Watch_Dogs

Watch Dogs is a new title from Ubisoft which places you in the role as Aiden Pearce in a modern Chicago setting. The game uses new ideas, is topical, and Pearce blends into a surveillance city which you can manipulate to your advantage in many ways. Does Watch Dogs stand out or is it just another sandbox game that ultimately falls short?The Chicago area for exploration is pretty big and is split into eight areas mixing metropolitan and a country location in Pawnee. Each of the locations feature CTOS towers (which act like the viewpoints in Assassin's Creed in synchronising the map), minigames such as Poker and many side missions. The standout is the privacy invasions which aren't on offer in other games of this type. Some are weird and some are humorous. It touches on a wider issue about dragnet surveillance although this is never really questioned in great context seeing as the player is often using it to help them progress. The other side missions such as scanning codes are very much of the grinding variety. This does extend gameplay time but is tedious and repetitive. The main game and story missions should take you at least over 12 hours.The story is good but the main protagonist in Aiden Pearce isn't entirely likable and as a character is rigid like Steven Seagal and doesn't show much emotion. To be fair the story does attempt to build Aiden's character throughout the game but he is overshadowed to an extent by some other characters. As far as customisation goes there are a good variety of weapons that operate slightly differently and are ranked with a star system in terms of damage and overall effectiveness. Aiden can also be altered through his jacket and clothes but it is fairly limited and is the equivalent to the dyeing of clothes in the Assassin's Creed series.The enemy AI is atrocious as enemies will stand still and let you kill them without much resistance. For a game based on stealth you will find that you don't have to actually be stealthy. A silenced pistol does the job. On the other hand, with easy combat for the most part it cuts down on the frustration element. In truth, the chases with the police and criminals is more challenging than on foot action. Vehicles include motorbikes, cars and boats and all handle well. The radio soundtrack is very average although Ubisoft did try to incorporate punk music with its scene in Chicago. Once Aiden has been upgraded the car chases become significantly easier but is necessary as the game does ramp up the difficulty in the final two missions. The right balance is never really found though as when beginning the game the chases last a while without techniques to disrupt traffic lights etc to your advantage. Towards the end of game the opposite is true.One of the best elements of the combat is the creative ways that you can take out enemies. In some situations, weapons or direct combat need not be used and hacking cameras and grates to make them explode can deal with enemies with less suspicion. It is satisfying to clear a room through hacking alone. Hacking is not just restricted to combat and is also used to snoop on others about their habits and beliefs such as being a registered Republican to an avid comic book nerd. The believability is let down some what in that the citizens all look very similar. Furthermore, when the CTOS data is fed onto the screen sometimes the age does not correlate with the picture. For instance, a picture will be shown of someone who does not look 35. This is a minor criticism but the game could be improved in this respect.Watch Dogs also features an online mode that is fairly inventive. Instead of plain ordinary multiplayer modes your game can be intruded by another player who 'hacks' into your game. This hasn't been done before and is fairly fun in being the hunter or the hunted.---Summary---Graphics 4 - It looks great on the next-gen systems but not so much on the Xbox 360. Frequent screen tearing is present and Aiden rather than swimming on water seems to be swimming through air. Poor.Sound 7 - Solid cast of voice actors but the music is average and fairly disappointing.Gameplay 8 - Fun throughout although it is never really all that challenging.Lifespan 7 - The story is about 12-15 hours but this is extended a good 10 hours with some dreary side missions. There is an expansion pack which gives 10 new missions and about 5-7 hours of play time which I have not experienced. Online has probably dropped off a little since launch.Watch Dogs is an interesting concept and Ubisoft hasn't got the best of it yet. In some ways it reminds me of Splinter Cell with the frequent bulletins from news networks on the events happening in the city. Watch Dogs is ambitious, but never really quite meets its potential. A sequel is likely on the cards because it performed so well with sales figures. Ubisoft should be cautious of Watch Dogs becoming just another Assassin's Creed with yearly releases which has diluted the franchise. Overall, if you like your action games in a sandbox variety this is good fun. It's not the genre defining game that perhaps it initially may have been labelled as based on early trailers, but it's a good effort nonetheless with room for improvement in a future effort.

I love a sandbox, puzzle games, stealth and RPG. As a puzzle stealth game with sandbox elements and an RPG-style goodies-unlocking system, Watchdogs is great. It isn't the best sandbox environment, but it's its own style with hacking mini games which are a lot of fun. But, this game is terribly ill-equipped for the all too frequent car chases - the driving engine is no GTA. It's also not especially great as an FPS. I'm not interested in those styles of gameplay at the best of times, so sitting through them to get to the good bits of the game was too much of a waste of my time to bother with - as a result, I didn't get to experience most of the game.They should have stuck with a straightforward, hacker-based stealth puzzle game. That was the unique idea they had. Not absolutely everything has to be a driving and shooting sandbox just because Rockstar makes a lot of money out of it.

I liked the games graphics and driving gameplay. It becomes more important to be tactical as the game progresses using the disruption techniques, and also choosing missions wisely. Although the storyline appears quite simple, there are enough FMVs to keep your attention. But the focus is on generally on miscreance, but the crime fighting Vigilante missions give it the usual, more moral pathway, fashionable in games, these days. Some criticism has been levelled at the driving game play, personally I though it was one of the stronger aspects

No matter what people say about this game, I enjoyed it, the story is not great but there is a lot of missions, however, a down side is that once the story is over there isn't really much else to do, and you can't murder civilians or policemen like GTA V and stuff, because of the stupid morality system that you have been trying to keep on the good side all game. Even shooting the police gets dry and boring after a while, and then unlocking all of the skills just makes you to OP for them... But yeah a worthwhile buy.........

If you get past the bad reviews watch dogs got just after it was released you will see how good of a game it really was/is, the story was pretty good with enjoyable gameplay mechanics, for example switch traffic lights green and causing havoc in the city.