Something went wrong. Try again later
Click To Unmute

Want us to remember this setting for all your devices?

Sign up or Sign in now!

Please use a html5 video capable browser to watch videos.
This video has an invalid file format.
00:00:00
Sorry, but you can't access this content!
Please enter your date of birth to view this video

By clicking 'enter', you agree to Giant Bomb's
Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

Giant Bomb Review

381 Comments

Watch Dogs Review

3
  • PS4
  • XONE

Watch Dogs is a solid open-world game that doesn't do enough to set itself apart from the pack.

You can close doors on the cops, but they seem to open them really quickly.
You can close doors on the cops, but they seem to open them really quickly.

For better or worse, Watch Dogs has been propped up by many as one of the new generation of consoles' first "big" games. But instead of feeling like the future, Watch Dogs reminds me of the past. I'm reminded of the time when developers were ardently chasing after that Grand Theft Auto gold, resulting in a menagerie of takes on the GTA formula, each with their own little hook. Some worked out really well, others floundered and vanished. Watch Dogs' spin on the genre gives you limited control over some of the city's features, letting you toggle the state of various objects both on foot or in a vehicle. For the most part, these interactions are there to eliminate or block your enemies so you have more time to escape. Even with that as one of its unique twists on the genre, Watch Dogs is little clunky in spots and it starts very slowly. Luckily, that bad first impression lets up as you get into more interesting missions and become more comfortable with the game's abilities and options.

In a lot of ways, Watch Dogs falls into the same routine as most other mission-based open-world games. There's a main narrative of missions that progress in order, with side missions that back them up and give you a little something to do if you're looking for a change. The mission design is really standard for this sort of game--you'll hunt people down and shoot them, you'll get away from the cops, and the missions where you're asked to tail someone discreetly continue to suck. I don't necessarily view all this as a bad thing, but at this point in life you've probably already determined whether or not you like this sort of game. Not to get overly reflexive on you, but if you have the hunger for this type of open-world game, it's a solid entry. The things designed to set Watch Dogs apart, though, don't make that big of an impact.

The first differentiator is that you're a hacker set loose in a city that's been overrun by surveillance and connected "smart" technologies that are designed to make life easier (while simultaneously setting up the game's slightly hamfisted approach to the issues of government surveillance and the potential nightmares that come from relying on one big system with a single point of failure). For the most part, this boils down to pushing the square button to incapacitate police cars. Sometimes that square button raises blockers out of the street, sometimes it causes steam pipes to explode, but generally, you're waiting for a "neutralize" prompt to appear on-screen while you're driving, indicating that you're a button press away from having one less hassle on your tail. You also use that square button (X on the Xbox, naturally) to hack the planet.

A few characters drop in to help or hurt your cause.
A few characters drop in to help or hurt your cause.

When pressed, that square button sends you into profiler mode, allowing you to view names and details of any of the game's NPCs. Some of them have bank accounts you can hack, letting you get access to funds that are useful for buying a few weapons, but generally useless unless you're into cosmetic stuff like costumes or unlocking additional cars. Others have songs you can hack out of their phones, adding them to the game's disjointed and disappointing playlist. You hit this button when you walk up to terminals or see junction boxes on the street, and you can also use it to tap into security camera feeds. It's a one-size-fits-all approach to hacking, which makes the way the game occasionally and arbitrarily sticks in a dull hacking minigame feel that much more puzzling. A big part of the game involves hacking into a camera, then using that to hack into another camera, and so on and so on until you get to an otherwise-unreachable hacking point. You can also tag enemies with the profiler or security cameras, letting you see silhouettes behind walls and setting up the game's various stealth takedowns.

Interestingly, the game has no "real" melee combat system. Rather than giving you a punch button, the game simply has a takedown button, and it works whether you're sneaking up from behind or running up in plain sight. You also have weapons, including a perfectly accurate and silenced pistol that, except in cases where you're severely outnumbered and forced into open combat, makes most of the combat and stealth situations feel completely trivial, assuming you're even slightly skilled at lining up headshots. When taking on scads of enemies, the assault rifles work just fine and, as long as you patiently use cover and don't expose yourself for too long, the combat is quite easy.

The other thing that sets Watch Dogs apart from the typical open-world game is the way its online action is structured. While it still has the same boring online race mode that every open-world game seems to have these days (does anyone actually still want to engage in an open-world race in a game that wasn't built for racing?), it also has a handful of cat-and-mouse-like modes where one player has to get close to another player to steal something from them. These online invasions pop up against your will, forcing you to deal with another player before you can proceed. The rewards for succeeding in this mode are minimal and they seem to always pop up when you're trying to start another mission, making them feel like a hassle that's preventing you from doing the thing you actually want to be doing. It seems like a bad implementation of a decent idea. If you like, you can disable the online invasion aspect of the game, but doing so prevents you from earning a handful of bonus perks, like making your bullets do more damage to vehicles. Disabling invasions mid-game actually resets any online points you've earned back to zero, too. This would be a little more outrageous if the perks you got for playing online were of any real value, but many of them pertain solely to the multiplayer mode that you're trying to avoid and the game is already quite easy, so it's not that big of a deal. There are a handful of different modes that you can engage from a separate menu, and the game will constantly remind you that various online opportunities exist via the same system it uses to notify you about nearby side missions.

One of the side missions has you profiling potential criminals and stopping altercations before they can get started.
One of the side missions has you profiling potential criminals and stopping altercations before they can get started.

The story puts you in the shoes of a thief-turned-vigilante who sees the light in the game's opening moments, after a cyber-caper goes cyber-sideways resulting in some decidedly non-cyber-retaliation that ends with your all-the-way-not-cyber niece dead. Watch Dogs is a revenge tale, as Aiden Pearce attempts to find out who ordered the hit on him that left his niece dead while also hooking up with some other shady hackers and fighting crime. With his gruff voice and serious demeanor, you almost half-expect a mid-game twist where Pearce just shouts "I'm cyber-Batman." Instead, he's out there using his real name--which, considering most of the game's other hackers appear with embarrassing monikers like Badboy17 or Defalt, might be the smartest thing Pearce does in the entire game. Or maybe "Aiden Pearce" is just as embarrassing of a name. Anyway, the story is all over the place and is full of characters that sort of cruise into and out of the story, which makes it hard to care about any of them. Also, the main missions have huge sidetracks that occasionally feel like they came from another game--a couple of times I completely forgot why I was even doing what I was doing and how my current mission tied into the overall picture of getting revenge for my dead niece.

I found myself avoiding the soundtrack in Watch Dogs, instead going for the sounds of Chicago's streets and the occasional forced, in-mission music. The licensed music appears in a playlist format that you can configure to your liking. This makes sense, as this is how people actually listen to music these days, but losing the radio format that many other open-world games use makes the city feel a little more lifeless. It attempts to inject some of your exploits into the audio by forcing the occasional news report on you, but this makes even less sense... is the news so important that it's breaking into whatever playlist I keep on my phone to tell me about it or something? Also, having playlist controls in a game only to occasionally force you into specific songs for missions and also not allowing custom soundtracks seems kind of lame. Are we supposed to believe that Aiden Pearce actually likes all of the music on his playlists? Sorry, this is actually a super minor point, but one I became sort of obsessed with every time I tried to change the music only to have it say "media player unavailable." What, does Aiden's phone detect when he's on an important mission and play appropriate music instead of whatever cheaply licensed pop-punk Ubisoft decided to cram onto the soundtrack? When used wisely, a licensed soundtrack can be an almost living part of your story. Here it feels like something thrown in as an obligation.

Visually, Watch Dogs looks good on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, with a usually stable frame rate, a good draw distance, and all that. No one part of it stands out as amazing or revolutionary (though the water looks pretty nice). Instead it's merely higher fidelity than the games and consoles that came before it. The visual implementation of hacking is pretty good at making the HUD and information you learn about nearby civilians seem like it's coming in via some kind of augmented reality setup--which actually makes the whole game feel weirdly dated, since Pearce spends much of the game staring down at his phone like a bored kid trying to ignore his parents. Given that we live in an era where people are out there paying way-too-much money for Google Glass and anticipating other head-mounted setups, going phone-only (and all the hilarious animations that come along with a man holding a pistol in one hand and a phone in the other) seems out of touch for a game that's trying to represent the dark future of technology. That dark future is already here, and Watch Dogs gets that wrong.

Even though I feel its story is often weak and its action isn't that different from other games in the genre, I still enjoyed my time with Watch Dogs. It turns out that the old stuff still works, and the strong-but-standard mission design kept me entertained, most of the time. It's rough around the edges, though, so if you don't settle for anything less than the best, you'll probably be disappointed.

But hey, Watch Dogs 2? That'll probably be pretty cool.

Jeff Gerstmann on Google+

381 Comments

Avatar image for bagsquad
BagSquad

172

Forum Posts

7

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

everything about this game looked incredibly mediocre from the get go. not surprised at this score

Avatar image for mendelson9
Mendelson9

575

Forum Posts

175

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 5

@joeyravn said:

Fine, yes, review, whatever. Can we tackle the real, serious matter at hand here?

Is this game officially called Watch Dogs or "Watch_Dogs"?

Regular people are smart enough not to use that stupid underscore, the video game is called Watch Dogs, no matter what Ubisoft says.

Avatar image for forteexe21
forteexe21

2073

Forum Posts

5

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

What does Patrick "Mayor of Chicago" Klepek think of the game? Is there a drunk Dave Lang roaming the streets? I need the important details!

Avatar image for bonechompski
BoneChompski

421

Forum Posts

2

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 3

I wasn't planning on buying unless it was must have entertainment and I didn't think it would be.

I can understand Jeff's tone - this game is a NEXGEN release and it feels like stuff from years ago. Hard not to be disappointed. Also hard to make an substantially evolutionary game so soon in the cycle.

Avatar image for dynamitekyle
Dynamitekyle

675

Forum Posts

99

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 5

Panned! Wasn't expecting this one. I'm interested enough that I'll still probably pick it up, regardless.

Avatar image for irtiqaevox
irtiqaevox

10

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By irtiqaevox

the review seems awful...i don't care for the score but just the tone...i can't tell if its giant bomb's trouble or his own boredom with most games...but he's kinda really unenthusiastic about a lot of stuff...even the gametrailers interview he did with the kotaku editor...he looked like he could not care less about the state of games...

Avatar image for nime
Nime

567

Forum Posts

386

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 3

@sagebirt said:

I wonder when ok/good became a bad thing?

To me it has to do with so many other good games constantly being available. Looking at how much stuff comes out on Steam etc all the time, it becomes harder to justify $60 and a chunk of your life on average when you have so many other options.

Avatar image for sadsadsad
sadsadsad

191

Forum Posts

1

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By sadsadsad

@sunspots said:

I'm glad I spent Money on Transistor instead. Now THAT game I'd gladly pay $60 for despite it's $20 asking price.

You have the option to pay $60 on supergiant's site.

Avatar image for mitbit
MitBit

14

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Loading Video...

You also use that square button (X on the Xbox, naturally) to hack the planet.

Avatar image for korwin
korwin

3919

Forum Posts

25

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

Good thing I put off buying it for a while then.

Avatar image for deactivated-63b0572095437
deactivated-63b0572095437

1607

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@sagebirt said:

I wonder when ok/good became a bad thing?

Agreed. If I only played 4 and 5 star games, I would miss out on a lot of games that I enjoy. I'm sure it's different if you play games for a living, but I'm totally fine dumping a lot of time into a solid 3-star/70% game.

Avatar image for twisted
Twisted

313

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Well that's a little disappointing. Still seems like a solid game, so I'll pick it up in the future anyway.

Avatar image for fram
fram

2132

Forum Posts

5

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 4

Edited By fram

Sad that the hacking - the thing that supposedly gives the game its identity, and the most promising aspect of the original E3 reveal - amounts to a context-sensitive button press in the middle of another city-based open world action game.

Avatar image for efesell
Efesell

7504

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

So it doesn't set the world on fire.

Well that's okay. I still like these types of games and if it ain't thoroughly broken I'll likely have a good time with this one too.

Avatar image for ravelle
Ravelle

3540

Forum Posts

1

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

I really hope they'll patch the lightning and textures somehow because those are some bland ass textures.

Avatar image for markhawk
MarkHawk

153

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Still sounds like something I'd be interested to play but really I had hoped the always online hooks of random players in my game would feel new and interesting. I want experiences that weren't possible last gen but we still near the starting line of a new generation.

Avatar image for spiderjerusalem
SpiderJerusalem

230

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@sagebirt said:

I wonder when ok/good became a bad thing?

In this particular case I can understand (and even share) the disappointment. It doesn't look like a "bad" game, but it could have been so much better that three stars doesn't really cut it, at least as a full-price purchase.

Knowing Ubi the sequel is going to be a thing a beauty, though...

Avatar image for deactivated-6050ef4074a17
deactivated-6050ef4074a17

3686

Forum Posts

15

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 0

@riddles said:

Maybe I just got out of the wrong side of bed this morning, but man does the tone of this review seem jaded and snarky. I mean duh, I know it's Jeff that wrote it, but even so. I hope it's just me.

I don't doubt Jeff's credentials as a reviewer or anything in the slightest, but something about this review just read.. weird, compared to some of Jeff's other writing. Like, the final sentence of the first paragraph, for instance, feels weirdly tacked on. Perhaps it's because he just hasn't been doing many reviews lately? Or maybe I haven't read much from Jeff lately? Dunno. I look forward to hearing more of his thoughts on the Bombcast.

Avatar image for hollitz
hollitz

2398

Forum Posts

5

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 12

Edited By hollitz

I've come to realize that Jeff rarely enjoys the kind of games I enjoy (I actually can't really tell what Jeff enjoys at all most of the time), so this review doesn't really bother me. It's just Jeff being Jeff. If he says it's a three star game, I'll probably get either a 4 or 5 star experience out of it.

Now, I wonder what Vinny would think of this game.

My personal Jeff : Me star ratio is as follows.

Jeff 3 stars : Me 4

Jeff 5 stars : Me 3

Jeff 4 stars : Me probably also 4 stars

Avatar image for retromancy
Retromancy

395

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

I was wondering how it would turn out. Personally, the amount of time they pushed it back was enough for me to lose any interest in the game whatsoever.

Avatar image for forkboy
forkboy

1663

Forum Posts

73

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 6

Edited By forkboy

@hollitz said:

@mshaw006 said:

Watch Dogs 2 GOTY 2016

Pretty much.

inFamous and Crackdown are really the only open world games that feel like they got it right the first time and then went downhill after that.

And it's obvious that they are already working on the sequel, what with how much they've been touting those pre-order numbers.

Well, I'd say Sleeping Dogs got it right first time. I mean United Front Games does consist of people from other studios who had worked on open world games like Volition & Rockstar Vancouver, but it was the studios first open world game. And probably the best non GTA/SR open world game out there.

As for the review, it is a little disappointing. I'd really love an excuse to pick-up a current gen console at some point and part of me would have been totally cool with this being it. Shame. I mean it sounds solid, and worth picking up down the line because I do enjoy open world games, but just not the game to buy a new £350 machine for.

Avatar image for humanity
Humanity

21858

Forum Posts

5738

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 40

User Lists: 16

I wonder if this isn't getting marked slightly lower because of all the hype? Seems competent enough to be a 4. Not that scores mean anything anyway these days.

Avatar image for retrovirus
retrovirus

1669

Forum Posts

130

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 17

About what I expected given everything they've shown. Still, I'm getting this free with my new graphics card, so I can't really complain. At least it will serve as a good test of my new system.

Avatar image for riddles
riddles

43

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Maybe I just got out of the wrong side of bed this morning, but man does the tone of this review seem jaded and snarky. I mean duh, I know it's Jeff that wrote it, but even so. I hope it's just me.

Avatar image for delta_ass
delta_ass

3776

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 36

User Lists: 7

Huh. I guess it'll be best to let this watch dog lie.

Avatar image for socksmahoney
SocksMahoney

22

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By SocksMahoney

oh good. another GTAlike

Avatar image for ulio
Ulio

9

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

Ubisoft open world with no heart? Where have i seen this before.

Avatar image for joey_ravn
JoeyRavn

5290

Forum Posts

792

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 2

User Lists: 3

Fine, yes, review, whatever. Can we tackle the real, serious matter at hand here?

Is this game officially called Watch Dogs or "Watch_Dogs"?

Avatar image for golguin
golguin

5471

Forum Posts

1

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 10

Sound the alarm. It looks like Sleeping Dogs is still the best "dogs" related open world game.

Avatar image for sagebirt
sagebirt

66

Forum Posts

1

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

I wonder when ok/good became a bad thing?

Avatar image for strife777
Strife777

2103

Forum Posts

347

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

Edited By Strife777

Dang! Totally expected a 4 stars out of this one at least. Too bad.

I'm still super excited to play it tomorrow and I'm sure I'll love it, since I'm into that type of game.

Hopefully Watch_Dogs 2 ends up being like Assassin's Creed 2. A much improved version of its predecessor.

Avatar image for trucksimulator
trucksimulator

623

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Thanks for the review, Jeff. It was a good read. It's too bad their approach to music sounds so uninspired.

Avatar image for thedarkon3
TheDarkOn3

76

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Even with that as one of its unique twists on the genre, Watch Dogs is little clunky in spots and it starts very slowly. Luckily, that bad first impression lets up as you get into more interested missions and become more comfortable with the game's abilities and options.

A slow start, in an Ubisoft game?!

Good to hear that it's at least a competent technical foundation for a franchise, even if it doesn't reach must-play heights.

Avatar image for dr_monocle
dr_monocle

391

Forum Posts

12

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By dr_monocle

Hackers reference in review: check

Goofy cyberpunkish hacker names in game: check and check

Alright, good enough for me. Guess I'll head out and pick this up in the morning.

Avatar image for aegon
Aegon

7345

Forum Posts

104

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 3

@sterling said:

Da ending of that first paragraph!

Yeah...getting a little rusty.

Avatar image for germanbomber
GermanBomber

153

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Damn, only 3 stars? That's a surprise for sure, but it was clear that this game couldn't live up to the hype.

I'm off to watch the QL.

Avatar image for whitegreyblack
whitegreyblack

2414

Forum Posts

14

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

Edited By whitegreyblack
Avatar image for deactivated-63b0572095437
deactivated-63b0572095437

1607

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Damn. This made me a bit more critical of the game (which is a good thing). I still enjoy it. It's been a while since I've played a good open world game, so this is perfect for me right now. Before this was AC4, and exploration was the only fun thing about it.

I wish there were more variety and randomness to the types of hacks you can do. That early mission at the construction site has me excited to see more, but it hasn't really delivered after the first few hours.

The driving sucks. The soundtrack is garbage. Tailing missions are NEVER fun. You can't flip cars. Losing skill points earned in online mode for turning it off even once for a second is really shitty.

I feel like I want to give this a 4/5, but if I'm being at critical as I probably should be, ~3.5 sounds better. My review scale is simply "Is the shit fun? Yes or no?" And this shit's fun.

Nice review, Jeff. I shall watch the quick look later.

TL;DR - I agree with every word of this, but would still rate it 4/5 if I had to.

Avatar image for pie
Pie

7370

Forum Posts

515

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 7

Sounds about right

Avatar image for white
white

1697

Forum Posts

47

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Uh... The written review talks about the PS4 and the Xbox One version but at the top it says it's a review for the PS3 and Xbox One. Potential error?

Avatar image for mike
mike

18011

Forum Posts

23067

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: -1

User Lists: 6

It's the Assassin's Creed 1 of the Watch Dogs franchise.

Avatar image for sunspots
Sunspots

219

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

I'm glad I spent Money on Transistor instead. Now THAT game I'd gladly pay $60 for despite it's $20 asking price.

Avatar image for liquidprince
LiquidPrince

17073

Forum Posts

-1

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 5

I've come to realize that Jeff rarely enjoys the kind of games I enjoy (I actually can't really tell what Jeff enjoys at all most of the time), so this review doesn't really bother me. It's just Jeff being Jeff. If he says it's a three star game, I'll probably get either a 4 or 5 star experience out of it.

Now, I wonder what Vinny would think of this game.

Avatar image for matti00
matti00

677

Forum Posts

26

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

I've been feeling absolute apathy for this game the closer it's got to release, not really surprised that it's fairly run of the mill. I'll take my money elsewhere.

Avatar image for batmanbatman
BatmanBatman

565

Forum Posts

3712

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

@mb said:

About what I expected to read...I was planning on waiting until Watch Dogs came down in price a bit unless the reviews were absolutely amazing. Looks like I can safely wait or even skip this one.

Pretty much my approach. I'm pretty sure I'll have a good time with the game, but given my huge backlog, I'll probably wait a bit to go out and grab it.

Avatar image for koolaid
koolaid

1435

Forum Posts

16

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

This makes me wish that these Watch Dogs were in fact... Sleeping.

Avatar image for two_socks
two_socks

532

Forum Posts

35

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

I still play GTA Online races. Its the only thing I do in GTA Online, but still...

Avatar image for newmoneytrash
newmoneytrash

2452

Forum Posts

93

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 11

Yup

Avatar image for hollitz
hollitz

2398

Forum Posts

5

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 12

@mshaw006 said:

Watch Dogs 2 GOTY 2016

Pretty much.

inFamous and Crackdown are really the only open world games that feel like they got it right the first time and then went downhill after that.

And it's obvious that they are already working on the sequel, what with how much they've been touting those pre-order numbers.