Watch_Dogs turned heads the moment Ubisoft first announced the game at E3 2012, where it was confirmed that Ubisoft Montreal, who has become most renown for their developmental role in Assassin’s Creed, would be putting their resources towards a futuristic modern open-world action adventure with an emphasis on hacking-oriented gameplay and technology. What could go wrong? E3 2013 came along and the footage shown during it still impressed many. After a six month delay we finally have Watch_Dogs gracing store shelves, with it delivering the company’s strongest sales for its first week out of all their releases to date. But did it live up to the hype generated by not only Ubisoft, but the gaming community as a whole?
Storyline
Watch_Dogs is set in a futuristic rendition of Chicago, Illinois, where most of the city’s functions from traffic lights to an individuals personal identity is maintained by the Centralized Operating System (ctOS). While some deem ctOS questionable, many go about their daily lives with the belief that their lives are safer because of the system. The protagonist is hacker and vigilante Aiden Pearce, who after a heist gone wrong finds himself targeted by mysterious figures which ultimately leads to the death of his young niece Lena. A year later he has still not gotten over this incident, and vows to find out the ones responsible. Teaming up with the leader of the hacking collective known as Dedsec and a number of other characters, he begins to slowly claw his way to the truth.
There were a number of very interesting chapters in the main Watch_Dogs storyline, especially some of the ones that use instanced areas not usually accessible in the game and therefore didn’t rely on the same diving / mindlessly shooting mechanics to complete. But that aside, Aiden made for a very bland protagonist, with only a few of the other supporting characters standing out from the crowd. While it is by no means bad in a sense that you would be left painfully making your way through each chapter, asides from a few exceptions, there was little that I looked fondly back on after finishing the game to compel me to go back for a second replay. It was interesting enough however that I would like to see how they would handle a sequel should they decide to produce one. The groundwork has been laid for future instalments in the Watch_Dogs franchise, and let’s hope the plot improves from here.
Design / Music / Voice Acting
While the final product may not look as nice as it did in earlier promotional videos, although there is a PC mod aiming to fix that, Watch_Dogs still appears visually impressive on the PlayStation 4 platform which I playtested the game on. Whether it was in the heart of the city with towering skyscrapers or the outskirts which provides a more urban look to them, the Watch_Dogs iteration of Chicago looks fantastic and filled with lots of detail. This is supported by the 24 hour system incorporated into the game, which personally left me going to a safe house whenever possible and switching to a late-night hour, as the city looks brilliant at night. Sure the game is only 900p on the PS4 (792p on Xbox One), but that has little impact on what is a great looking game world.
In part to work with the ctOS profiling system, irrespective of where you look in the city it is full of life with NPC’s that aren’t just the same five designs repeated and actively respond to some of the events that occur at the hands of Aiden or another character. Supported by a system that can generate thousands of unique NPC’s in terms of name, age, job etc, you get the feeling like you are in a city full of unique individuals rather than a crowd of nobodies.
Watch_Dogs is supported by a strong soundtrack of both unique tracks and a sizable collection of licensed music spread over multiple genres, and available through both a car’s stereo system and Aiden’s smartphone when driving/walking. The voice acting is also solid, with no issues of note.
Gameplay
Watch_Dogs doesn’t revolutionize any particular element of the Action-Adventure, Third Person Shooter or Open World genres. You can get behind the wheel of a car or motorbike and drive around the city, shoot down enemy characters with any gun you pick up or purchase and as with the Assassin’s Creed franchise there is an emphasis on stealth rather than blindly running in and shooting things.
This third aspect is the most prominent when coupled with the games new hacking system. With the push of a button (Yep, hacking is now down to a one button click), Aiden can cause a car alarm to go off as a distraction, disrupt a guards communication device or take control of a security camera in order to map out a route, remotely trigger another object or steal information from another person to name a few things possible. I actually liked this cautious system, as being able to map out the battlefield seemed to give the developers just cause to make Aiden less impervious to bullets than other protagonists. Sure this means a slight difficulty hike in comparison to similar games, but each mission can be much more rewarding to complete because of it.
Watch_Dogs also puts some emphasis on vehicle chases where either you must escape the pursuit of the police / enemy characters or otherwise destroy an enemy vehicle until they flee and you can “capture” them. The hacking is less impressive in these instances, where raising a bridge or incapacitating a helicopter feels more like a QTE than there being much intervention on your part, but the core system despite the occasional clunkiness has some appeal. The biggest issue is that the game uses a reputation system, where you are ranked on the community’s perception of you – with a few small perks given depending on your reputation. While stealing a car or indirectly injuring the public won’t make them think less of you, fighting with the controls or having your vehicle rammed into a crowd of onlookers despite your best efforts does. Let’s just say I spent most of the game with everyone holding a negative perception of Aiden.
One of the issues that I found with the Assassin’s Creed series is that upon completing the main storyline, or even during it, there isn’t usually very much to do outside of collecting hidden items or performing a few mediocre tasks to rack up the last few trophies. Watch_Dogs on the other hand suffers from the opposite issue, where the plethora of optional tasks tend to drag you away from storyline tasks for several hours. Aiden is able to scan the profiles of any other citizen connected to the ctOS system, but can also sometimes hack into their phones. While these occasionally present alternate dialogue or text messages, they also lead him to crimes about to be committed and other tasks. From stopping a murder about to take place or taking down a gang, there are a number of randomly encounterable events obtainable. Investigation missions, hotspots and a friendly drinking game are just some of the other events that await Aiden during his time around Chicago.
Diving into hypotheticals here, let’s say that you have just finished Saints Row IV and decided to make the quick jump into Watch_Dogs. Sure, the game is much nicer looking, however you miss some of the quirkier game mechanics that would be hard to justify in a game trying to be as realistic as possible. Watch_Dogs includes a unique “Digital Trips” system, where by talking to certain individuals around the city, they can provide Aiden with auditory hallucinations to induce one of four different scenarios in his mind. These range from “Psychedelic” which require you to bounce around Chicago on rainbow coloured flowers to “Spider Tank” which puts you in control of a giant spider (Which can fire bullets and climb up building walls) and challenge you with tasks such as to destroy satellites or defeat X number of police. All four are really fun, and one of my personal highlights of Watch_Dogs despite how easy it is to go through the game without trying it out even once.
Rather than having online multiplayer as a separate component of the game, Watch_Dogs provides the capacity to take part in both instanced 3-8 player missions from an in-game menu and 1 vs 1 gameplay through invading another’s world. Irrespective of what type you choose to go with, all tended to be enjoyable. The 1 vs 1 online is completely optional, with the game providing an option to accept or deny another player before they invade. While you still occasionally get the person who runs at the first sign of trouble, the times I did get a full match were highly enjoyable. Kudos go to Ubisoft Montreal for one of the better online integrations I have seen to date.
While the Watch_Dogs storyline might not hit all the high notes and may not be the revolutionary “next-generation” gaming experience that some, including myself, might have been hoping for, Ubisoft Montreal have still developed a highly memorable game that shows their proficiency with the open world action-adventure genre that they have been honing for many years now. Whether it is reading the interesting text messages sent by the citizens of Chicago, taking part in one of the many side-missions or even invading another players world, Watch_Dogs is one of the most enticing open worlds yet that keeps drawing you back for more well after you have finished the main campaign.
