henke on 21/12/2020 at 09:36
Here's some kinda half-assed review.
Tech TalkLike the GMTK video says, the "play as anyone" system is quite impressive under the hood, but its actual implementation is so-so. What I found most impressive though is that all the characters you can play as have fully voiced dialogue. At first when the random character I'd picked at the start talked in cutscenes I was impressed but figured they'd probably just talk in a few introductory cutscenes and then shut up for most of the game while the established story characters did most of the talking. But no! They keep on blabbering throughout the whole game! HOW DID THEY DO THAT? This is especially impressive considering that in this age of 100GB install sizes being common, WDL fits all of this AND THE ENTIRETY OF LONDON into a svelte 38GB! Also it looks good, runs smooth on a base PS4, and I barely had any bugs. On the technical side, this is impressive.
NarrativeStorywise, well, it's not much better than most Ubigames. Like FC5 and some of their other recent games it gets darker than it really
deserves to. There are bright spots tho. The Skye Larsen storyline I liked a lot. It's kinda a Black Mirror-esque story that happens halfway through the game and it had me genuinely hooked. The characters you play as often have slightly odd animations in cutscenes and their dialogue lines might feel kinda clunky. But I did still care more about them than most Ubigame protagonists. My favourite established character was Sabine, who acts as your mentor throughout the game. She's got a wonderful sad girl energy.
Screenies!Inline Image:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jqg5et5to230qd0/WDL%20%282%29.jpg?raw=1Wearing Aiden Pearce's ICONIC HAT and Marcus Holloway's ICONIC JACKET and feeling pretty dang ICONC.
Inline Image:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fxy637di0xc53v0/WDL%20%281%29.jpg?raw=1Pretty cool when you're driving around and suddently realize "hey I know that place!"
Inline Image:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ywfbtl9b2pt4zl/WDL%20%286%29.jpg?raw=1Living statue pose-off.
Inline Image:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/r21375sbm9rkevd/WDL%20%288%29.jpg?raw=1I guess someone had to say it.
ConclusionI liked it. Gameplaywise it's pretty identical to WD2, tho with a few new wrinkles. Tho I think WD2 might still be the series-best.
Thirith on 21/12/2020 at 10:42
Btw, thanks for the heads-up concerning the GMTK video. While there is some overlap with the ES video, you're right that it's still worth watching both, especially since Mark Brown talks more about how the system works specifically. And it is pretty impressive - which makes it all the more disappointing that they didn't really know what to do with their cool system. (Or, just as likely, they had ideas but the game wasn't supposed to impose any real restrictions on players based on their choices... which is sadly ironic, since without restrictions, so many of the choices end up being meaningless.)
henke on 21/12/2020 at 11:21
Oh I'm sure the devs had plenty of ideas for what to do with the system. But it's still a Ubisoft game, and the higher ups seem intent on never allowing any of their big games to stray too far from the formula.
Thirith on 21/12/2020 at 13:34
Such a shame, especially considering that Clint Hocking was the Creative Director. I wish Ubisoft allowed for some real experimentation with the formula - they could alternate between games that basically replicate the Ubisoft open world to a T and smaller, weirder, more experimental takes on it. I don't expect them to do what they did with Far Cry 2 with every single title, obviously, but just occasionally...