CC Cameras, the quadcopter gives a faster and more natural scouting mechanism. The quadcopter and RC car are modifiable to carry devices which distract, stun, or kill opponents.
The hacking puzzles moved from being a simple Pipe Puzzler thing to an overlay on the physical world geometry, making it a puzzle and navigation/exploration gameplay at the same time.
The online gameplay integration is smooth and less intrusive. I enjoyed having drop-ins in my world, seeing other players who happened to be in the same part of the map as I was. They added other players dropping in if you cause a massive ruckus, so if you’ve got maxed Wanted Level, bounty hunter(s) will appear in your instance to hunt you down.
I also enjoyed the story much more. The first game had such a downer story: a complete social screwup who had managed to get his niece killed, and then continued to seek revenge in a way that was endangering his sister and remaining nephew. From a narrative perspective it was dissonant to have this character who had suffered a loss continue to cause so many other people to suffer what he did; he was a killing machine. The sequel makes it much simpler to use non-lethal methods to progress through the story, then you can still be a murderous bastard if you want to do so.