Watch Dogs: Legion Review. Best Ubisoft Sandbox

Game for an amateur - but with an original idea and wide possibilities

Ubisoft has long since moved from the needle of our approval to the comfortable sleds of the seasonal conveyor. French game makers are not guilty of continuing to parasitize on pensioner Sam Fischer, dragging his grandfather by the sleeve in all their franchises, but that they only stagnate in the search for creativity and audience. This is where the story would have ended if the studio hadn't come up with the Watch Dogs series.

Whoever remembers the old will remember that initially Watch Dogs was positioned as mysterious, spy and properly gloomy. In fact, it turned out to be boring, gray and stifling straightforwardness. The sequel danced from the opposite: a group of fashionable vapers who rummage for gear, talk memes and run around the city, entertaining bored San Francisco residents and oppressing bad guys. Gamers got all of the above, but adjusted for a cool situational sandbox, as well as a ton of activities and side missions in a warm and sunny environment with beats of a high-quality soundtrack.

Rub, rub, we have a lot of paint - we will draw more at night  

A couple of years passed between the first and therefore the sequel, and 4 years between it and therefore the upcoming triquel. What could Ubisoft have penned in twice the time it took to create a sequel? Let's just say that you will understand everything yourself when, in the tenth hour of the passage, you play as 76-year-old Caroline Wright, who scandals three pints of foam and runs round the center of evening London during a red Candybober, scaring off drivers at the intersections of Trafalgar Square. A few minutes before this, the grandmother had dressed up stylishly in a stall near the metro, and was also looking for a ball to arrange osteochondrosis coinage, but she remembered that she was actually a comedian by profession. It sounds crazy, but the Watch Dogs: Legion triquel is what it is.

The same old stand-up lady Caroline Wright. By the way, while still sober

Also note in here the stubborn management of transport, and if you can still somehow move around in cars, not without disgust, then motorcycles are a "Nobel Prize" for unnatural driving. It is worth taking your words back: in the remake of Mafia: Definitive Edition, the bikes were quite passable. The damage model is generally “just hello, just how are you” - it's a shame in 2020, with Grand Theft Auto 5 alive, to make boxes on wheels that bump into each other as if it were an attraction with bumper cars at the Sokolniki circuit ". And damn damn, what kind vsoepyl when you FLEX in a jeep with the autopilot on the night Waterfront lazily podrulivaya to the monumental Big Ben and kayfuya to the sounds of the Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc .

Watch Dogs triquel is about that too: aesthetics in the moment. How not to love London, in which you are a popular superhero and save residents from army patrols, police raids and local gangs' outrages, and then swim on Duck Island and go crazy in St. James's Park across the street from Buckingham Palace!

Victoria Embankment with a turn to Big Ben. This is where the Gorillaz song played

How not to love local random events that work to immerse more abruptly staged cutscenes: here's a street check that ended with a cop knocked out because he stopped a boxer. By the way, we observe of him - yes, any inhabitant are often taken "on a pencil" so as to later recruit into the ranks of the resistance. Anyone, including enemies. Anyone, including cops , doctors, hackers, football fans, street artists, or maybe a homeless , are often snatched from the subway - and he will have his own unique abilities and weapons. Playing as a policeman, you'll enter guarded objects during a very "Hitman way" and without raising an alarm. For the fans, you carry a support group with you, capable of organizing a local war in two clicks. Hackers steal cryptocurrency, lawyers are associated with Scotland Yard and can get rid of jail. Recruiting is a banger Watch Dogs: Legion , which turns the game into the meticulous manager of an underground uprising. Or in a simulator of a modern revolution with fake news and propaganda, the purpose of which is to climb a high-rise, select a poster and paste it so wide that it can be seen from the other side of the Thames.

All your agents can be captured in a shared photo. As long as they are alive.

Watch Dogs: Legion is a good example of the potential of procedural generation being properly realized. Once it was possible to unexpectedly save the girl of an absentee ally, and this choice forced the recruitment, since initially there was a separate mission not connected with his relatives. And that's cool! In one among the fights, the very first fighter of the London cell DeadSec was badly injured, and later even died. A balding and elderly clerk decided to intercede for a street musician who was severely beaten by several bandits, who then switched from a guitarist to a hero. And this is against the surroundings of the mode with the permanent death of any character at any time during the game. If you die, everything will not be returned. If everyone died, the game is over, load first. And this makes the novelty akin to XCOM, since the "terminator" mode from there beat on emotions and made you tremble over absolutely every fighter.

Walking is beneficial and profitable, so you don't miss out on clothing stores

The core mechanics of the series - namely, hacktivism, social stealth and infiltration of closed objects using hacking skills and gadgets - remained untouched. Fortunate ideas with spatial puzzles migrated in even more numbers. The attributes of the past parts also are nailed here: from the garments of the most characters to themselves - there's Rench from the sequel and Aiden Pearce from the original. Story missions are associated with them, but nostalgia will have to pay: the game has a relatively sneaky seasonal pass, as well as an in-game shopping store with lots for real money. There is a lot of goods and trash, and fans of the latest installments of Assassin's Creed will appreciate the map with the location of the points for the development of skills. An needless purchase, because the locations become known when the areas are cleared.

The city is big and the revolution needs to be brewed by hand, region by region. This is associated with interesting missions with special characters: a beekeeper with a swarm of robotic bees, an elegant spy with the skills of James Bond, a driver with an auto-clear stream of cars during chases, as well as a local John Wick - unwinding everyone in a deadly waltz of gan-kata martial art!

Shop for real money. There are almost no worth lots, do not panic

Yes, this is not a next generation release: the game does not sound, play or feel in a new way. But this is definitely the coolest part of Watch Dogs you know. The setting and mood resonate loudly with today's world events, with the sick vibes of the summer American and autumn Belarusian unrest. It's scary, but what's happening inside Watch Dogs: Legion is an interesting variation on the English Brexit theme. And yes, there is also a "mask" here: you can cover your mouth for free and for a fee, if you want to show everyone what a hypebeast you are, and what is in the epidemic trend today.

 Keep your distance and wait for Watch Dogs:Legion either on new consoles to go blind from mesmerizing ray tracing, or on discounts. It is worth buying on release if you have not played the previous parts and are not tired of repetitive game mechanics, or simply - if you like London-grad, have extra money and like the idea of recruiting.

For the rest, Polish developers are preparing the main game of the year in early December, so the Watch Dogs triquel should either be completed in advance or postponed until discounts, patches and online mode, which will be released in a month. The release is for an amateur, but an amateur of what exactly - decide for yourself. Even if it will be a night panorama under the Gorillaz track or an old woman in a red Candybober.