Someone is always watching you, that is the underlying message in Ubisoft’s latest open world caper. Personal details are leaked, money is thwarted from your bank account and even the homes you live in are at risk by voyeuristic pursuers. The city of Chicago plays host to all the tomfoolery bringing the windy city to its knees, as if it’s the only city on the planet victimised by ominous city-wide blackout with sweeping power outages from building blocks to housing projects, and traffic lights refusing to function properly. This devastation and calamity is tempered within the confines of Aiden Pearce’s jacket pocket- proving the adage small things come is big packages is nothing short of a certainty.
Being the first major third party sandbox adventure on new-gen hardware, Watch Dogs has plenty of pressure on its canine shoulders. Much like its forebears, it’s a joyous romp with plenty to do, in a city that feels right at home given the technological and social suaveness. The question is, does this dog breathe the golden breath of a crufts champion, or does it fornicate on the open world genre?
Aiden Pearce is a man tormented by the assassination of his six year old daughter Lana. Struggling to cope with the loss through numerous grievances, he stops at nothing to hunt down and dismantle those responsible for her murder. His sister and nephew- Nicky and Jackson respectively are the only family he has left, all the while Aiden refuses to let go of his past, making for a great premise to resonate with. Unfortunately, this all goes south when a simple deal germinates into an ugly war of double crossing, where deception becomes a clear theme. This sounds fine, but the characters are uninteresting for the most part. Aiden lacks conviction, always doing jobs for others, not considering the consequences or realising he’s being played; Nicky has some interesting insight, as the brother/sister relationship shares a little bit of sympathy, but her actions are rarely believable. The modest Jackson isn’t remotely likable as he spends his time in silence and being afraid- not as chirpy as most ten year olds clearly. Aiden’s partner in crime Jordi is the most suspiciously intriguing character of the bunch, as his motives and business dealings are odd, though we never see much of him through the game to create a genuine liking for the man.
One button dominates a large quotient of your playtime- the square/X button. Jabbing or holiding this button allows you to virtually hack and take control of any electrically implemented object in the game. It’s to your advantage that you have this seemingly omniscient power to dictate the behaviour of everyday systems. The gameplay relies on this simple action to extract you with power. Have a swarming herd of cops bothering you? Smash the square button to jiggle the traffic lights so that the pigs careen into oncoming vehicles. Have enemies that you want to move out of the way so you can sneak up to them and give them a hiding? Hack objects in the environment to distract them. Side missions and diversions also require hacking skills to progress. For example you can rig a camera in a poker game to look at the holds of each of your combatants. You’ll also be able to peer into the lives of others- which is the most interesting diversions, as it gives much needed personality and humour to an often serious main game, by playing and completing a node configuration task, very similar to the pipe connecting puzzles from Bioshock, these crop up frequently in the main story missions too. Ctos towers need to be taken out as well, by following an electrical trail to each junction box- quite alike Far Cry 3’s radio towers. Fixer contracts put these abilities to fantastic use, as you’re required to tap into phones, compete in checkpoint challenges that have you outrunning police, escaping and evading criminals and their entourage among other thrilling escapades. The reliance on hacking is Watch Dogs’ main hook, providing invigorating car chases and infiltrations, whilst also playing into other aspects of the experience, with mini games that bolster the multiplicity of uses that a simple mobile phone can provide.
Other asides worthy of note are the digital trips. These are augmented virtual reality games that provide the most light-hearted scraps of entertainment Watch Dogs boasts. There are four in total, Madness, Psychedelic, Spider-Tank, Alone- each cater the player with rampaging arcade relief- just to be clear these aren’t drugs, but they can be woefully addictive. Rounding off the diversions are money trails- a timed checkpoint run where you have to collect as many gold coins, ranking you bronze, silver and gold based on performance, Chess- need more be said? Along with the shell game (look it up!) and a drinking game where you tap a sequence of buttons whilst overcoming your increasing liquor medication. Extracurricular missions are also in abundance with hotspot locations dotted around the map for the eager tourist, investigations for those who want a little bit of detective work on the side and there are also random crimes you can stop by dishing out your bespoke brand of hard justice.
Where would a sandbox adventure be without weapons? Aiden is open to a large arsenal of firearms from simple silencers to your gregariously explosive grenade launchers. Shooting mechanics work very well, with simple manual aiming, not too distant from GTA V’s, with a juicy yet gruesome splutter if you pull off headshots- making for some decent head popping. Stealth works simply, and isn’t all that satisfying after you see the same several animations time and again, and those insta-fail stealth only missions are annoying- proving that Ubi still won’t find a streamlined alternative to mission structure. Aiden isn’t as nimble as the characters from a certain flagship franchise of Ubisoft’s, with Aiden only able to scale objects that are only slightly above his height, be warned- attempts at acrobatics will only lead you to a checkpoint reload. Weapons and stealth as well as hacking and driving can be fully upgraded with skill points as you complete missions and activities. This is an open world game after all, so the intricacies birthed by the likes of GTA are still rampant and unchanging, which only centralises Watch Dog’s one big ding- playing it safe.
In a next-gen experience, it is imperative to have ideas that reach forward, so that the game is worthy of being on the Playstation 4 and XBOX ONE. Watch Dogs fulfils its ambition of being an open world game brimming with activity, coated in a connected, dystopian interpretation of real life Chicago. Yet it refuses to shake things up enough to reach its full potential. This is most evident by the repetitive mission structure. You start missions often with a view of yourself within a CCTV camera lens as Aiden’s gravely voice mumbles some grumpily portrayed lines of dialogue, before the game hands over the controls and you visit one location to see what’s going on before following routes to your objective, where you engage in espionage, killing, hacking and everything else before your mission is complete with a job well done. It’s a tried and true formula, but the excitement rarely reaches overdrive as it does in other open world games. It doesn’t help that you don’t have access to RPGs or helicopters- which may amount to knit picking, but exploiting these titbits could have broadened Watch Dog’s appeal just a bit more. Furthermore, most of its ideas can be traced to other similar games. Take Far Cry 3’s stealth, Saints Row’s ebullient distractions and Assassins Creed’s obsession with history- then you have an engrossing imitation that refuses to break the mold.
In a next-gen experience, it is imperative to have ideas that reach forward, so that the game is worthy of being on the Playstation 4 and XBOX ONE. Watch Dogs fulfils its ambition of being an open world game brimming with activity, coated in a connected, dystopian interpretation of real life Chicago. Yet it refuses to shake things up enough to reach its full potential. This is most evident by the repetitive mission structure. You start missions often with a view of yourself within a CCTV camera lens as Aiden’s gravely voice mumbles some grumpily portrayed lines of dialogue, before the game hands over the controls and you visit one location to see what’s going on before following routes to your objective, where you engage in espionage, killing, hacking and everything else before your mission is complete with a job well done. It’s a tried and true formula, but the excitement rarely reaches overdrive as it does in other open world games. It doesn’t help that you don’t have access to RPGs or helicopters- which may amount to knit picking, but exploiting these titbits could have broadened Watch Dog’s appeal just a bit more. Furthermore, most of its ideas can be traced to other similar games. Take Far Cry 3’s stealth, Saints Row’s ebullient distractions and Assassins Creed’s obsession with history- then you have an engrossing imitation that refuses to break the mold.
With all that said, it’s hard to dislike an open world game that gives you unbridled power in new ways. Playing with your surroundings and barging your way into the lives of others gives the player a new appreciation of how consuming a life a vigilante can lead- makes the most law abiding citizen turn to computerised or mobile-ised mayhem.
Watch Dogs is an admirable looking game, especially when the weather turns dreary, with the neon lights perfectly exposed during a downfall. Textures aren’t the most convincing to the eye, especially if you opt for the grainy cockpit camera, though see Aiden’s robes flutter whilst revving at full speed on a motorbike is a lovely touch. Sound design is great too with the aforementioned sputtering headshots being a great highlight, explosions and car damage also sounds visceral. The consistency of the news updates as Aiden makes Chicago his playground, gives the player more insight on how the media is channelling the events of the story. There is a licensed soundtrack available, along with a few more courtesy of an app that allows you to unlock a few more songs. A smattering of radio stations would be nice, but at least there is some tunes you can drive along patting the steering wheel to. Performance can be irksome at times with long loads and pop-in at times, with this running on more advanced hardware and being a smaller city than Los Santos, you’d expect it to perform much smoother.
Watch Dogs is a successful open world game that capitalises on social networks to absorb players into the experience. There is almost too much to participate in, with a selection of activities that are creatively mined and great to mess about with. Regretfully, it’s not a substantial leap forward for the genre, and it negates to stamp its name with forward-thinking ideas. The story and characters fall well short of expectations, besides the brief glimpses of humanity peppered within. Yet what it has is truly worth taking in, not just because hacking creates advantageous opportunities or that it’s the first considerable step for the open world genre this generation- but because it allows the player to empower themselves through technology, just so they can peak at a young couple getting it on all night long.
Watch Dogs is an admirable looking game, especially when the weather turns dreary, with the neon lights perfectly exposed during a downfall. Textures aren’t the most convincing to the eye, especially if you opt for the grainy cockpit camera, though see Aiden’s robes flutter whilst revving at full speed on a motorbike is a lovely touch. Sound design is great too with the aforementioned sputtering headshots being a great highlight, explosions and car damage also sounds visceral. The consistency of the news updates as Aiden makes Chicago his playground, gives the player more insight on how the media is channelling the events of the story. There is a licensed soundtrack available, along with a few more courtesy of an app that allows you to unlock a few more songs. A smattering of radio stations would be nice, but at least there is some tunes you can drive along patting the steering wheel to. Performance can be irksome at times with long loads and pop-in at times, with this running on more advanced hardware and being a smaller city than Los Santos, you’d expect it to perform much smoother.
Watch Dogs is a successful open world game that capitalises on social networks to absorb players into the experience. There is almost too much to participate in, with a selection of activities that are creatively mined and great to mess about with. Regretfully, it’s not a substantial leap forward for the genre, and it negates to stamp its name with forward-thinking ideas. The story and characters fall well short of expectations, besides the brief glimpses of humanity peppered within. Yet what it has is truly worth taking in, not just because hacking creates advantageous opportunities or that it’s the first considerable step for the open world genre this generation- but because it allows the player to empower themselves through technology, just so they can peak at a young couple getting it on all night long.
STORY: 4/10
GAMEPLAY: 7/10
PRESENTATION: 8/10
LIFESPAN: 8/10
SCORE: 8/10
Despite an abominably bland story and characters, Watch Dogs is able to pick up the slack through its brilliant hacking implementation and for being a generally solid and enjoyable open-world experience. A howling success.