Watch_Dogs Review

Initial Impressions

Whew! I never thought it would take me more than a month finish this article! This is probably the first game that I really struggled to keep playing, not because the difficulty was insanely hard, but because I wasn’t exactly having fun with it.

I admit I’ve never really been into the Watch_Dogs hype. Sure, I found it interesting, not to mention that it came from the makers of two of my favorite video game franchises in Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell, but there’s really no connection, just some attraction, to Ubisoft’s newest addition to their video game franchises.

First off, I would like to make it clear that Watch_Dogs is a good game in its own right. The sneaking, the hacking, and making blackouts and jamming enemy communications scream Splinter Cell, while the parkour and the outfits scream Assassin’s Creed and there are the obvious Grand Theft Auto stuff too like stealing cars, losing cops and laying low. In fact, Watch_Dogs feels like it is trying to be a lot of things at the same time that it sometimes becomes a problem in certain missions.

You play as Aiden Pierce, a tough hacker-cum-vigilante whose criminal past resulted in the death of his niece. In his quest to find answers as well as rid Chicago of the scum of the earth, he must face both a ghost from his past, as well as coming to terms with his present.

Storyline

Ubisoft has a good track record when it comes to making games with good storylines. Watch_Dogs, though, didn’t exactly break any ground when it comes to drama or originality as the theme of an anti-hero trying to make up for his sins by clearing the city of all bad elements have been done to death in the past. However, the game does have its moments, like when you had to convince a legendary hacker to come help you out, or infiltrating a human smuggling ring. The angle that main antagonist (and your former partner) Damien Brenks brings is also one of the game’s most interesting sub-plots. In fact, Damien is easily my favorite character in the game because he has this ability to really piss you off both by his attitude, and his genius.

Although generic, Watch_Dogs was still able to tell a cohesive story, and often brings to the player the irony of having to fight crime with crime, and to save people who themselves made the choice of breaking the law in the first place. Especially during the crime prevention side-games, where you have to intervene to save someone’s life. If anything, the dialogue heavily implies that the citizen you are trying to save did something illegal in the first place. It’s different though, when you are saving someone from a stalker or some lunatic screaming about aliens. Besides, hacking itself is illegal, and the profiles you get from people are either funny (Bruce Wayne is Batman, internet warrior), or intrusive (watches porn, closet homosexual).

Graphics & Audio

Watchdog’s graphics were nowhere near as beautiful as it was shown in demo form. Playing it in the PS3 though, that’s not really a problem. But if you are playing in next gen consoles and the PC, it does leave you with a bitter taste in the mouth. The city of Chicago though, looks really beautiful and most of the time it will make you forgive Ubisoft for cutting corners on the final release. The animations are also fluid, although some of them do feel as if they were taken from Assassin’s Creed. Explosions are aplenty and my favorite is the bursting steam pipe animation. Pure mayhem and destruction.

See Watch_Dogs (PC) 4K Resolution Screenshots Gallery

I also think that the prompts when using CtOS aren’t as distracting as I thought they would be. Just that the camera sometimes gets in the way. I find hacking into cameras and messing with guards extremely fun.

Now, the drab part, Aiden has limited choices in his clothes which are basically recolors of his standard outfit. Changes are very minuscule and sometimes I’m wondering why they even bothered with them. At least the changes show in the cut-scenes, but it would have been better if they would at least give him the ability to choose between a jacket and a hoodie.

I’m not a fan of Watch_Dogs music, but that’s because I am not fan of the genre they used for the soundtrack itself. The sound effects are great however, especially during gunfights. The voice-clips for the NPCs are pretty great too although it can sometimes be repetitive.

Gameplay

Watch_Dogs’ gameplay is its best feature, with lots of hits but also plenty of misses. The good points really help you have fun, while the bad ones won’t really get in the way of enjoying this game (except for one, but we’ll get to that later). The ability to hack stuff is really what its all about and as soon as you get the hang of it (not to mention develop your character’s hacking skills), you’d be swatting those bothersome cops or thugs chasing you. The best way to infiltrate an opponent’s hideout is always through the combination of hacking and stealth. Sometimes I can easily infiltrate but still hang around to mess with the guards.

Close quarters combat has been simplified to a simple button press when near an opponent. However, it would have been better to include proper stealth take-down moves. A lot of times when I take down an opponent from a hiding spot, Aiden goes into the open to do the take-down which defeats the purpose of hiding in the first place. My favorite hacking skill is blackout which causes a blackout (duh) on your part of the city giving you an easier time infiltrating. It’s not a cheese move that will always work: enemies will still see you if you do stuff when you’re close enough to them. But it adds a new dimension to the stealth infiltration part.

Gunfights are a joy in Watch_Dogs. You have these powerful weapons that give you a chance against a private army, and targeting feels so much like GTA V that you won’t have any problems getting used to it. Only problem though is the inconsistent reactions toward certain hits. I do understand that high-ranked opponents have body armor, but for the life of me, I can’t understand why an enemy gun-man would still get up after I released a few rounds on his face using the most powerful assault rifle in the game. I understand the armor, but I just messed up his face. OK, so that’s a little nit-picking on my part. But at this point, I think it’s reasonable to expect a certain degree of realism from video games. Whatever the case, the shoot-outs are one of the things I enjoyed from this game.

If there is a down-side to the gameplay, it would have to be the driving aspect. I understand that this is not Grand Theft Auto or Gran Turismo, but driving really feels so slippery, especially on the high-end cars. It’s not much of a problem when you are just cruising around, but when you’re in a chase, or you are running away from the cops, it becomes a real problem. Maxing out Aiden’s driving skills by way of the skill points only slightly improves things. Especially during one of the later missions when Damien Brenks is messing up my GPS while cops are on my tail, driving becomes your enemy as I would unintentionally run over civilians.

And while we are in the topic of chases, the police chases annoy me to no end because I can’t shoot that damn chopper! Granted, killing cops hurt your reputation, but sometimes, fighting it out is better than hiding especially when your battery is low, you have to ditch your car, and you simply can’t run far enough. Aiden can learn how to disable helicopters for a few seconds, but there are times when I simply need to dispose that one chopper. I really don’t know if the choppers can only be disabled, but if anybody here has successfully destroyed one, please do tell me.

The best part is, of course, the hacking. The best players can finish the gang missions without ever going into a shoot-out thanks to the hacking mechanic. I personally enjoyed watching the videos and listening to audio clips that form the back-story of the game. The intrusion mini-games were also a joy to complete. Even with those that has timers that will reset the whole thing when it runs out, I rarely got frustrated with it.

Final Thoughts

So in the end, what did Watch_Dogs accomplish? Besides giving Ubisoft its best first week sales ever, what did it bring to the table?

My problem with Watch_Dogs is that while it has a lot of things that make a good game, its entirety is hardly the ground-breaking game that I thought it would be. It tries to be too many things at once, which prevented it from capitalizing on its strengths and let it be dragged down by its weaknesses.

The hacking, shooting, and the stealth mechanics are top-notch, but too often, it relies on the “GTA” formula of vehicular chase and escape. That fact is compounded by the poor driving mechanics. Even some missions have questionable structure: the gang hideout side-missions basically have you taking down a target guarded by gang members. You can go on a shooting rampage against everybody. Except your target that is. You can’t kill him, you can only incapacitate him using your rod. I guess it’s a way of making the player think creatively, but in a game that lets you approach the mission in any way you want, that seems like a moot point, especially since sparing the leader doesn’t affect the story at all. It’s a wasted opportunity on the part of Ubisoft, who could have incorporated the side missions to the main ones by making them easier if you dismantled the gangs first. While I really love the shoot-outs especially against the Viceroys, there were times when I felt that I was doing something completely useless.

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So yes, it took me this long. But I had my fun in Watch_Dogs’ Chicago. I’ll miss it, but I don’t think I’ll be going back again.

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I guess the game’s saving point is its mythos, its characters, its back story, and how it presents the many moral conundrums in the game. Despite the image of a brooding anti-hero, Aiden Pierce comes off real as a former criminal bent on a crusade against the scum of the earth who happen to make the decisions. One of my favorite moments is when Aiden confronts mob boss Lucky Quinn, when the former used the CtOS to shut down the latter’s pace-maker. Lucky taunts Aiden saying that when he dies, the city will “make a statue of him while no one remembers him.” Aiden responds with “don’t you know? I’m the Vigilante. I rid this city of people like you,” reminding the dying mob boss who just turned off the very thing keeping him alive.

That scene pretty much determined which choice I made during the ending credits where you will decide whether you will kill the man who caused the death of Aiden’s niece, or spare him and let him live in the living hell he created. Even with all the frustrations I’ve had with the game, the message is not lost that the difference between the Vigilante and his enemies is that the Vigilante has a purpose bigger than his own ego. He hacks into the system and breaks the law not to control people (like Lucky Quinn), build his own kingdom (like Iraq), do it for kicks (like Defalt), or just be a dick (like Damien).

So yes, it took me this long. But I had my fun in Watch_Dogs’ Chicago. I’ll miss it, but I don’t think I’ll be going back again.

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