Seeing as how ridiculous it looks when Aiden whips out his phone and stares boringly at it after he does literally anything, I'm now imagining him as an avid twitter obsessed maniac. "At the docks fuckin' with this gangster, he's totally freaking out over this ghost forklift, lol". Anyone else think Aiden's chronic use of his phone is hilarious? Him holding a smart phone in one hand and a gold Deagle in the other is endlessly entertaining for me.

I just find the whole premise of Aiden hacking just about anything he comes across with his phone absurd.

• Other cellphones? Hack'em.
• Traffic lights? Hack'em.
• Security cameras? Hack'em.
• A coin-operated playground horse that couldn't possibly be networked to anything? Eh, hack it.

And the fact that all of this (and more!) can be done with a simple touch screen interface on a smartphone just makes the whole thing to ridiculous to take seriously.

@hailinel: Fits about in line with being able to take multiple bullets to the body like it was nothing, healing wounds within seconds of receiving them, cops not on a constant manhunt for you for crimes (and instead just giving up and then forgetting who you even are)

Its called suspension of disbelief. Its not real.

Aside from the last one I don't think video games count that stuff as canon like how in most games you can die and continue. Excluding a few games respawning doesn't factor into a story.

I understand that suspension of disbelief is required when taking gameplay and narrative into account. I've played plenty of games where characters are perfectly capable of completely insane feats that no human could possibly survive and I have no problems with most of them. But this magical cell phone hacking conceit is just too stupid for me to get behind.

I have a much easier time of suspending disbelief when there is something else fantastical or just as absurd in the atmosphere, the setting, or even the graphic style. It's the same problem I have with modern military shooters. The graphic style, art assets, lighting, even down to using real-world locations - it's all trying to present an authentic experience. And then the gameplay is just cartoon-level ludicrous.

Something like ARMA I can at least respect from a distance. Things like Mass Effect are alright even when they take their space magic a little too seriously. It's the games that present cartoon action in a hyper realistic style that just seem off.

Grenades with wifi in them or at least blue tooth is fantastic.

Well shit, I thought this was a factual documentary...

You're just too weenie to handle the software for it. It's better you think of it as not possible, because it is too much power for one person.

You're not real.

His phone is basically a sonic screwdriver with sick range bro.

If I worried about things like this every game in existence would be unplayable for me.

I'm calling bullshit on this.

I just imagine Aiden fucking with other people's thermostat settings and changing TV channels while he's not busy getting revenge.

It's a video game. Even the most realistic games are still quite unrealistic and absurd when you really pay attention to them. I personally like the concept of a magic phone that blows shit up and messes with scissor lifts.

Now that you mention it... yeah -- it kind of is.

If you had not said, i won't notice, but now you sound reasonable, a bit ridiculous...

As silly as some of it might look I'd still argue that in a version of Chicago where they installed an operating system that is able to wirelessly access and control parts of the city it's not that far fetched that he might have an app that simply finds any device the CTos connects to like a regular Hot Spot scanner. Furthermore it's also not that unlikely that he might have made scripts which recognize a street light is in fact a street light and instead of showing a bunch of code they automatically display a pre-set function that he can flick on his phone.

I mean, out of all the weird and silly caveats we deal in gaming, him hacking stuff with a phone is actually pretty explainable and not that ridiculous when you think about it.

Suspension of disbelief isn't something that is the responsibility of the audience though. A work has to earn it, has to create an convincing and consistent vision, or a recognizable one where viewers are already prepared to suspend disbelief (like invoking common scifi or fantasy things). Most people don't go into a work of fiction looking for things that aren't real, those only show up if the stand out.

Why is everyone talking about suspension of disbelief? The OP is talking about the guy whipping out his smartphone all the time, is that unrealistic somehow?

A texture mod needs to happen.

holy shit...I never thought...wow

Suspension of disbelief isn't an all-encompassing get out of jail free card for fiction.

@singingmenstrual: Yeah, I wasn't saying it's ridiculous / unrealistic that he can hack anything, I was just saying how funny it looks when he's running around staring at a smart phone while gunning fools down. Thread seems to have gone off the rails.

Suspension of disbelief isn't real? Shit, I've been doing this wrong all along.

It's also hilarious to me that, when buying a beer or coffee or soda at the many fast food/bar/restaurants in town, Aiden has his phone out and takes a look at it before and after he takes his swig. He comes off like the biggest asshole at every turn in this game but it's starting to grow on me just how unlikable he is. He may secretly be one of the great conundrums of our time. I love stealing $240 from a dude who was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor and another $560 from a tenured professor and avid chess player on my way to beating a man down with a stick for stealing $36 from a woman's purse.

The un-reality of disbelief suspension is more real than you might think, in reality that is.

Isn't this just Hackers: The Videogame?

Everything about this quote has made my day. Thank you sir.

@tourgen: I have this problem with a lot of Ubisoft's open-world games. This and Far Cry 3 are trying SO HARD to tell a Serious Important Story with their cutscenes and it just doesn't work in the context of this crazy-ass sandbox. Part of the reason I liked Blood Dragon was that it didn't take itself seriously AT ALL. Even Sleepy Dawgs and Red Dead did a decent job of having a story but still sort of acknowledging here and there "yeah, this is really dumb, just roll with it"

Hell in the Quick Look he looks at his phone in the middle of a gunfight and Jeff, Brad and Vinny all thought it was hilarious with Jeff saying "Oh just checking my tumblr" and Vinny saying "Hey I got a message on Twitter!" which made me lol.

I never thought of this at the time - why the fuck would a little kiddie toy be on a network. When you add this to grenades, I think Ubi are under the impression that anything with any sort of post industrial revolution tech can somehow be disrupted. He should be able to hack skateboards and trousers zips as well.

See I think people don't give this game credit where it is due. Yes you can do that. You can also look and see the person whose bank account you are about to hack is a full time college student working as a part time janitor and go.... "you know I think they need their money more than me" and just not hack them. There was one privacy invasion event I did where the event was basically some guy calling to check on his dad and make sure he was okay cause his dad wasn't returning his calls. Pan the Camera. His dad is laying there dead, likely from a heart attack. I have done scans of people who cant even be hacked but I look and it is .... "former narcotics detective" who is now unemployed making no money talking to a waiter who is "a suspected drug dealer" who strangely makes 110k a year.

If you stop and actually "think" about it this game does some really interesting stuff that can immerse you in the world and make you think about what your doing as the player. Or you can just breeze through and treat it like call of duty, you will be missing 90% of the point, but it is still a fun game that way. The story of the game isn't just about Aiden, but you have to invest yourself in the games world to see it.

Two words, Spider Tank.

The more you understand something, the harder it is to suspend disbelief. It's part of the reason why a lot of people who have served in the military can't watch war movies, or why ex-prisoners take issue with prison films, why people who live in certain cities have problems with the portrayal of their city. As a generation that basically consumes technology as it comes out, the idea of this magical hacker iPhone is completely ludicrous.

I can accept the idea that everything in the city, including the shopping centre horsey-rides and the bridges, is all connected to some giant network. I can almost accept the idea that anything can be hacked within eyesight, despite the fact every system is linked to the same giant network and he could just go straight to the tower box.I will not accept the idea that grenades are connected. It's just too stupid. I can't think of a single reason for a grenade to be able to accept or send a signal. Maybe they send you a new one every time you use one, like a grenade subscription or something.

Also, if the police have access to the ctOS to the same capacity Aiden does, how come they don't monitor people and work out when they're about to commit crimes?If they can monitor each individuals phone and online history, and somehow determine how likely they are to commit a crime, the crime rate would have to be extremely low.

If you assume this game actually takes place within the Matrix, then it all makes sense.

@karkarov: Well I wasn't trying to take any credit from the game, I'm endlessly entertained by that weird dissonance. Obviously I don't need all this money; I spent about a half hour trying to crack a ctOS tower I just couldn't figure out and running across bank accounts from the cameras. I didn't get the ctOS tower but I did make about $10,000 in 10 minutes.

He can hack something simply by looking at it through a security camera feed (what, hacking it via light particles or something?) but yet needs to be physically standing in the big evil corporation's headquarters in order to be able to hack into their computers.

@karkarov: Here's the thing... if you weren't an asshole, wouldn't you have the option to transfer funds to someone's account and inform the cops about the dead body and so on, rather than having the choice between being an active asshole or a passive one? Correct me if you can do this stuff, I haven't played the game.

Except you are also a vigilante supposedly wanted by the cops, and how did you know the guy was dead again? Transfer money I feel you, that said, you can leave gifts at hot spots and not stealing from someone and giving your own money are not the same thing. There are thousands of down on their luck college students, I can't fund em all.

@veektarius: No, you can not do those things. And I was really hoping you could. I mean there are bums on the street begging for change. I ran across a "Veteran with PTSD" on the corner begging for change. I just jacked someones bank account right in front of him for $520. And I wanted to give it to him. But there is no way for me to do this. And it made me sad.

This is why I stopped reading anything about the people on those pop ups, people to steal their bank account or not. Because its pointless info. You can't really do anything with. I mean ya you can not take their money. But nothing else. Me not doing something is not really a choice. Its false choice. I can't really do anything good. I can either rob them. Or do nothing. There is no help the person in need. Or give money options. I went around and stole around $200K and just stopped. I don't even care about it in that manner anymore. It was just a device they put in for you to get money. They could have done so much more with the mechanic. I know you can role play it and say things like I will not steal from the janitor or the college student. But the game doesn't reward this, there is pay off. And money really seems pointless to me. I'm still in act 1, but I have nothing to do with my money.

This made me laugh. I'm not that far into the story, but I've already managed to steal six figures worth of dough, shot some cops, plowed over countless innocents, had a ton of civilians get caught in the crossfire as I tried to plug some invader/target/criminal, shot a gas tank to see if it would blow up a few random people (it did), and straight-up blasted some old lady in the head just to test out my new sniper rifle, but the hired guns who came after me in retaliation for a robbery and caused a car accident in which one girl happened to die, THOSE guys are the real assholes. You know, unlike my character. I know this won't happen, but I desperately hope there's some form of introspection at the end of the story where Aiden realizes that his "vigilante" ways have led to more death/destruction than anything and it quotes your stats of horrible actions to you. Then Aiden should turn to the camera and say "you made me like this....", take out his magic phone, and hack the grenade on his own belt. Explosion. Roll credits.

That would make this the greatest game of all-time.

Do you know what else is funny?

For the life of me I can't figure out how to climb down ladders. Is it even possible?

@spraynardtatum: You have to hack them before you can climb down. Wi-fi enabled ladders.

Seriously though I dunno, I can't do it either. Seems busted.

I just don't know why you would ever want or need to equip a grenade with wifi. That is quite a fatal flaw in the design. One I find incredibly funny.

Watch Dogs is the super hacker trope taken to the logical conclusion of everything being hackable from some dude's cell phone. It's preeeeeety silly, made even more silly by the stone-cold seriousness of the protagonist.

I haven't played the game, but when I saw that in the Quick Look, my mind immediately thought IEDs, or something similar. Explosives that you'd want to have a wireless signal so that you could detonate them remotely.

I just keep saying Wi-Fi enabled grenades and I just keep laughing.