Watch Dogs Reviews

Watch Dogs is ranked in the 79th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
4.5 / 5.0
May 27, 2014

Watch_Dogs has its up and downs. The game was designed to put control into the player's hands and it succeeded. I thought the concept was incredibly epic and it didn't leave me with that "I wish I could do this" feeling I get from some games. The power to play the game how you want is also a bonus. Also, if you're looking for a game with a ton of replay value, Watch_Dogs will definitely do it. While I figured Watch_Dogs would have been a more sophisticated version of GTA, it isn't. It can be frenetic at times and sometimes, that's all you need to have some fun.

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Attack of the Fanboy
AOTF Staff
Top Critic
May 27, 2014

Watch Dogs shines when it relies on its own ideas, but is ultimately held back by its more conventional approach.

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May 27, 2014

I'm happy to report to you, Watch Dogs is a great game.

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Dan Stapleton
Top Critic
8.4 / 10.0
May 27, 2014

Watch Dogs is an excellent open-world action game with some unique hacking-magic that makes it a memorable experience.

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95 / 100
May 27, 2014

Regardless of price point I guarantee you will get full value for your dollar with this game. I struggled to find any significant faults. Watch Dogs gets about as close to a perfect score that I'm comfortable giving. If you are on the fence about this game, don't be. This is the game that makes spending that hard earned money on a next-generation console worth it.

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Paul Tassi
Top Critic
8 / 10.0
May 27, 2014

Like Grand Theft Auto V before it, sometimes it's not enough to simply be big and well-made. Watch Dogs feels like a collection of promising concepts with nothing solid holding them together. Aiden Pearce should have been that something, but instead, he's just a character meant to sell cool looking hats in collector's editions. Perhaps that can be rectified in a sequel, but for now, Pearce is pretty big issue, and so is his propensity to kill people in boring, cover-based shooter-y ways.

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9 / 10.0
May 27, 2014

Watch_Dogs delivers on all fronts providing the player with intense gameplay mechanics and an intriguing mission structure.

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EGM
Top Critic
7 / 10.0
May 27, 2014

Imaginative, cleverly integrated online play helps to bolster Watch Dogs' less exciting single-player offering, which fails to capitalize on its ambitious hacking concept in any truly memorable way.

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7 / 10.0
May 27, 2014

Ubisoft Montreal should certainly be applauded for trying something new within the bounds of the genre - hacking in Watch Dogs is genuinely innovative, despite the threat of gimmickry - however, Watch Dogs has ultimately failed to live up to its hype. It's good, but it could, and probably should, have been great. The underlying irony of Watch Dogs is the fact that the game itself suffers a bit too much from an identity crisis.

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May 27, 2014

Watch Dogs is a very good game - and occasionally a great one - but not a landmark game or any sort of classic. It's a fine open-world game with a fantastically detailed setting, and one you'll happily play for weeks. In fact, with a good thirty to forty hours of content, that's probably what it's going to take.

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6 / 10
May 27, 2014

Decent, but not great. Watch Dogs is certainly worth playing, but it's not even close to living up to what's been shown off since it was announced.

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Unscored
May 27, 2014

Buy it if you can tune out the story for an interesting take on the open-world genre.

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8 / 10.0
May 27, 2014

Watch Dogs is here and it's good but not great.

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83 / 100
May 27, 2014

Watch Dogs refines stealth action in an interconnected open world that's worth exploring.

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May 27, 2014

Watch Dogs is a fantastic entry in the free roam genre. Not without areas to improve, Watch Dogs is a unique base that Ubisoft will build a new franchise on.

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Unscored
May 28, 2014

Content to be normal, Watch Dogs speaks more potently to the intellectual chill within its industry than it does to any oppression without.

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4 / 5.0
May 28, 2014

Watch Dogs may not be the "next-gen" game that many had the expectations for, but it is a fantastic game that is worth experiencing. Hacking is both your weapon and your toy. Enemies will cower at your feet and the city will bend to your will as you walk amongst the low-tech plebs. Unique gameplay and a beautiful living world sets Watch Dogs apart, establishing itself as a great outing and the strong foundation of a new franchise.

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Game Rant
Top Critic
May 28, 2014

Watch Dogs is an origin story of sorts for a vigilante killer. Aiden Pearce is to Chicago what Batman is to Gotham, or more a more apt comparison would be to describe Pearce as more of a high-tech Punisher. The story is adequate to pull players through to the end and you can play much of the game approaching situations in your own, non-violent way, but the campaign forces extreme gunplay more than we wanted.

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May 28, 2014

Watch Dogs makes up for a snooze-worthy story with heaping amounts of smartly designed diversions scattered around its gorgeous open world.

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8 / 10.0
May 29, 2014

Watch Dogs on PS4 executes fresh gameplay ideas with aplomb, marking one of the first games of this new generation of consoles to innovate within its genre. It's a slower, smarter sandbox shooter with an astounding degree of content, but despite resonant themes of technological overbearance, its poorly handled story likely won't grip you.

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