After playing through twice, I can see why opinions on Aiden are split into 2 camps:
1. that he's an irredeemable asshole/psychopath/sociopath (by the way, Aiden doesn't exhibit that many symptoms of being a psychopath; Damien on the other hand...)
2. he's got a lot of problems, but he's trying
I'm mostly in the latter camp. Because, you know, maybe I've been poking at the audio logs and piecing together things, and NOT playing as a violent lunatic. ...Even if playing as a lunatic is more fun with the explosives. I like my precision shooting and environmental antics too much to give it all up, and I'm pretty terrible with explosives.
I think Damien puts it best. Aiden's a "vengeful son of a bitch" based on everything he does in the game. I think he does border on sociopathic in his disregard for a lot of things he does. He's overprotective and paranoid (security cameras in his sister's home after Lena's death), controlling (learned social engineering and studied psychology), vengeful (events in Watch_Dogs), etc. When you take into account what his childhood would've been like, you would expect Aiden to be at least a little messed up in the head. Was in gangs, a thug, idolized a freedom fighter father he barely even remembers, always felt this need to be fighting for something. Has drive, but didn't know where to put it. A constant need to be ahead (which didn't really help him, since Damien played him like a fool; have to give Aiden some credit since he does try to get out of whatever Damien was planning). An unhealthy need to try fixing things around him because everything reminds him of his need to protect something. And you know what? The entire plot of the game? Aiden does blame himself for what happened. One job that just spiraled out of control, with one thing leading to another.
Still. Kinda curious about Aiden and Jordi's relationship. I don't get why Jordi tried warning Aiden about the fixers coming after him near the end of the game. Telling him to get out of town after Aiden had moved Nicky and Jackson. Telling him that he's never seen that many 0s attached to his head (and Aiden brushing it off; it's happened before?!). They're not really friends, as seen in the Announcement Trailer from 2012. As Aiden so kindly puts it, "We don't hang out because we'd kill each other."
Got a little curious to see what would happen if you failed the QTEs during the second last sequence of the final act...
1. Fail to press Square/X for the lighthouse -> shot in the head by Jordi ("Nothing personal"). Also kills Damien with likely a headshot (choppy framerate, can't do much about it until I get more powerful hardware).
2. Fail to take down Jordi -> Jordi readjusts his aim to shoot Aiden in the chest. Also kills Damien. Think it was a head shot.
3. Fail to kill Damien while in Focus -> Damien shoots Aiden in the chest.
My guess is that either the Chicago South Club or Blume issued those hits on them. Aiden understands that it was "just business" during that bit at the lighthouse when he gets a call from Jordi.
The game can be rather uncomfortable to play at times... Some of the privacy invasions and "Randomizer" vids are pretty funny, and then you get ones that are just "no". In a way, I'm OK with something like that. But it's also problematic because some situations can trigger traumatic experiences. The game could just as easily be called "Trigger Warning The Game" because of all the stuff in it. Suicide, sex-related triggers, blood, violence, etc. The Russian Roulette privacy invasion was a little uncomfortable to watch. I haven't seen all of them yet, so no further comments...
As a bit of a joke... There's a lighthouse. There's a man. There's a city. Hm.
The story could definitely be more cohesive. It has a lot of good ideas and the mechanics are a pretty solid foundation, much like the first Assassin's Creed. Practically everything is victim to bad writing. If they can do what they did transitioning from AC to AC2, then I think they might have a winner. I wonder if it's going to be the Ubi-verse. Could be interesting. Hoping that Aiden returns. The entire game practically reeked of "origin story". The novel didn't really help matters either since it showed at the end that Aiden and T-Bone have officially teamed up to do stuff. Hopefully that concussion doesn't have any lasting damage. He did seem to take his new-found playfulness a little bit far. But it's good to know that he has allies, even within DedSec.
In terms of mechanics, they're solid enough. The driving could be less slippery and more like Driver: San Francisco. The bike mechanics were great though, except for taking sharp turns. The cover system is good, as is the freerunning. Moving between cover and getting in/out could be a little bit tighter though. There have been times where I should've been out of cover, but still stuck in it, and vice versa. Being able to turn off the aim assist was a good design choice. I like to be in full control of what I'm doing. Controller remapping though? Where's that? You can remap on the keyboard, but not the controller? Really? We're in 2014, we should be able to customize things relatively freely now.
If I were to rate it, a solid 6~7 would be it. Good to great ideas abound. Relatively poor execution and rather disappointing PC support. And despite that, it's still pretty fun to play with plenty to do. Except for that drinking mini-game. That thing can just go away. Also, the fact that women were mostly used as plot devices. Clara was great for as long as she lasted, and I believe that her death was unwarranted. There was literally no reason she had to be killed off. Not even to give Aiden motivation, because he already knew what to do. Nicky was a damsel in distress. What the hell was Poppy? A mere plot device? They could've done so much more! Lena was motivation...
It was all wasted potential. Ubi, you're big enough to take chances. You should know that. What are you so afraid of? I loved playing the game (with all the crappy performance from a GT540M) and I had a lot of fun with it, but it was just...
Disappointing.
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