The 1st game had a slightly slugging first half but I ended up liking it a lot overall. The often ridiculed and deliberately unlikable Aiden Pearce and the near nihilistic story stood out to me. The game had an identity, plain and simple. I only need a bit more gameplay variety for a sequel and I certainly got that
but at what cost! The admittedly more involved hacking is now suddenly Pipe Mania and the overall game fully transformed into Ubi-Collect-a-Thon No.X. It work fine, most Ubi-games do, but what makes this one special? I am willing to praise the variety of ways missions can occasionally be solved and the involved multiplayer component is downright fascinating. What can't get my blessing are the story and characters. This is basically Lizard Squad "The Video-Game" and a Best Memes of 2015/16 collection. A rarely skip cutscenes but I ended up being physically incapable of watch this rubbish. The tone is quite broken too. The game is about these oh so "diverse" 20-something hackers and their PC Culture enforcement adventures but multiple trophies demand to kill, despite most enemies being simple security guards. The protagonist even carries a gun on the cover and his stealth attacks only kills too. Again, nothing makes sense and diversity ain 't a checkbox dear developers. I myself am half black and the well done San Francisco setting is appropriately chosen but I abide no pandering, which this 100% is. I ultimately finished the campaign, these Ubi-games tend to work well after all, but the devs need to go back to the drawing board. They made 2 steps forward and 4 steps back. 7,5/10
