Playful isn t high on the list of adjectives I d use to describe Aiden Pearce s po-faced misadventures in Watch Dogs, so when I sat down to play four hours of Watch Dogs 2, my face wasn t prepared for the amount of grinning I d be doing. There were aches. There was embarrassing, snorting laughter. Mostly, though, there was relief.
The first game had a tone problem. It was grey and grim and stuck with a humourless, sad sack protagonist, which didn t quite match up with a conceit as silly as a magic phone that can hack grenades and find out what type of porn people watch. Its sequel, however, seems determined to be fun.