The Evolution of Noah's look through the years is something else: from part time worker man, to uncle, to dad, to biker, and now to a cult preacher from far cry 5. Its been a journey.
"The amount of traffic deaths I caused is greater than generally the Joker would even dream of, and I did it casually, while trying to balance a bong between my knees and hold the Playstation controlled at the same time." 😂😂🤣
@@davidh9354 Noah has this amazing tone where you're just like "ah he's kinda doing a serious review rn" and then he comes out with some of the best jokes I've seen on youtube
I like how, in addition to the critique and analysis, you're like "let's talk about Black Mirror / Batman / V for Vendetta / etc, because those, unlike Watchdogs, actually have something to say about dystopias".
Watch_Dogs has plenty of things to say about dystopias, especially with Legion. The problem is that they never seem to go all the way with it or just leave that information as a backdrop for the world. - The first game set the basis, but focused more on a revenge plot rather than the actual premise that the game was marketed towards. - The second game did focus on said premise through the eyes DedSec and delivered a more grounded depiction of modern corporations, but lacked any sort of meaningful consequences or stakes to the narrative, causing all of your efforts to be essentially meaningless. Especially when the events of Legion occurred. Not to mention that it's overly cheery tone toke away from the severity of the situations that our characters were placed in. - Legion is the closest that the series had come to depicting a proper dystopian world by putting you the player in the position as the average everyday man instead of a super hacker with God-like hacking abilities. However, the games greatest strength also became it's greatest weakness when playing as anyone amounted to everyone that you play as being relatively shallow in terms of character. Not to mention that almost everyone was good everything which repeats the issue of being a God-like hacker again but on a larger extent. Watch_Dogs is a good franchise, but it has always struggled to find it's sense of identity and balance out it's gameplay with it's narrative in a meaningful sense. It seems as though the franchise still has a long way to go before it can truly ever become as big as other Ubisoft titles. At least the games do that is. If you want more out of the Watch_Dogs universe, check out the comics and tie in novels as they do a great if not better job at flushing out the universe.
If a game consistently fails to follow through on the themes it sets up, can it really be said to be saying much of anything about those themes? It’s like giving someone a birthday card with nothing written in it.
@@TheZacharias333 Not a good analogy. For one, Watch_Dogs unlike other dystopian media is much closer to home simply because most of the things accomplished in the games are actually possible in real life even now as we speak. Hacking technology such as vehicles, traffic lights, etc with a phone? All possible and done before in real life. Not exactly like the game of course, but that's to be expected. Watch_Dogs is relevant because it focus' on the present not an distant future with the obvious exception of course being Legion. I did say that the franchise didn't always follow through with it's themes that it presents, but that is not to say that it has nothing to say at all. The first Watch_Dogs game specifically very clearly touched on the nature of Ctos and Big Brother as well as why DedSec shouldn't be trusted. The conflict with Ctos is that people feel as though it is intrusive and a complete invasion of privacy which it very much is. But people's justifications for pushing it further is because it yeld's great results when it comes to predicting and stopping crimes. That's why it was initially utilized in Chicago to stop the rampant crime rate. The problem with this though is that the system and people in charge of it are allowed to frame anyone the see fit of being a menace to society even of they haven't committed a crime yet. There's a lot more that can be said on the matter, but here is a RU-vid how can express that much better than I can. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Kk2G6zc5pKo.html
Timestamps (an attempt): *Watch_Dogs* 00:00 - The One Button Hack, introduced - RU-vid, Big Tech, and your drapes (4:30) - Aiden Pearce, and an analysis of Batman (7:45) - Being Vigilante rank, or: Batman in a GTA world (11:03) - Aiden part III: The main plot (13:36) - Voyeurism (17:30) - The meaning of privacy (20:20) - Voyeurism continued: Multiplayer (21:08) - Aiden part IV: Shopping for furniture as a Keyboard Cowboy (25:50) - Chess, Space Invaders, and Love Island (28:57) - Bad Blood (31:59) *Watch_Dogs 2* 35:41 - The sequel _Hackers_ deserves - Jiving justice in the land of Neverwas (38:30) - The brick of domestic terrorism (42:50) - Watch the ants fight (48:20) - DLC part I: Weird Naked Things (51:20) - DLC part II: Oh, Ubisoft (55:00) - Lenny, and the venal morality of corporations (57:14) - Tonal (in)consistency:
I actually really like the “Alone” digital trip. It highlights how paranoid and misanthropic Aiden is becoming. People are literally cameras in the trip, he’s obsessed with being watched despite watching others.
The bloodline dlc in legion really showed how broken Aiden is as a person and is some story content that really would have helped make him a bit more sympathetic in the original game.
@@josegordo488 i loved the game too and some aspects of the story, but it really was despite Aiden as a protagonist rather than because. He could have worked better if they'd done more to unravel his flaws and have him go on some sort of growth, becoming a better person by the end of the game, or some sort of descent into an even more paranoid and avoidant mindset that leaves you questioning everything you have done the entire game, but instead he just ends where he started. He is Batman if he killed people, with less money, and now he's killed the Joker
@@timgimmy609 yeah i wish games that ventured into "edgy" territory weren't so afraid to say something but i guess to attract the most people, they choose to not say anything at all :/
@@kaleidoscopickait I guess it's about the shallow, looking cool rebel without a cause kind of stuff that can actually look stylish despite saying really nothing in the end.
Idk it felt like it showed enough substance, the main focus of the game is not revenge or anything like that, it's about domination in the digital/informational war, it's about people who know something they shouldn't know, also the sequence where we see women being sold on an auction makes you want to actually destroy all the ones who are involved in this, same with Rossie-Freemont place. The game is not very very long, it doesn't show everything that can be shown in that setting and concept, but it had enough in it. Also gotta remember that quite a few games back in 2013-2014 had the problem like AC Unity, which is spending a lot of years creating a very good immersive city and gameplay mechanics, and as a result not having enough time to put all the story in the game for the release date. Unity got 3/4 story parts cut out from it, i imagine WD wanted to show more as well.
God, I loved the first Watch Dogs multiplayer. Any game could be genius or comedy. Want to hack stealthily? Blend in at a street vendor and buy things repeatedly, hide in a dumpster, blend in with a group of NPCs... or steal a taco truck and play the Mexican music over the PA (which literally never gets played by anyone but a player, adding to the hilarity of getting away with it stealthed). Or you could just completely avoid all the intentions of the game and ram into the player you're paired with repeatedly as they cluelessly try to escape the carnage thinking the AI has gone haywire, as there's no multiplayer objectives that require doing something so completely stupid.
It's so underrated. We really need more oddball multiplayer game modes. You could really tell they designed the layout of Chicago just for hacking invasions. All the trash bins, or garbage pileups to hide behind and tiny little spots you could squeeze into really makes it feel fun to explore. I spent so much time just trying to see what cool spots I could get to because of that mode.
@@robertvangooff8506 Its sad that no one talks about this games multiplayer. Friends that didnt play video games loved watching me hack someone. its sad that everyone hates this game because i only have good memories from it
Haven't played that but always appreciate games or even just gamemodes that let you do stupid/silly things that are harmless in-game but that still require some skill or ingenuity, feels like a lot of ideas in games have been shoved aside or reduced to the press of a button. It works don't get me wrong, who wants to have to master a 5 button combo to grab a ledge? But I do miss silly dynamics in multiplayer maps/gamemodes that can be useful or just really funny
Still active in 2023. I rewatched this vid and got sold on the mp modes and had to try it. You do have to unlock multiplayer but if you just rush the 5 missions needed you'll unlock mp in at least 1-2 hours.
The focus of this game about "mocking others people private life" is especially disturbing considering the relatively recent revelations concerning the abuses and harassments at Ubisoft... Clues were always here, we were just blind to them =/
I feel like the big problem with Legion is that the "play as anyone" feature is really cool on paper, but hamstrung by the need to still follow the same basic structure of a Ubisoft open world game. It's a feature that belongs in like, a AAA version of Dwarf Fortress, where there is no set narrative, only a bunch of systems designed to allow players to build their own story. A pure sandbox that is able to respond to your actions in more long term ways than just immediate feedback of "you are now in combat, things are exploding!". But that's not the way that AAA games are made - you need cutscenes to put in the trailers, big "cinematic" moments that make people go "oh, shit!", and a drip feed of mission objectives to give players direction. I get why it happens - a lot of people feel lost in pure sandboxes; it's why games like Dwarf Fortress are still mostly a niche genre (the ascii graphics don't help either, but even Kenshi, which is a full 3D sandbox RPG, is still not even in the same universe as a mainstream AAA release in terms of sales), but it also means that the systems in Legion are never really going to be able to realize their full potential.
Its a compare a d contrast to Breath of the Wild. Even the developers expressed the same sentiment that to truly make a game, well, play how the player wanted as a huge sandbox, they have to write the story in such a way that it feels non-guided. Compared to past Zelda titles. So yeah.....I still don't know why Ubisoft, after knowing all that and thinking they could write it in a more focused way, think they could accomplish better....well....at least they tried.
In an ideal world Legion would be like this: collect evidences, find the name of the 2ry villain, find the place he would visit with his bodyguards, scan him, deep profile him, see his schedule, choose the best time and place to strike. Do this with all 2ry villains to get the main villain's attention to get him back in town from abroad, again find the place he would visit, deep profile him, see his schedule, choose the best place to strike. But we're not in that world that's why, just like with the Nemesis system, engaging with Legion systems and engaging with its story is like two separate things.
I've only ever played WD1, but despite the poor reception it got, I actually really enjoyed it. Aiden is a shitty guy roleplaying Batman, and on some level, he's self-aware of that, but he buries that awareness in all but his least lucid moments. And in the end, he doesn't even redeem himself: his curt hostility gets his sister kidnapped, and though he rescues her, his actions put them at odds; his poor communication gets Clara killed; literal scores of people die at Aiden's hands and in the chaos of the ctOS disturbances; and Blume just makes a more invasive ctOS 2.0 after Aiden demonstrates how exploitable the first one is. And yet, everyone _loves_ him. It's only the people he's close to who see past the fantasy. I think I value the way WD1 refuses to break Aiden's unwavering faith in himself--it makes for such a bleak story about social disintegration and urban vigilantism, with a nihilistic, 'people can't change' theme. I think I value the sheer, unflinching juxtaposition of conflicting worldviews and Aiden's resolution thereof with grandiose narcissism. In the eyes of Aiden Pearce, _Aiden Pearce is God,_ and no matter how many people die, that never stops being true--it's never even called into question, except during Aiden's lowest points taking digital trips. "Jesus, Aiden, just leave it; it's fine. How do you know what he thinks? I can handle this on my own; we do *not* need your help. Okay, look, Aiden, _god,_ you have not changed at all--Aiden, we *do not* need your help. Stop trying to fix our problems; every time you try, you just make things worse." -Nicole, in _Big Brother_
Aiden Pearce is deliberately written as a hypocrite. The author seems to miss that Aiden is still associating with a professional Hitman (Jordi), stealing cars, robbing ordinary citizens with your phone, and more. I don't think the people who ever reviewed this game ever suspected, maybe we're supposed to not LIKE Aiden. Especially since a huge chunk of the game is about how he's ruined all his personal relationships.
@@CT_Phipps I am fascinated by the way this author completely looked past the fact that Aiden is not a hero and is not portrayed by the game as such at all.
This. This is what I wanted to say in the author's section of the first WATCH_DOGS. Everybody has a different taste in what a well-written character is (if it isn't completely nonsensical) and I think Aiden is well-written in his own regard. The game never refers them him as a downright hero (at least from the first thing I can think of), but rather just... the vigilante.
I sometimes wonder what Noah would make of the Yakuza games but then he would probably need two lockdowns and an extended vacatin to finish all of them and then make an over four hour long video.
@@timcosgrove707 The newest game, Yakuza: Like a Dragon is actually pretty different. It feels fresh, and I ended up liking it even more than the originals
@@timcosgrove707 honestly you could 100% convince Noah to do this as he made an entire video on Gears of War, a franchise he took a similar sentiment from, and made a big long video/love letter to the franchise. If “easy fun that doesn’t differentiate much through titles” describes Yakuza, and I know it does because I love them, it would definitely be up his alley
@@SirSpence99 it is fine because liberals with no actual beliefs aren't able to do the bare minimum to enforce consequences and boycott Or the reactionaries who actually work against consequences saying with full mouths how they'll now buy more copies because sjws are ruining the industry You clearly see leftist game critics refusing to buy and engage with these companies on the other hand You see also leftist viewers refusing to buy their games at least directly from the company and opt for used copies and such Don't twist the world so it fits your own biases
@@HosKaetan I have yet to see a leftist boycott a Ubisoft game. I've seen leftists who *said* they would, but then when it came out that there was trans representation they bought it. No twisting here, just what I've seen. I have however seen people stick to their guns and boycott it *because* of the trans representation. Funny that. And yes, even pirating the game means that you aren't boycotting. *Especially* if you then go and tell people about how good it is because of representation.
I read your entire patreon announcement regarding feelings about depression and impostor syndrome and everything and I hope that from one depressed person to another, you inspire me, your videos are the highest quality videos in regards to the literary content and I hope that you keep making the content you want and know that a lot of people will support it even if it's a book or a novel and not necessarily a video game critique and analysis
@@ProfesserLuigi They still sell flip phones = you can opt out of a smartphone if you REALLY wanted to property in Nebraska = cheap, isolated, and generally a bit further away from other states in terms of "big-tech" modernity.
@Dale Twokey oh yeah vim aint just for oldsters the plugins can make it a better editor (though not IDE) than the leading VS Code also, vi? not vim/neovim?
@@ofcrgry vi is a more common default install, so i'll also tend to use it more than vim since on personal systems i mostly just use emacs. neovim is nice though.
Noah can do whatever he wants with the presentation, because the substance underneath is always AMAZING. If only the same could be said for more than 0.00001% of youtubers.
I suspect he just picks one of the default thumbnail options RU-vid extracts from the video-that is to say, one of a few random frames that the algorithm thinks would make decent thumbnails for God-Machine-knows what reason.
Regardless of what anyone says to this day watchdogs, has been the only game to give me that jonh wick/punisher type of gameplay and vibe and for that alone is enough for me to consider it one of my favorite games. It's the type of game I'll gladly go back to anytime and just have a blast playing.
@@cool64378 There are two main reasons for that. First of all, Legion doesn't have slow-mo focus ability that made gun fights more tactical. Second, in WD1 you have four weapon slots and you could change them on the fly, in other words, you always have access to all weapons in the game. Also no sniper rifles in Legion.
The segment on Legion shows how Noah (imho) blows most other RU-vidrs out of the water. He goes so much deeper while everyone else just goes "well, by playing anyone, you aaackshually end up playing as no one"
@@GreebusBleeb I wouldn't call Noah's Legion gameplay analysis particularly great. Chris (Errant Signal), on the other hand, analyzed most of the game systems, including NPCs related ones. But it seems like both guys don't care much about stealth, that's why they ignored its one of the most important features - enemies don't shoot first - and didn't find the game as special.
Noah Caldwell Gervais, I have been watching your video essays for a long time. I really appreciate the calculated, well thought out writing for each of these in depth dives into this medium we call video games. It's clean, concise and your effort to present as an objective analysis still with a touch of your own subjectivity is welcomed. I particularly enjoyed the travelogue videos, so thank you. Really plainly thank you, as empty as an internet RU-vid comment is usually, I cannot express how much your work is truly valued by not just myself, but those like myself.
HORRAY FOR INDVINUALITY IN HOW WHILE WHEN YOU THINK OF HUMANITY ON A MACRO SCALE YOU SEEM LIKE A SPECK OF DUST ONLY TO REALISE THAT THE CONNECTIONS WE MAKE WITH OTHER SPECKS OF DUSK ON THE MICRO SCALE IS WHAT KEEPS US BONDED TOGETHER THROUGH TIME AND SPACE!!!!!
I think my favorite thing about your videos is that even when I disagree, I tend to go off in a pretty articulate way that helps me understand why I like something you dislike or vice versa. Your videos put me in a frame of mind where I find myself capable of that level of discussion, and it's refreshing for me.
saw a post about your depression/imposter syndrome, I sincerely look forward to your content and think you are one of the best content creators out there. you provide actual analysis from different perspectives while putting into words what everyone thinks but can't articulate. as someone that doesnt laugh or cry very often you've managed to do both. as a chronically depressed person myself, just know that life is worth living and your content helps make it a little better.
21:00 A lot of the stuff in the original Watchdogs starts to make a lot more sense when you think about what has come out in regards to Ubisofts work environment in the last year or so.
I'll disagree with you on Aiden. He's clearly presented as as an unhinged crazy vigilante. His inability to let go is constantly putting his family (the one thing he claims he cares about) in danger. The game is very clear that his fixer work is what got his niece killed and that he is no better than the goons he kills. The dude is a mercenary. He has a weird and twisted moral code much like The Punisher. Also, unlike Marcus from WD2, he isn't fighting the power. He's using it exclusively for his benefit. He fully embraces Blume's fucked up system.
@@adeptdamage3669 saints row 3-4 fan. That explains it. You clearly have the patience of a 4 year old and think flashing lights and pew pew guns is better than a good story because of your simplistic "fun trumps all" mentality.
Came for a breakdown on ubi games I've never played Stayed for the deep dive into hacker/anarchic ideology, a great interpretation of V for Vendetta and its message, and how technological growth has impacted us You are really one of a kind
Just going to put it here because I haven't seen it mentioned on this video yet: your video editing has hugely improved over these past few months. This one in particular is, I would say, your best edited video so far. Keep up the good work!
i iterally JUST finished the Red dead 4 hour video, and i take a look to my right and see you post this 15 minutes ago............ I haven't even played any of these games, yet you've got me feeling so many emotions. Thank you so much, and may 2021 bless you with many well deserved treats
That rival feature in Watch Dogs 2 was my favourite way to solve things. At one point I started a gang war that lasted about half an hour and took place across several streets of a gang disctrict. It was such a joy to look at it from the drone's perspective.
When I saw the title, I assumed I was going to be watching a thorough analysis of the story or gameplay. Instead, I get a socio political analysis of the entire series. I'm digging it!!
The in-depth look at the games' mechanics & themes was comprehensive, and the digressions about other dystopian media were entertaining and a welcome pacing tool. This video essay had an excellent flow; it seemed to fly by much faster than its over-ninety-minute runtime would indicate. Good stuff.
It's so strange how despite agreeing with everything Noah says here, I still fracking love these games. I wonder if we'll get an addendum once the online content drops for Legion.
Hell, I always felt extreme dissonance going on frivolous crime sprees in the GTA games, and you unapologetically play as criminals in those games. Watchdogs never really had a chance in that regard.
I really enjoyed the discussion of “one button liberation” in this video and the idea of commitment to a cause - I think there’s a strong tie to the critiques of “clicktavism” that were all the rage a few years ago (might still be, too). Thanks Noah - hope you have a great 2021.
I liked Aiden. I mean, i’m not saying he’s quite up there with Arthur Morgan, but Aiden was cool in his own way. I liked his dynamic with T-bone and Clara.
I think that, at some point in development, they probably didn’t have any guns for the player to use in Watchdogs 2. The really complex hacking, and the interplay with that and the drones make it feel like a Shadowrun-esque drone rigging mischief game, and the tone makes way more sense when you just use the taser and knockouts. I absolutely adored playing the game by sending in the two drones and bouncing between them to complete objectives without even entering the building, or driving scissors lifts around to keep Marcus out of detection range as I found infiltration routes. Even stuff like calling in the cops has different reactions based on the disposition of the faction you’re targeting, with security guards often accepting their arrest. What seems strange is that all of these super refined mechanics end up being basically deleted by the fact that you can pick up an AK from your ghostgunner or whatever and massacre hundreds of gang members, police, civilians, or corporate security guards. It kinda reeks of the “no, we’re gonna need some guns” type of meddling that happened to Mirror’s Edge. Maybe this is why you’re of the opinion that the gameplay is much the same as the first game, but the sandbox is waaaaaay better, especially for higher-tech, less lethal, ghost playstyles.
I've never played a second of watch dogs yet I was gripped this entire video. Noah, you have a real talent for presentation, writing, metaphors, analysis, and substance.
Watch Dogs is the Hot Topic of video game anarchism and activism. It makes apeals to the culture. But it in itself is so sanitized, corporate and altogether spineless, that it's an empty thing.
1:00 To be fair that's quite accurate. Very few people use the mouse much at all when editing because moving your hands off the keyboard leads to this annoying mode switching behavior. And for some escaping mouse reliance is something they enjoy generally. Tiling WMs are a prime example of people moving towards what looks more like movie-hacking but for practical purposes. I'd like a shortcut to submit this comment.
Brilliant as always Noah. I just wanted to thank you because this video, and particularly the section on Legion pushed me to read V for Vendetta for the first time. I loved it and found it so engaging i finished the series in one sitting. You are consistently one of the most interesting critics on youtube and you have my thanks.
I can't recall whether I've ever commented on a video of yours before, Noah, but some things stand out to me about this one that serve as as good a gateway as any to praising your work in general. Right out of the gate, this has been one of your most explicitly funny videos. While it's not my favourite register for critical videos (maybe because so many RU-vid videos try for and fail hard at comedy), but you legitimately do have a wonderful talent for comedic writing and delivery (you really do have quite a magnificent voice). This essay, particularly the last third focusing on Legion and dystopian themes, also expertly demonstrates your incisive nature and ability to distil complex ideas elegantly and poetically, turning wonderful phrases like the bit about "pressing 'square'". What I've also come to appreciate more and more as your video editing skills have improved is how you generally tie the footage you are using to the points you are trying to make. This may seem like an obvious point, but it astounds me how often video essays simply use imagery as something to occupy your eyes with while you listen. By contrast, you substantiate your use of the video essay format as opposed to just putting these out in writing. More generally, let me just say that I love your work and appreciate the warranted depth and academic rigour with which you analyse games. It always leaves me with something to think about and your path in getting here and deliberately "DIY" aesthetic are as endearing as they are inspirational. A very happy new year to you!
Everything you have written for these videos have always been informative, entertaining and down right fuckin' great Noah 😄 Anytime I see a notification that your channel has posted, it just makes my day better. It's always a trip down memory lane or an amazing tour down a road that hasn't been traveled yet. Thank you for your work and your efforts Noah 😄
Honestly, I really love how the games stay overall quite similar whilst the tone performs a backflip every game. It’s like a “what if…” where you can see the same game from multiple perspectives.
I’m 13 minutes into this, and you’ve changed my perspective on Watch Dogs 1 completely! One of my favorite games from my teen years (around its release). Haven’t played it in a while, but it was definitely “my GTA”, since I wasn’t allowed to have GTA. This change in perspective is so exciting, I really love when a solid piece of critique can get me to view something differently, and it’s good motivation for me to keep practicing my own film reviews. Love your work, Noah!
It depends on the business and size. For smaller businesses, it can create a way to find a niche, a specialty. But in big corporate world, let us see a case example. Oreo. Did you know they shit out constant varieties of Oreo? Novelty oreos vary wildly but they do actually generate profits from being 'weird' 'new' etc. But that alone isn't enough. After Oreo started this, regular Oreo sales also went up. It's a strange example of a common idea in the human zeitgeist. People want novelty for a moment but turn to staples of a very small variety. People don't want infinite choice. It paralyzes people. People want "the same, but different". You could extrapolate it to why people are sometimes attracted to people with family resemblances or why estranged family members end up in incest relationships. So the novelty item is meant to be attract attention, sometimes to be eaten but it will most likely not be a staple for you. It'll make you dedicate memory to that vendor for being the' place with a elk burger' but they got pretty good fries. Some businesses do strike gold however = the niche becomes the staple, the commodity. In those cases you are supposed to eat the novelty item. Square Enix is sort of a hybrid trapped between 'same but different' and gimmicks but collectively ti draws on it's properties, its commodities for new ideas or as content for their continual cash flow MMOs. Weird stuff like Kingdom Hearts is an example of a novelty becoming a staple originating from a simple gimmick. I'm just a moron on the internet so someone big smarter with big words can probably explain better and funnier.
Something that could fix the basic voyeurism in Watch_Dogs is to have the system interlinked with Blume employees watching. Hearing them snark about it instead of Aiden would suit the narrative much better. They’re watching these people in their houses by the thousands from the comfort of their desks.
naturally a game by ubisoft, the company that can't resist violating the consent of its own employees and is infamous for an extreme amount of sexual assault, would not respect the consent of its NPC's
a fine, and dandy analysis, spot on across the board. However, I find myself asking the same questions I often do after long video essays taking down modern AAA titles, and that to a large extent there's only so much you can do for story variability and gameplay mechanics with the limited control options and resources available. Some games certainly do the whole thing better than others with less, but these are often niche titles that were cult classics that never had mainstream appeal. So many issues we see are also just the interplay between parties getting their boxes checked in the process: corporate keeping it clean enough for ratings and in line enough with corporate culture to be acceptable, the artists pushing their vision, the gameplay testers/business managers planning in game purchases and frustration level/mission time/gameplay length to push you towards a set experience that's consistently monetizeable, etc. That is to say, I'm not sure how many of these problems are actually fixable within the context of making games under Capitalist systems, for all the take downs and insults these are some of the most progressive and fun titles in a while, especially for ubisoft whose gameplay normally gets old at most a couple hours into each title, I'm not sure they're specific criticisms of these titles as much as greater criticisms of the capitalist systems at large
This. I love Noah's way of criticizing games, as he leaves technical stuff as a secondary aspect, and just fucuses on the potential interesting takes that can be extracted from the narrative, writing, gameplay or even aesthetics. Cyberpunk may have been disappointing in some aspects, but it definitely has a lot of substance for Noah to dissect. I find that specially necessary given how everyone seems to be focusing in how the game is not the GTA they spected, while nobody seems to care about how the writing, characters and its take on cyberpunk themes are actually way better than what the edgy marketing suggested.
I just finished WD2 to really watch and experience this video as intended. It was such a fun experience but it felt so validating to hear Noah find the right words for the issues I had while playing. There's parts of the game that really felt sincere, especially when talking about Dedsec as a standin for Anonymous. Even the world itself was strange in that I would bump into a NPC and they would be the one to play a "apologies" VO more often then a "FOH" one. You can really feel the world that WD2 was created in was when villains could only exist in shadows making 4D chess moves. It's taken years to realize now that real villains exist, they constantly fail upwards, and the status quo will protect them at all cost. :( Pressing Y/Square to start a revolution is the "Press F to pay respects" of it's moment.
This was a fantastic video - I love the way you approached the topics of surveillance from all the different perspectives. Also digging your sense of humour! This got me through a long day of editing - thank you so much for sharing!
As a fan of that show, I think it also worth a critical reexamination as it reflected much of the same pre-2016 angst just like Watch Dogs albeit more competently.
I have to really disagree about watch dogs 2. I played it as a stealth game (no guns), and I had an absolute blast. I consider it among the best immersive sims!! Of course, I can totally see why many players would miss this experience, as stealth needs to be self-imposed, over just gunning everyone down.
This piece was really stunning, but it made me think about how consistently Noah makes videos about games he loves, or at least games with something special in them that he loves. I'm actually really glad of that, since good media needs more attention than bad media if the industry is going to have an incentive to improve. This is still a great video though, and the occasional negative piece seems to suit him pretty well
19:00 I don't know Noah, that's a bit of a stretch... Those scenes were meaningless to me, I thought they were just there to give you something to see, a lot of the times is just stuff that people do in their homes, you're not supposed to get something out of most of them, other than to see what you think you'll see if you'll spy on people, I don't think is as complex as you say it is.
It's obvious that he is taking it personaly, he pictures himself as the guy beeing watched. I agree with you, it's dumb. But he is from the far far left, and thinks everything is a political statement and should be interpretated even when it wasnt meant as a statement
i think the fact the idea of a watch dogs game being interesting itself is deeply concerning. The knowledge that everyone secretly wants that fantasy power of intruding on others lives even in a digital pixel not real people type form of looking in through other's laptop cameras and controlling things in the room like a ghost. The fact that we just without question hack into people's phones and just remove money from their accounts. The fact that you can know so much about just a random person walking past you on the street, yet none of us wants to be on the opposite end of that spectrum being the one spied on or have money stolen. Yet now you actually do have people seemingly willing to open their lives to smart home technology and always listening devices and couldn't care at all. Humans seem to never learn despite being constantly reminded just how dystopic and tyrannical life can become in the future the more people give up their autonomy and agency to other people. Yet most blindly walk towards it anyways. It's psychologically infuriating. It's just a game? Or a sign of things to come?
Yeah, the most critical thing i can say about Watch Dogs is that a video called "/pol/ playes Watch Dogs" isn't that far from how the game is supposed to be played.
My favorite hacker TV show by far is Mr Robot, and it actually does a really good job of portraying real hacking in an exciting light. Namely, it makes the important point that coding a virus/worm is *way* less important than actually getting it running on the machine you want. All the boring coding can be done off screen and saved onto a gas station USB stick, and then the exciting stuff is all the bluffing and breaking & entering necessary to get that USB stick where it needs to go. It's intense, exciting, dramatic, and only ever a few steps removed from the real work hackers and cybersecurity experts do every single day.
exactly exploits are bread and butter in this game with most of the in-game exploits just coming from clara/dedsec aiden almost feels like a script kiddie
I've played the first two Watch_Dogs games, and I'm planning to go into Legion later this year once I'm done with what I'm currently playing. I don't know if it's because I've managed to break from a very cynical streak that was affecting me mentally, and physically, but the fact is I had far more fun with those games than you seem to have. I saw Wach_Dogs 1 as a blend of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and GTA, then I saw Watch_Dogs 2 as a blend of Saints Row and Metal Gear Solid. And thus I played them as such. And then proceeded to have the time of my life, specially on the second game, I didn't use guns unless absolutely necessary in either game, because I tackled them as "well, I'm such a badass hacker, then using lethal force is a last resort". I honestly saw the story in both games as just "cheesy hackerman" stories, Ubisoft doesn't have the talent to tackle serious real life themes in a fictional setting, so might as well have fun with it, Aiden for me is the middle-aged cousin of Adam Jensen and Max Payne, his tale is more on the silly edgelord hackerman and the game's writing makes it clear all his choices are bad because he doesn't get to have a happy ending, only an unnerving power trip that will lean into whichever moral side you favored most with your reputation meter. Marcus strikes me as the kind of guy that's gonna do whatever it takes to accomplish his goal, even if it's something underhanded, but for me that's why I favored hacking and drone warfare over shooting, because honestly... Anyone can point and click at enemies to make them stop shooting you. I disagree with a lot of your reading of these games, but in the end it's those perspectives I appreciate, and I am glad you went out of your way to talk about them at lenght, glad to be a subscriber!
I don't get the Aiden hate. For once we had a protagonist who was different. A real psycho, without a maniacal personality. I actually enjoyed being Batman, and the shear terror Aiden Pierce brings around himself.
I've never played these games but I really enjoyed listening to you talk about them. You're one of the few RU-vid critics who meaningfully engages with what a game's mechanics and story SAY about that game's perspective and how it fits into wider sociopolitical trends. I could listen to you talk about anything for hours on end (and have) because you approach the subjects of your critique in such an authentic way. Thank you for making this.
The way you talked about WD2 creating dissonance, in the way that it lets you manipulate gangs into fighting each other etc., and how that's almost certainly something the main character wouldn't do, reminded me of another (much better in my opinion) game series: Yakuza, specifically because it avoids that kind of dissonance. You simply can't do things like assault or mug random people on the street in those games. Generally the only times you get into fights, are when you are attacked first (there may be some others I'm forgetting). Making the game like that, where you simply aren't given the opportunity to do things that the character you're playing as wouldn't do, makes it so much more fun and enlightening about that character with all the crazy things that the game DOES let you do: You can get into stock car racing, diving for treasure, real estate, being a part-time hero, go-kart racing, and much, much more, which all ends up being in character. It's great, play Yakuza.
Hackers not using a mouse is actually realistic. Using a computer with only the keyboard is much faster if you are proficient enough. Instead of navigating endless visual interfaces you can be issuing commands. Visual interfaces requiring the use of a mouse generally only appear in software that is meant to be usable by people who are not computer experts. It is quite common that computer science majors in universities are prohibited from mouse usage as it seen as bad practice by professionals in the field.
The quick breakdown of how game companies think we're all so stupid as to overlook poor labor practices is such a concise and well-constructed one, and really hits all the harder considering everything with Cyberpunk and CDPR.
When you see a >90 minute video essay pop up on youtube, you know that you're in for either an extremely good take or an incredibly bad one. Thanks for delivering the former.
