Watch Dogs Reviews
If you were expecting Watch Dogs to take the genre in new directions then you're going to be sorely disappointed. With that being said, Watch Dogs is still an engaging and often times surprising action game. The hacking component doesn't offer a lot of depth despite it being such a big theme in the game, but there are plenty of moments where it adds a refreshing spin on a few of those same old, open-world tropes. It's well-crafted, highly polished and a very strong debut for a new franchise.
Not a grand slam or even a homerun, 'Watch Dogs' is very much akin to Ubisoft's other flagship series, 'Assassin's Creed,' in this respect, the initial entry is engaging (and frankly, 'Watch Dogs' is far more gripping than the original 'Assassin's Creed' could ever hope to be), but at times feels like a really high-quality tech demo. There's a load of promise from the Disrupt engine and the game license itself. The story of Aiden Pearce is money well spent, even if the buildup doesn't get nearly the payoff one would expect. The little added bonuses feel tad bit gimmicky, but up until recently, Ubisoft never tried to heavily promote them as selling points. What a future 'Watch Dogs' game needs to work on are its driving physics and its graphics; there isn't a reason why the next game should begin to match expectations of the E3 demo; what gamers have been offered here maybe lacking in sheer 'wow' factor, but had that demo never been as stunning as it was, I'd argue the end product might have been received more favorably.
Watch_Dogs borrows game play elements from GTA, inFamous and Assassin's Creed (among others), adds a hacking dynamic and pulls it all together into a great game. Despite some standout visuals though there's nothing here that feels like a leap forward in gaming, and I can't imagine the core game feeling much different had I played a last-gen version. It doesn't tarnish the experience, but players looking for a reason to need a new console still don't have one.
Ubisoft's new IP might be really good someday. But today is not that day.
Watch_Dogs was supposed to be the chosen one, but it's neither the coming of the new generation nor a particularly good game.
Watch Dogs is solidly entertaining and a lot of fun to play. And while it could've achieved true greatness if it had followed through on its most ambitious promises, it is still better than a lot of what's been released this year. The hype seems already to be benefiting the sales figures. Everything about Watch Dogs tells us that we are all susceptible in the digital age.
2014 will have better games, stronger ideas and more visually impressive spectacles, but none of this stops Watch Dogs from being another very fine offering from Ubisoft Montreal, a studio that has a commitment to both quality and narrative that should always be admired.
It is Open World: The Game, and as such, struggles to find an identity of its own beyond its entertaining hacking hook and the inspired multiplayer. But those two elements make up a sizeable portion of the game. There are moments of genuine brilliance buried in the game that elevates it above mediocrity, but its reliance on increasingly tired design does it a disservice.
Ubisoft's hotly anticipated open-world action game provides decent entertainment but is let down by over-familiarity and a dreadful protagonist.
'Watch Dogs' delivers big action and creepy thrills by way of its innovative hacking, even if the story falls a little short.
Watch Dogs satisfactorily fulfills its premise but not quite its promise. It is not a game-changer by any means, but it is well-crafted, high-quality, adult entertainment.
It's probably one of 2014's most hyped games, and it delivers on some levels. It is just let-down by the fact that Watch Dogs promised so much two years ago when it was revealed.
Ubisoft has certainly upped its game in the past several years, with Watch Dogs being yet another display of both the publisher's ingenuity and willingness to take risks, all for the benefit of players.
Watch Dogs is a revolutionary sandbox that redefines player freedom and choice... that was subsequently eaten by a big bloated open-world game that takes less risks than it should.
An ambitious but flawed game that loses focus on its best ideas.
What Watch Dogs does hint at is bright idea with an even brighter future. Once the shackles of the previous-gen have been wrenched free the potential is there to make a truly groundbreaking title.
The profiling system isn't as deep as expected, but still offers remarkably strong and subtly creepy world-building away from the main plot.
For all Watch Dogs' wonderful forward-thinking largesse—its very serious aesthetic concern with memory and surveillance and violence—it still thinks small. The plot confuses memes with jokes, confuses hoops with plot points, confuses Deadmau5 with cool. We move from person of interest to person of interest, as in a Raymond Chandler story, but unlike in a Chandler story no larger structure takes shape. We uncover only more hacking, more people of interest; jabs are taken at corruption but the corruption is only a type of information, a thing to hack. We hop up and down the ladder, from club to ghetto to skyscraper, but each setting is just a new set of boxes and cameras and targets. It is assumed that the setting will tell the story, but the city will not speak.
Watch Dogs might not be the defining next-gen experience that Ubisoft has claimed it would be, however, being able to hack your way through Chicago might be one of the must fun open-world experience I've had to date, save for Saints Row 4 of course.
Watch Dogs has the guts of a masterpiece. This ambitious project had the foundation to be one of the most amazing interactive experiences in history. Therefore, it's with a somewhat dejected heart that I must deduct points for falling short in several areas.