Watch Dogs falls short of expectations
THE WAIT for and subsequent release of Watch Dogs can be likened to the scenario that saw the Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy album so universally dismissed. Developers, Ubisoft, have been flashing us all some Watch Dogs’ leg for a couple of years now, virtually promising us the next gaming Renaissance, and while the eventual delivery is quite good, it just falls short of expectations.
Story-wise, the game is mostly dud. All the characters are unimaginative stereotypes, with thin motivations and forgettable personalities. Hacker girl with piercings? Check. Sinister, elderly villain? Check. Gang leader with a stupid name? Check. The plot itself is a mixture of predictable twists with some fairly odd conclusions and questionable logic.
It isn’t all bad though, there are some fairly clever miniplots and set pieces dotted throughout the game. Unfortunately, however, the title is a sum of its parts and most of the plot just isn’t good enough to bring up the average.
Graphically, Watch Dogs is as you’d expect it to be – next-generation eye candy. Environments are incredibly detailed while the lighting and resulting shadows are truly dynamic. The actual artistic side of it could have done with some smarter decisions as the gritty brown/green/grey combination begins to get a bit stale after the first 20 minutes of play time.
A quick note on gunplay, then. It’s satisfying and robust enough to be a genuine option for most scenarios (some missions ask you to avoid detection, so er, easy on the shotgun blasts, yeah?), even if hacking and stealth are often the more obvious scenarios. Yeah, it’s fun to shoot someone in the head, but it’s even more satisfying to hack an enemy’s grenade while it’s still hanging from his waist… Boom. Towards the end of the game you’ll be savvy enough to combine bullets with hacks, decimating rooms filled with grunts--it’s a great feeling when you really bring it all together.
Virtually every single electronic device is hackable in the game, and provides Watch Dogs with its unique selling point. It was vital to pack so much into Chicago itself, because the city is intrinsically linked to how this game plays. Unless you’ve been living under a hermit, who has been living under a rock, for the past three years, you know that Aiden’s phone can hack various things within the environment. This is what separates Watch Dogs from other open-world games, and it isn’t just a gimmick: it’s integral to everything you do.
You can hack cameras, for example, that will let you examine almost every inch of the city. You can hack traffic lights and cause huge collisions and you can hack the city’s vents in order to filter gas into the air. You can even hack hand grenades hanging off enemies belts, causing them to explode without even breaking cover.
Annoyingly similar missions, combined with windowwiper storytelling spoils a title that feels a little half-cooked – despite postponing the release date. Watch Dogs is still a great game, but fans and critics alike may find themselves cheated out of something that could have been a lot more special.