Watch Dogs 2 parodies Trump, Martin Shkreli, Kinect
Ubisoft's sequel takes aim at the real world.
The first Watch Dogs didn't have a lot of humour. With an angry main character, a dark and moody setting and a pretty monotonous plot, there wasn't much time for scripts and giggles.
Happily, Watch Dogs 2 changes all of that, with a newfound sense of humour that delights in parodying the real world.
Take, for instance, its thinly-veiled parody of Donald Trump - aka politician Mark Thruss, whose in-game slogan is "Let's make the Bay Area stronger!"
Or, perhaps, its even more thinly veiled parody of Martin Shkreli, the former pharmaceutical boss who was found to have raised the price of life-saving medication, paid $2m to be the sole owner of an unreleased Wu-Tang Clan album and who has been labelled "most hated man in America".
Watch Dogs 2 lets you get your own back on both.
Perhaps the best moment in Watch Dogs' opening hours comes when main character Marcus Holloway is driving a version of the car from Knight Rider, which attempts to identify him via his facial records. The AI car tells him it is too dark to see his face - a cheeky nod to how Kinect initially couldn't see players with darker skin tones.
The video below, put together from footage we captured while playing, also points out knowing nods to Facebook, Dungeons and Dragons and Ubisoft itself.
If you want to see how Watch Dogs 2 lets you get your own back on Trump, sorry, Truss and co., give it a watch:
This article is based on a press event in Paris. Ubisoft paid for travel and accommodation.