Friday 13 April 2018

Watch_Dogs 2 Photo Diary


So when Watch_dogs 2 was released I gave it a shot. I played about 4 hours before I decided I hated the game. Every bit of it grated against me, from the meme aesthetic to the stereotypical crew of hackers. Fast forward a year and a half and I decided to pick Watch_dogs 2 up again.

 This was for numerous reasons. Firstly, I never finished it and I’ve recently been wanting to clean up a backlog before I buy any more games. Secondly, I played and loved Assassins Creed Origins and I wanted to see if Watch_dogs 2 could create some of the same feelings that Origins did. Thirdly, I recently went to see an exhibition, States of Play: Roleplay Reality at FACT Liverpool. Whilst there I stumbled upon the work of Alan Butler and his Down and Out in Los Santos series of photographs that documents poverty in GTA V. Butlers work inspired me to go an explore an open world and take in the people that exist in it, not just see them as set dressing.

With those three reasons, I finally booted up Watch_dogs 2. Before I hit ‘new game’ I made a pact with myself, I would play ‘realistically’. That entailed me playing as a pacifist, and also with all of the HUD elements off. The reason I chose to play with no HUD was because Watch_dogs 2 was constantly bombarding the player with different things on screen, which took away from the amazing San Francisco sandbox they had designed.

March 30th 2018: I was walking around trying to catch my bearings when I noticed the three people sitting down smoking (probably vaping) and it felt like one of the first real human moments I had seen so far, three people just having a smoke break together. In the far right of that picture I noticed somebody wearing armour, so naturally I went to have a look. 
As I turned down the alley, I seen a man land a punch on somebody who was trying to walk through what was obviously gang territory, the victims friend quickly rang 911 and within seconds police had arrived. 

I quickly pulled my camera out and took the picture of the officer arresting the Tezca Gang member who had just committed assault. The officers partner was on the other side of the fence waiting by the car (You can barely see him on the far left of the third pic). Then in a flash the man behind the officer pulled out a pistol and fired at the arresting officer killing him. In the final picture you can see the moment the gang turned and shot the second officer and the sudden panic setting in as they realise whats occured.







Later in that session I stumbled accross another violent confrontation between the police and the Tezcas, this one ending in even more bloodshed. It began with the police chasing a suspect who happened to be a Tezca member. After shots are fired the police gave up the chase and as seen in the second image, begin to fire back. In the shade of that image you can see a downed officer and the perp they chased emerging from cover. Backup arrived too late as you can see in the third image, both of the officers that arrived first on scene were killed. As can be seen, the back up officers managed to deal with the threat, as they killed the last gang member as he fled. Then theres the aftermath.







UPDATE April 1st 2018 
When I loaded into the world on this session I found myself accross the road from an inner city camp filled with the homeless which was a stark contrast to the gentrified areas of San Francisco you spend most of the game.




Later on, when walking through a park I noticed the flash of police sirens so decided to investigate.Thats when I stumbled on the police arresting a gang member. This was the first time i'd seen an arrest go succesfully and not end up in a shoot out.



UPDATE 6th April 2018  
The officer clearly hasn't looked very far. I stumbled on this scene when I was looking for a way to grab the cash bag hidden in the vent. Police were all over the back of these buildings with what I imagine is a suspect dead on the roof after hiding the bag. 

The next few images are some that I took to show how the game portrays sex, the game places working girls on dark corners at night in impoverished areas. Soon after, I was transported to a Burning Man esq festival for one of the games main story beats. Where most people where pretty progressive with their sexuality, even the old lady at the enterance. When I returned to San Francisco I went on a little walk and realised there are restaurants and bars you can enter, when a man stumbled out of a door on the side street. It just so happened to be a strippers.



 Just a few more pictures from Burning Man





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