Watch_Dogs

Watch Dogs is a title that has been in development for quite a while now and it's clear that Ubisoft was doing everything in their power to make it the biggest hit possible. Given that it set sales records for the company, especially in the "new IP" categories, I'd say they definitely have a new franchise on their hands.

The game had a stiff amount of competition, even in-house. Ubisoft has been on a roll lately (in fact, I gave them the best development studio award last year) with Far Cry 3, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag. Not to mention a little game called Grand Theft Auto V came out and set the bar incredibly high for open world atmospheres.

In short, Watch Dogs is certainly no Grand Theft Auto V. In fact, out of all the games that I just listed above, it's probably the one I liked the least. But those are well established franchises (with maybe the exception of Far Cry 3) and as far as future potential goes...Watch Dogs leads the pack.

Get your nose out of your phone and marvel at the Chicago artwork
behind you, Aiden!

I be stuntin' through this city!

Watch Dogs follows our protagonist, Aiden Pearce, a gruffled-voice, hacker badass who apparently never gets warm running around Chicago in a large jacket. I found it really hard to connect to Aiden because of his obnoxiously ragged voice and just because he isn't the most likable of characters. Make no mistake, he is a badass...I just didn't have an emotional connection to him that is so prevalent in many AAA games these days. And as sad as his backstory is (which I won't divulge here) I had a hard time finding sympathy for him or his sister and nephew whom are the two other main characters. It's really the B-list characters of the game that I found myself liking the most. Aiden's hacker and fixer friends are often a bit outlandish but highly unique and pretty funny most of the time. They do a decent job at stealing the limelight from Aiden.

Even more disappointing though is that Watch Dogs story is very haphazardly slapped together and truly feels like an afterthought once Ubisoft nailed the gameplay. I honestly couldn't tell you what was happening half the time as alliances between characters were blurred, storylines were unexplained, and villains were horribly defined and presented. It's really a shame because I was expecting an Assassins Creed type of conspiracy level plot that played into a much larger world, which Watch Dogs hints to a few times but never fully explores. Think of Watch Dogs as the origin story for our hacker superhero and you may enjoy it more than I did because that's ultimately what it is once the credits roll. And I should mention, in all fairness to the game, that I would do many side quests in between story quests which was certainly part of the reason I felt disconnected from it all. And, truth be told, there are many other games where that doesn't happen.


Gorgeous skyline of a well created Chicago

With open world games anymore, especially in this post-GTA V world we live in, you really have to make it feel like a living and breathing environment that goes on with or without you. Watch Dogs does a very good job at this, albeit not as impressive as GTA V. But Watch Dogs gives a name and a backstory to every single person in the world, which in and of itself is mightily impressive and adds significantly to the immersion of the game. When running around with your phone, any human that falls in the cross hairs displays a name, age, income, and some type of fact about them. It sounds like useless information, and most of the time it is. But I'll never forget how bad I felt when I stole (read: hacked) $15,000 from a lady whose fact was: DYING OF CANCER. I chuckled with my carelessness of hacking civilians, but I truly had a part of me that felt disgusted with myself, even if I stole digital money from a digital AI that will actually never die of cancer.

The city of Chicago itself is where Watch Dogs underwhelmed me a bit though. It's really fun, at first, to explore the painfully recreated area of Chicago, along with some surrounding suburbs. There are landmarks all over the map that the game actually keeps track of your visits to via a check-in system similar to Foursquare. But another requirement of open world games these days is to have variety, and that is what the map of Chicago in Watch Dogs is lacking. It's a decently sized map, but other than downtown and a few rural areas, there isn't much outside of the norm. When you end up putting 30-40 hours into a game, stuff like that starts to wear on you. I applaud the creators for nailing Chicago to a tee, but I hope that with whatever location they go to next, there is some varied landscape.

I've harped on Watch Dogs pretty hard so far, but that's really because those are the most significant shortcomings that it has. But, like many games, it's got an ace up its sleeve: its gameplay. Ubisoft was able to take the awesome concept of a connected city and implement it really well into the game. For the first few hours of playing Watch Dogs, you will be borderline blown away by how awesome it is that you can hack everything. The novelty of that sooner or later wore off for me, but I eventually realized that that was because I had been so accustomed to having the hacking as a tool to aid my gameplay. Wondering how many baddies are headed your way? Hack that camera around the corner and spot and mark them. Need some extra cash? Hack some civilians and head to an ATM. Need to ditch the cops? Hack a parking garage's door open, go under it, then hack it closed behind you and escape. It's all so well integrated that hacking quickly became second nature for me before I even realized it.

Screenshot courtesy of FeelMyRath7's
playthrough!

Even better is that the other aspects of gameplay are incredibly well done and I would say that it's here that Watch Dogs is better than GTA V. I found that the driving had a learning curve, but was fantastic once you got the hang of it, especially on motorcycles. This is complimented of course by the game's "focus" ability which is essentially a analog click to slow down time, but in no time I was zipping around Chicago with ease. The true star of the show though is the stealth and shooting gameplay. Ubisoft is really becoming the king of stealth as they find new ways to invent it for every game franchise. With Watch Dogs, the combination of taking cover, sneaking, and hacking all add up to a thrilling time seeing if you can take down thugs without ever being seen. And when things go south? Watch Dogs has a fantastic shooting interface where you can easily choose weapons and explosives and the aiming is very tight and well done. Scoring a headshot releases a gruesome crunching sound through your speakers and the gunplay was truly the one aspect that I never got remotely bored with.

Watch Dogs also does a great job at capturing the "just-one-more-thing" spirit that had me up far past my bedtime on a few occasions with Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag. There are plenty of things to do, many of which are tied to trophies/achievements for those of us that care about that sort of thing. They range in scope from thrilling (taking down gang hideouts) to slightly mundane (finding a series of ctOS boxes in a set amount of time) but most of them are worthwhile. I enjoyed the "digital trips" which are digital drugs that Aiden takes to alter his reality. They are essentially just extreme mods to the game but can be tons of fun. I won't ruin the surprise for you but just know that a few of them you will be asking yourself, "WTF?".

I didn't participate too heavily online but the times I did it was a nail-biting trip. It's seamlessly integrated into the game and it will really get your engines going once the game announces someone is trying to hack you. Some of the modes were average (racing, and a team deathmatch type of thing) but the one-on-one stuff is borderline brilliant. You can invade another player's game as a disguised NPC and the goal is to hack them without being profiled (aka caught/seen). If they do catch you then you have to get away alive. There were a couple instances where I would be hacking someone and you could see them searching for you and my heart was pounding. It was fantastic and vice versa there were some games where I was nearing 100% being hacked by someone else and I found them hiding at the very last second. Talk about a videogame adrenaline rush! However, the previous few times I've tried to play online I've encountered persons who have found the loopholes to the game and it was significantly less fun.


"Let me out of this room! It smells in here!"

Given that Watch Dogs was my most anticipated game of the year, I was definitely disappointed by the overall outcome. It's story is all over the place, the protagonist is average, and as impressive as Chicago was, it needed a bit more variety. The good news though is that all of those things are easily fixable before the next iteration. As far as the technical aspects of the gameplay and overall concept, Ubisoft has a huge winner on its hands with Watch Dogs and the amount of potential that this series has is actually quite scary.

Unfortunately this installment of the franchise is much like a puppy. Fun to play with and nice to look at. But by the end of the game I was looking for a little more than what I was given.

I wanted the mature wolf.

CONS:

• A painfully average story that I really couldn't keep track of, nor did I care to
• There are hints at an overarching plot and conspiracy angle, but they are sadly mostly unexplored
• Who was the villain again? Was the game trying to do one of those things where it makes me out to be the villain? Hell I don't know
• Aiden's voice is ridiculous
• The graphics are impressive, but held back by the decision to produce the game on last gen consoles. Hopefully that's not the case with Watch Dogs 2
• Chicago's rendering is well done, but it leads to a lack of environmental variety which is something that I believe open world games sorely need
• The creators of the game have a really odd sense of humor at times
• There really needs to be a way to shoot out of your car
• The game's soundtrack (i.e. the music that plays in your car and stuff) are poorly chosen
• Some of the hideouts where you automatically spawn are really out of the way
• Not all side quests are fun

PROS:

• Fun and interesting secondary characters
• The hacking loses its novelty after a while but that's only because it becomes such second nature to the player. Ubisoft was really able to do some cool things with this premise
• Chicago is impressive and very well created. The information that pulls up on each NPC as you're walking around truly immerses you in the game and leads to some poignant moments that have nothing to do with the game itself
• As an origin story of sorts, Watch Dogs is sufficient
• Most of the side quests are a blast. Shout outs to the Digital Trips and Gang Hideouts which were my two personal favorites
• Although it's a bit of an "easy" button, I loved having the slow-mo ability in the game
• Despite the soundtrack sucking, the original score is fantastic
• Driving is well implemented and comes naturally after a slight learning curve
• The parkour, cover system, and gunplay are all tight and extremely well done. Easily the most impressive part of the game for me
• Online is often a highly intense cat-and-mouse game that will leave you breathless. VERY well implemented into the game
• The franchise is out of the gate now and that's the hardest part. Now Ubisoft just needs to live up to the enormous amount of potential that they have created for themselves

Rath's Review Score: 8/10

Click HERE to see some of my own gameplay, straight from my PS4!