Watch_Dogs - ehhhh?
What is it?
THE FUTURE OF GAMING!!! Pfft not even close. Watch_Dogs is the highly anticipated new IP from Ubisoft, an open world, third person action game which lies in a similar vein to GTA though with less emphasis on fucking shit up and instead on hacking things like some passive aggressive nerd on the Internet.
Story
So in this rendition of Chicago you are Aiden Pearce, notorious hacker and terrible person. The game opens with you scouting out a hotel or store or something that isn't made incredibly clear but as you're doing it something goes wrong and another hacker is on to you and orders a hit on you. Cut to you driving through a tunnel when some guy on a motorbike comes along side you and blows your tyre out causing your car to flip and killing your poor little niece in the process, after that it's all just a revenge story at the core. A few twists here and there but nothing that will completely shock you. There are some likeable characters, or one at least (Jordi) though there are plenty of unlikeable expressionless sacks of meat...
Gameplay
Watch_Dogs is another sandbox simulator from Ubisoft. The big selling point for this game was the ability to "hack anything" which in this case actually means: cars, phones, ATM's, traffic lights, bollards, helicopters, radios and bridges. There are more things to hack of course but the anything part of the earlier statement is way off the mark. Your time in sunny/rainy Chicago will be spent doing one of 3 things: Driving, hacking and getting involved in the games terrible combat mechanics. Driving isn't the best of times, the cars feel very loose and the way they take damage is just bizarre, you can plough a sports car at full speed into a pick-up truck and drive away from it, we're a long way from the damage modelling we saw in GTA:V that's for damn sure. The hacking is...shit. If you remember the plumbing/hacking mechanic from the original Bioshock it's basically that but with current and nodes, needless to say it's a little uninspired and every time I was presented with one a little piece of myself died. As for the gun-play...Terrible. No customisation options for things like silencers which make life a lot easier since you can pop a guy in the head with the silenced pistol you get at the start and nobody even bats an eyelid, be prepared to die a lot in gunfights as you aren't exactly wearing Kevlar so you're going to be hitting those checkpoints a lot.
Like most "next gen" or rather current gen games Watch_Dogs comes complete with it's own iPad (or Smart Glass if you prefer) app and through this you can engage in some of the multiplayer systems of the game. Playing with your particular brand of tablet device will allow you to take on the roll of the police as you try to prevent people in game from getting to a certain waypoint, to do this you follow them with your helicopter whilst sending in various levels of police power and altering traffic lights etc., it's a nice new experience that actually feels like something "next-gen". The other interesting part of the multiplayer is the invasion style mode where somebody enters your world (disguised of course not just running round as Aiden like you are) and the longer it takes you to find them the more the hacking bar fills up and when it's full they win, you lose, the usual. Don't worry yourself too much thinking you'll have to drive round the whole city to find the scum who's stealing your shit, all these events take place in a finite radius which gradually gets smaller making it easier to find them with your magical Macguffin phone and well if you don't want to be part of any of this new age multiplayer nonsense then you can just turn it all off and be alone in your city with no-one to play with just like in real life.
It's not all doom and gloom and people stealing your hard stolen cash though, you can take a Digital Trip and become a giant spider tank and basically destroy Chicago and all it's inhabitants for points, it's one of the few "fun" side-quests or mini-games to take the edge off the gritty revenge story you're dealing with in the story which is always nice.
Graphics
Now...I am reviewing the PC version here which at the time of writing is...shit. Besides the poor optimisation the game just isn't as pretty and shiny as it should be, it's definitely not even close to what was show at E3 and in various trailers etc. It all reeks of something that had to be toned down to run on consoles which is just a little sad at this point as it happens far too often, Ubisoft have said a patch is coming but unless they add in another 30gb of textures it's still not going to look as good as we thought.
(Waters nice though)
Ignoring all of that however the game does have it's moments, the water textures are incredibly nice and you will occasionally find yourself staring at a beautiful sunset with just one too many lens flares. Don't get me wrong it's not an AWFUL looking game but for a game that was delayed for as long as it was it should look better than this.
Audio
Why don't open world games like this have metal in their soundtracks anymore? That was the best thing about Saints Row 2 and 3, driving round like a mad bastard listening to heavy ass guitars and bands screaming about whales or something. Suffice to say Watch underscore Dogs doesn't have any metal which to me is a bad thing, though I could forgive them if the rest of the soundtrack made up for it but it just doesn't. To clarify I'm talking about all the in-game radio music here since that's what you'll listen to 90% of the time. It's a mishmash of songs of varying genres that must have been pulled from Guy Blands iTunes account in the office because there's just no logical reason for half the music to be there, especially something as unpopular and insignificant as an Alkaline Trio song, I wasn't aware that being from the area the game is set in grants you a spot on the soundtrack...I'll remember that next time a game comes out of Warrington (my hometown).
It's not just a bad choice of songs though, the sound design is a real let down for the game. The guns sound fairly poor and the voice acting is Ubisofts usual brand of terrible, I'm not sure but I'm fairly confident some of the main characters were random people plucked off the streets. When I was playing an announcement came on over the radio in the car and was a good 400% louder than what was previously on, now I understand that the dialogue contained in that broadcast was at least somewhat relevant to the games lore but I really didn't need it to be so deafeningly loud. By contrast another news announcement was barely audible (and no I didn't lower the volume). Audio is one of the most important things in a game to me and they really missed out with this one I'm sorry to say.
Yay or Nay
I think I've talked enough shit about this game already so I'll just sum up my main problems here:
- It's on Uplay and that is a terrible terrible thing
- Needs a lot of work (future patch may improve things)
- Story is a bit bland
- Something of a let down after all the hype
- Poor audio assets in places
- Can't jump over a small gap
(Damn small gaps ruining my sweet parkour)
HOWEVER I do think the game has some good things going for it, the hacking is new and interesting and could definitely have potential depending on what they choose to do with the game down the line and the multiplayer has definite potential and definitely removes some of the monotony of going from mission to mission to mission. We were all so excited when this game was announced and the hype got well out of hand which is a shame because I really wanted to enjoy this game but I just couldn't overlook some of the issues that were staring me in the face.
The game is not bad by any stretch but it definitely lets itself down in a good number of ways, if you're after a sandbox to dick around in because lets face it that's what they all become when you finish the story, then buy GTAV. At least in that you won't lose reputation for covering all the cars in stick bombs and blowing them up..if anything you'll be loved. Probably. OH one more thing, there's too much damn DLC, okay I'm done.