I've never even heard of this site before yet all of a sudden everyone's linking to it like it's the only place that's actually being truthful about the game. The fact they were willing to break embargo presumably means they have no reputation or presence in the gaming industry to damage by doing so.
Most of what they are saying is a fair reflection of the game though.
Ultimately you have in hacking, barriers that can pop up, I've yet to need to use one, there are crates/railings/normal barriers all over the place like any other game.... why the need for more, why hack them and most importantly what are they doing there in the first place?
There are things like lifts and the like to help you reach higher areas... but we've literally had the same thing in other games, a lift, a window cleaning platform(in gta 4 as it happens, but also many other games) with you know, an up and down button... why the hacking?
Stealing money via hacking... ludicrous, you can get all the money you need in the first 30 mins of the game if you just ran around hacking random people. There is no police response or anti hacking squad, there is no response from people losing their money, there is no bank fraud team tracing you if you do it too much, there is no downside at all. You can also buy everything available in the game near enough straight away, leaving no room for progression.
Now hacking things while driving, traffic lights, things that come out of the ground and bridges are genuinely good, and it makes sense they are "on the grid" and they make police chases genuinely different to other games.
But the rest of the hacking should be WAY harder, WAY less frequent, WAY less random, and much more meaningful. Like hack a bank, steal money, and have the cops chase you afterwards.
I said in a previous post, they have this entire city of characters, some bird on the sexual offenders list... I feel good about stealing from her, a single mum who donates to charity... I feel bad about stealing from her. The game world appears to know who I am and responds to me yet doing good or bad makes no difference(seemingly).
Just now I saw a "descendent of slavers" in a fast car and a high school teacher in another car, it felt more right to steal from the first guy than the second. But the game doesn't give a hoot who I steal from.
It comes across in every way like a game that like so many others, tried to do too much, scaled it back and you can see a half finished game with the remnants of the many things they tried to implement hidden underneath. There was no reason to make "good" and "bad" people you can steal from without a consequence. Likewise they aimed WAY too high for graphics and had to scale back.
However in the earlier videos they still had these stupid hacking things when on foot, platforms that would normally have a button anyway, barriers that make no sense, things in the ground that you can make blow up but... have no reason for being there. In any other game they would be your randomly left around exploding barrels, replaced by things to be hacked for no reason at all. Especially considering they still have exploding barrels around... just fewer.
99% of the hacking is a gimmick, the driving hacking is actually great and brings something new to the game, 90% of the on foot hacking is stupid and takes away from the game.
Also, rubbish, rubbish lack of combat(non gun) system.
EDIT:- camera's when on foot absolutely make sense to hack... so I take it back, they are used hugely in the game when on foot and are useful. however it should be more about planning attacks and marking characters than lifting and raising barriers. Get rid of most of the randomly hacked objects, keep the cameras, the hackable locking doors and things because they work well, but with less of the completely silly crap.
