Watch
Dogs Review (PS4)
Watch Dogs is a 3rd
person video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal. Going into this review, I will
be going over the 7 main aspects of the game: hacking, combat, driving, side
missions, characters, online, graphics; and as an added aspect, story length. The game
takes place in one of the most largely surveilled cities in the whole world,
Chicago. Chicago in Watch Dogs is controlled by “ctOS”, or Central Operating
System. You play as Aidan Pearce, a 38 year old who stayed in “the game” too
long and made some very bad enemies. Your niece is killed in a drive-by
shooting while you narrowly escape. Driven by the death of your niece, you go
after the men who put out a contract on your family. Once you start the first
mission, you learn the basics of hacking with your smart phone. You start off
with a few basic hacks; including, security cameras, a black out; which you
must acquire the skill first to use it again after the first mission, etc.
Firstly, hacking; you are the proud owner
of a technologically advanced smartphone that has access to ctOS, (more access
as you upgrade your phone with earned skill points). Being chased by the cops?
Hack a steam pipe at the right moment and blast a police car into the air by
making the ground explode. Can’t circumvent an enemy without being spotted,
hack his grenade and watch him explode; unless of course he gets it off in time
and throws it away. Being chased by the cops again? Hack “blockers”, a set of
security poles built into the road that if hacked, will spring up causing
police cars to smash into them creating a fiery car crash. Most hacks in the
game offer two choices, lethal or non-lethal. For instance, there are circuit
boards around the city that can be exploded using your smart phone to either
attract guards to your position so you can take them out stealthily; or explode
them in their faces. Hacking can also be used to complete side missions like
scanning qr codes, tracking down missing persons, or finding weapons crates. If
you’ve run out of money just walk around the city until you find someone whose
bank account you can hack. This is called the ATM hack, which can be leveled up
to steal higher amounts of money from the citizens of Chicago. You can also
hack into peoples’ digital lives to listen in on their phone calls, read their
text message conversations, and even invade their homes through security
cameras or computer webcams. Hacking is the central aspect of Watch Dogs and
there will never be a single moment where you won’t have it at your disposal.
Secondly, combat; there are many
unlockable weapons including, pistols, assault rifles, smg’s, sniper rifles,
and grenade launchers. A weapon that you always have on you is your retractable
baton. However, Aidan only uses the baton for up-close takedowns or stealth
attacks. Hacking helps a great deal in combat. You are able to disrupt enemy
comms to distract them so you can sneak past or come up from behind them and
take them out. You can also disable reinforcement calls, so when you take out
the first round of enemies, you know that there’s no more on the way. Water
pipes can also be hacked to stun enemies. Sometimes, it felt as if I didn’t
even have to use my hacking skills though; I could just pull out my gun and
shoot my way through most missions. Of course, that would take all the fun out,
so I mostly tried to stick to my cellphone and baton.
Thirdly, driving;
Driving in Watch Dogs is like steering a cinderblock on wheels. In
short, its terrible. It will take a lot of getting used to. Despite there being
over 65 different vehicles in the game, it’s odd that the one’s that offer the
best driving mechanics are the motorcycles. They allow for sharp turning and
weaving in and out of traffic to reach your destination much faster than a car
would allow you to. There are 7 different types of vehicles; Budget, Heavy,
Motorcycle, Muscle, Sport, Truck, and Performance. All vehicles can either be
unlocked in your cell phone car delivery service, “Car OnDemand” by simply
driving them or hacking people to obtain the cars. One of the game's most dumbfounded mistakes is the fact that there are NO POLICE BOATS! As you soon as you hop into a boat and start driving, you are literally GUARANTEED to escape. You could escape in a slow as all hell water taxi for God's sake.
Fourthly, side missions, there are lots of
side activities you can participate in. Chicago being one of the most crime
populated cities, ctOS in Watch Dogs detects random crimes happening
throughout the city allowing you to either inflict vigilante justice or walk
away like a villain. While stopping random crimes and being a hero is fun for the first few times, eventually it will become quite repetitive and you won't even care anymore. To obtain access to all of the side missions though, you must unlock all of the ctOS towers in the disctricts of Chicago; a similar element to Assassin's Creed.There are gang hideouts, criminal convoys, driving
missions, side missions that lead up to their own separate final missions as I
mentioned earlier in the second paragraph. There are other activities
including, poker, a drinking game, and a shell game. There are also
collectibles which really only include audio logs from different characters in
the game. The main problem with the side missions is once they have all been completed, the only damn thing left to do in the city is to stop random crimes. The game fails in this aspect where The Amazing Spider-Man 2 game succeeds. After you beat the game, Spider-Man offers unlimited, variated crime happening throughout the city.
Fifthly, the
characters; Aidan Pearce, the protagonist, is a hard character to relate to.
You don’t truly see him for who he is until later into the game. Clara Lille, a
“DedSec” hacker who decides to help you in your crusade against the people who
killed a part of your family. T-Bone, a washed up hacker who has more skills
than you would think. And Jordi Chin, who I’ll just call The “Clean-Up Guy.” Jordi
is the guy Aiden calls when he needs some help taking on some enemies, a body
gotten rid of, or a car delivered to him. Jordi is my favorite character by
far. He has this kind of, twisted sense of humor that really makes me laugh. Watch
Dogs characters are barely relatable, but what they lack in relatable traits,
they make up for with their excellent voice actors provided for the game.
Sixthly, online is one of the game's most successful aspects. It runs seamlessly, transerferring you in and out of an online match. Wherever you quit in an online match, you'll end up exactly where you were in online, in story mode. There are 6 online modes; Online Free Roam, which is exactly as you would expect, Hint, think GTA V. Invite your friends and run around exploring the city of Chicago together. Online Decryption, which is basically team death-match meets capture the flag. There is a file that each team member is able to steal, and you have a couple different classes of weapons to use to obtain that file. Next, is Online Hacking; my personal favorite of all the online modes. Online hacking sets you a few hundred meters away from another player; your job is to get close enough to them, hack their phone, then pick a spot to hide, or hide in plain sight rather if you please and start hacking their data. A small circle will appear on yours and the other player's map. This small circle indicates the vicinity of where you are hiding giving the player a fighting chance to find you. It will shrink in percentage intervals over time giving the player a better chance of finding you and taking you out. Once you are spotted/profiled, you can evade the player. If you successfully evade the other player, you don't exactly win the match entirely, however, you don't lose entirely either. You still walk away with some points to higher your level. While running around Chicago, just minding your own business, you could also be invaded by another player too. Online Race is an online race. It consists of either cars or motorcycle races. The car races are somewhat of a disaster considering the fact that driving is HORRIBLE. ctOS Mobile Challenge is a game mode that involves a free IOS app, that allows you to control parts of Watch Dogs without even owning a copy of the game. Through the app, you are given access to the Chicago pd's cars, helicopters and ctOS allowing you to trigger road blockers, steam pipes, etc. The player who is actually playing the game, is tasked with racing through checkpoints throughout a certain area without being taken out by the mobile player's "defenses." Lastly, online tailing, follow another player, observing their every move, once completed, your job is to escape. Online is easily one of Watch Dog's best aspects and hopefully Ubisoft sticks with it and improves it for more games in the series.
Finally, the graphics;
Okay, so we all know the E3 debacle of 2013 with Watch Dogs. When the
game was previewed at E3 2013, audiences were captivated by its graphics. Then
as more and more videos were released, it seemed that there was a downgrade in
the graphics. But, eventually people realized that the E3 footage was basically
just pre-rendered game footage made to look as gorgeous as possible to wow
people. Sigh... if only developers would realize that Next-Gen needs to be focused on more. Stop porting! And don't lie about the look of your game! Yes, the Next-Gen version of Watch Dogs offers slightly better graphics, but that doesn't make it Next-Gen. Now that the game has finally been released, it
does have good graphics, but nothing special. The city of Chicago is breathtaking and full of life. The game looks its absolute best at nighttime. Character models could be a
bit better also. Exploring the 6 vast districts of Chicago in game is a real
blast!
In conclusion, Watch Dogs’ story
length ranges from 20 hours or more; plus more hours if you include the side
missions. The story is nothing special, your basic revenge tale. Watch Dogs
is a great game; is it everything I hoped for and more? No. But, it is a game that will
definitely be remembered for a long time for its innovative gameplay. I give Watch Dogs a 7.5/10. For more Watch Dogs, check out my full playthrough here, http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLun5VwfBFmJ8JAussupdo1bDhCjJyayBR.
PROS:
- Hack almost anything
- Different styles of play (Hack or shoot)
- Inflict vigilante justice
- Extra Content after the campaign
- Excellent voice acting
CONS:
- -Wonky driving
-You could just use guns instead of hacking-Barely relatable protagonist
-NO POLICE BOATS!?
- Not what Ubisoft originally promised
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