Warning: minor spoilers may be present for those who have not been keeping up with updates regarding Watch Dogs' narrative. Please read at your own discretion.
Imagine a world where everything is connected; a central operating system can control everything from traffic signals to security cameras, from mobile phones to webcams. It's essentially a hacker's dream and our worst nightmare. Sensitive information about a person - sexual predilections, bank accounts, criminal records - can all be accessed from a smart phone. Hackers have the ability to get any information they want from anyone and no one is able to avoid their power.
Aiden Pearce, the story's lead protagonist, is one of those people. He is introduced as a technologically advanced criminal, so to speak, as our first meeting with him demonstrates a partnered hack into a hotel's finances, earning them a hundred thousand in mere seconds. Their hack is short lived, however, when Aiden's overzealous partner is determined on demonstrating his elitism and tracing an additional hack that appeared on the network. This alerted security and prompted Aiden to issue a premature shutdown of their hack. Consequently, an unknown man pulls up information from the hack identifying the two players and sends a man named Maurice to intimidate Aiden and his family, resulting in the death of his niece. In lieu of this, Aiden sets off on a quest for vengeance and indiscriminately becomes a vigilante within the city of Chicago. Spanning over more than twenty hours, the originally straightforward narrative becomes more and more complex until the player is essentially on the edge of their seat, yearning to discover what happens next...only to take a lacklustre turn to vapidity when the bigger picture is revealed. For a game that deals with such drastic and immense themes, the villains just aren't on the same page.
Within the introductory scene, Watch Dogs paints a picture of hackers as artists and magicians, which is a pretty accurate comparison when you consider the bag of tricks we get to unleash within the impressively detailed city of Chicago, Illinois. With the push of a button, Aiden uses his smart phone to trigger environmental hazards that smash pursuing vehicles, remotely set off a grenade in an enemy's pocket or little tricks that can hack into a citizen's bank account or into their computer's webcam. Hacking certainly isn't as dynamic as implied, but it offers a bit more to do than in general games of the genre, so it's a welcomed addition.
Watch Dogs' missions are more stealth oriented than most games of the genre, which offers some variety. Combat is traditional and commonplace as we've come to expect from third person action gamers. Aiden can take cover behind most objects and switch from cover to cover. The cover system, however, is quite smooth and polished, perhaps the best I've experienced so far. Aiden also has the ability to slow time - just like everyone else these days - which allows for those gratifying headshots to be easily obtained. The only negative to the experience is that there's those dreaded missions that automatically fail if you're detected, but the missions that actually allow you to choose stealth or Rambo are the ones that shine.
Gunfights seem to be rather easy as most of the time, your reticle automatically locks onto the nearest enemy's vital points. There isn't much in the way of hand-to-hand combat aside from Aiden using his retractable nightstick as a takedown mechanism. However, despite some shortcomings, it's still a fun experience. There are a vast number of weapons to choose from ranging from pistols to submachine guns, assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles and heavier artillery.
Driving in Watch Dogs is very arcade-like, reminiscent to Saints Row in a sense. It's incredibly easy to get the hang of and it actually makes the game that much more fun in my opinion; there's no mechanics that take time to adjust to. You know what buttons do what and you don't always have to calculate your speed before taking a corner. However, while fun, car chases gradually become more and more disappointing and annoying thanks to Ubisoft's decision to not allow vehicular combat. You can't fire your weapon out of the window while you drive, so your only choice is to drive around and hack into things to trigger hazards and shake your pursuer. Most of the time, you don't even get to see the aftermath of a changed traffic signal or a raised barrier that caused the wreck. Enemy vehicles are similar to the police in Grand Theft Auto V whereas no matter how fast you're driving in the game's fastest car, they always manage to catch up. It's nearly impossible to simply outrun them, so the game essentially forces you to use the hacking mechanic. On a more positive note, though, there's numerous different vehicles to choose from, ranging from common cars to sports and luxury, motorcycles and utility vehicles. Interestingly enough, the Xbox One and PS4 versions of the game offer a cockpit view whilst driving, which simply adds to the immersion of the experience. The only downside is that the side and rear-view mirrors are greyed out and you must press the appropriate button to catch a glimpse of what's behind you, which is so two generations ago.
One of the things I enjoyed most about Watch Dogs - as I am a person of simple tastes - is that most of the music featured were songs I know and love. It added to the overall immersion to hear some popular gems and even some interesting others I'd never heard before. The downside about the audio is that the vehicles' sound effects seem a bit exaggerated at times. The voice acting suffered a bit as well with certain characters; at times I felt as though parts of the recorded dialogue was done on a rainy day at 3 o'clock in the morning while the actor was drowsy on NyQuil. Some voice acting sounds lazy and without effort and there's absolutely no need for that.
Connecting online in Watch Dogs is similar in ease to Grand Theft Auto V; it all comes down to the push of a button. However, it is not nearly as seamless as Ubisoft had claimed; you'll often find yourself waiting for a connection to another player due to their poor servers and after a connection is established, you'll be shown a screen that's tracking the player's location. It's actually smoke and mirrors for a loading screen. Although, once you're connected (usually under a minute), you are seamlessly transitioned back to your individual game after the session ends.
Watch Dogs' online component features a small handful of activities: hacking, decryption, races, tailing, ctOS mobile and free roam. Hacking is my personal favourite as you're placed within another player's game (you're disguised as an NPC, even though you see yourself as Aiden and vice versa to the other player) and must install a back door hack into their mobile device. After establishing the connection, you must remain in the target zone (which gets progressively smaller every quarter percent) and download their files, hiding or blending in plain sight, avoiding being profiled by the other player. It can go one of two ways: you can either successfully download the player's files or you'll end up being discovered and must evade them, usually resulting in a car chase.
Decryption is a more team-based experience similar to capture the flag. Teams must recover critical information and evade the enemy team while decrypting the files. It's comparable to to the 'uplink' game mode in the James Bond game, Nightfire. It's terribly fun and addicting, but in my experience, a little tedious when you're unable to communicate with your team members as they'd rather not use their headset.
Tailing is similar to hacking and involves profiling your target and following them around in order to download information about them. You must observe your target (another player) from a distance without being spotted or discovered. However, judging from my experience, it doesn't seem like the other player is aware of your presence, as they never really seem to try and evade you or discover you. I haven't been 'tailed' yet by another player so I'm not too sure how the experience works from the other side.
Lastly, is the ctOS mobile application, which allows players to embody the Chicago police and attempt to disable another player's vehicle as they race through checkpoints avoiding you. You commandeer a police helicopter and can activate the environmental traps throughout the city as well as dispatch ground units and utilise your passenger armed with a sniper rifle to take down your target. It's wonderful fun, but connecting to the Ubisoft servers on mobile devices has proven to be quite the difficult task, so I haven't given it too much of my time yet.
The only annoying component about the online experience is that you yourself are a victim to any intruders trying to hack into your data and steal information. You won't truly get to play Watch Dogs uninterrupted unless you either disconnect from Xbox Live or PSN or turn off online capabilities, with the latter resulting in a progression loss penalty. If one were to temporarily disable the online component to avoid being hacked and desire to play the game in peace, your notoriety (online's version of experience points or XP) is reset to zero. It seems that Ubisoft truly wants you to feel like you're not the only person with the power of hacking and if you want to pretend that you are, you'll be penalised for it. I found that to be an incredibly ill-thought out move and poor development on their part; not everyone wants to be invaded every ten seconds, which indeed prevents you from playing missions until the intruder either gathers what they need or you track them down and eliminate them.
Overall, Watch Dogs is an experience to be had. It's generally fun and enjoyable and like any game, it has its annoying moments and features that make you wonder what in the name of all that is holy was the developer thinking. However, generally speaking, as long as you start up the game without expecting a Grand Theft Auto clone, it's unlikely you won't enjoy yourself. As always, if you're sceptical, head on down to the rental store or borrow your friend's copy before making a final decision.
Remember, everything is connected_
With the world of information and technology, privacy and security growing every day, Watch Dogs deserves another chance in the spotlight, now more than ever.
The only Ubi title that deserves a faithful remake right now is Splinter Cell 1.
All 2014+ Ubi titles are just underwhelming. Especially ones from 2016+ are just cancer.
Seriously, are we so far removed from Ubisoft actually making good games that people now praise Watch_Dogs in retrospect?
"Watch_Dogs has remained one of my favourite games of the last ten years." Jesus Christ.
I remember being so disappointed in Watch Dogs when I played it at release. It was alright, but I think I fell for the hype and I needed a game to play on my new PS4.
This is what happens when mediocrity gets praised as good.
Standards are slipping across the whole entertainment industry.
What was once considering rubbish is now considered as OK, what once was OK is now being praised as good etc etc.
Everyone has their own likes. I liked it a lot myself. I played through it twice and liked the car chases and the open world with fairly decent environments and missions. It suffered from the whole downgrade thing where they showed graphics that weren't actually there. No game will appeal to everyone but it was still ambitious for it's time.
For certain! AC1 was brilliant at the time but with new graphics and gameplay it would be amazing! Do you prefer old combat or new though?
I'd say a reimagining of AC1.
I direct AC1 remake would be a bad idea. It'll need better story pacing and significant better world building.
Old. Let it play like how it did with AC2-Syndicate style gameplay but refine the setting and story.
It would need a lot changed for it to be enjoyable again as even back in 2007 on launch we were all complaining about it's repetitive gameplay go here perform one of three side quests repeat then assassination now do it over and over until a big battle with a unforgiving checkpoint system.
I'd prefer it didn't. Ubisoft would make it so bloated, it wouldn't be anywhere near the original
As a fan of the franchise legion was garbage and I regretted my purchase for the first time in the franchise the entire thing felt like an experiment in NPC behaviour and released without the writers input on what makes a good story.
I don't think I'm alone in that feeling though as wrench and Aiden are brought back and the campaign was rewritten to fit them.
I am tempted to buy the season pass to play it again with Aiden but fool me twice shame on me I'm waiting for a deep sale
Agreed. Despite the annoying hipness of the characters in part 2 I thought it was a really fun game. I was extremely disappointed and surprised at how many steps back they took with Legion. You'd think it was made by an entirely different team. Or was it?
It was just so devoid of fun.
Honestly one of my biggest annoyances with Legion is that they took out the camera views for the driving. I mean the behind the car view that they stuck us with is near unplayable. I always used a first person driving view. After two releases why did they take OUT features? I don't get it.
The fist watchdog game was the best by far
After that they weren't weird and annoying with that hipster stuff. Aiden was a badass.
I thought so at first too. I got used to it and it ended up being good after some play time. I just had to give it a chance.
From VG247: "When cars slide, they leave tyre marks. In a game like Driver, they’re an aesthetic touch, part of the inherent cool of a handbrake turn. But those dark shadows in the road also tell a story. From tyre marks, you can determine the speed of a vehicle, when it started to skid, and its ultimate direction of travel – long after the car itself has vanished into the distance."
Why did they stop making some of the best games ever? Driver was one of them.
Assassins Creed 2 showed Ubisoft how to make money and Far Cry 2 showed them that gamers don't like complex ideas. Now Ubisoft just turns out games that are just variations of the same thing.
A story driven game with pure driving gameplay. I'd love to see a new Driver game or a remake of the first one.
Yes. This one. A definite remake of the first without adding any ridiculous fluff. The first game had great physics and sound for its time. The start of the car in the beginning cinema I watched constantly. My father and uncles were big muscle and classic car freaks. Only thing crazy about the game was the relentless cops in the last level. Insane the way those police cars were and launched at you.
Bleemcast made it look better just like PC emulators. But would definitely take a remake.
An Assassin's Creed Watch Dogs crossover has been hinted at for years, but could it work? FinalBoss explore the past and potential future!
I don’t know I still haven’t played Watchdogs 2 because the first didn’t keep me interested and I quit quickly to play something else
2 is much better but the puzzles are absolute shit. Tedious annoying shit. It has a lighter tone but the characters are pretty cringe as they try to be funny and so cool. The game is nothing you have not seen in a million other GTA like open worlds before. If had for super cheap it kills time. Outside of that, it's nothing special.
I thought that watchdogs 2 had you hack into the Ubisoft studio in San Francisco and from memory there was some assassin's Creed mentions which mean that if it's a video game in watch dogs then it can't cross over
Image double micros and extra level gated content that can be eased by the purchase of Watchdog Assassin boosters.
I would agree with this score completely. The gameplay, overall, is really fun and engaging. My only complaint with the gameplay is the driving bits. I like the driving; it feels more grounded than GTA V or IV. The cars handle nicely and are undeniably quick. But having to "Takedown" other car adversaries is extremely tedious, especially in Pawnee or other suburban areas where the hacks are fewer than those in the city. I never knew that I'd miss shooting while driving so much.
As for the online component, I am right there with you. I have had an extreme amount of trouble connecting to the Ubisoft servers, even for things as simple as checking the leaderboards or "Checking-In" to Hotspots. But when I did finally connect, however, the experience was very tense and rewarding. These connectivity problems could very well be fixed through a title-update, and I hope they are resolved soon.
Definitely not a perfect game, but I'd say it's a must buy for anyone with a high-end PC or current-gen console. I can't speak for the previous-gen versions because I haven't played or seen them.
As always, great review Valenka!
The driving in this game annoys me as the cars are simply not as responsive as you'd expect in a game like this. I wondered why it takes so long for the care to make a left turn straight after a right (and vice versa).
I switched to interior view and realised it's linked to the actual steering of the character. When stearing right the wheel naturally needs to be turned in the direction and then when turning left straight after the wheel needs to return to its original position before turning the other way.
This is realistic but quite annoying from a gameplay perspective.
"Original, but not original enough" /facepalm
hahaha cloning concept is just an ordinary day nowadays.