Watch Dogs Reviews
Watch Dogs refines stealth action in an interconnected open world that's worth exploring.
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.
Rent first, buy if you like. Watch Dogs isn't for everyone. However, if you do like stealth-based open world action games, there are hours of gameplay, so it's well worth your money.
Watch_Dogs may not be the benchmark experience for sandbox gaming that Grand Theft Auto V was, but it's still an enjoyable experience in its own right. Compelling side missions, refined combat and some unique hacking elements make this a must for fans of the genre, but if you're looking for a grand, city-spanning story to get stuck into, this won't be a game that will hold your interest beyond a few hours.
Content to be normal, Watch Dogs speaks more potently to the intellectual chill within its industry than it does to any oppression without.
Ubisoft's new IP might be really good someday. But today is not that day.
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.
Watch Dogs isn't just another open-world game. It redefines what is possible in the genre and sets new standards which the competition will be hard pressed to match. Here's hoping that this is just the first chapter in the story of ctOS and vigilante hackers, and that Ubisoft can find a convincing way to continue the series in the future. The first piece of DLC, another single-player campaign, has already been confirmed. Chicago is a pretty big place and could still be concealing all kinds of interesting characters we've yet to meet.
Treated like the Second Coming, Watch Dogs has arrived riding a tidal wave of hype and has turned out not to be a momentous event in gaming, but instead just a great game. In some ways, Ubisoft has done it a disservice by creating expectations it could never live up to, as this is a wholly entertaining experience on its own terms. The campaign is massive and full of enthralling missions, the voice acting and characterization (outside of Aiden) is impeccable and it's jam packed with enough content to keep gamers satisfied until Grand Theft Auto VI.
What you can walk away with is, like Assassin's Creed before it, Watch Dogs has walked into a genre otherwise owned by one of the most popular and rewarded developers in the industry and holds its own. The question will always be "is it better than GTA?" and at this stage the answer is invariably no, but it's early days for a game that builds on the strengths of its core marketing line, while balancing itself out on various fringe areas. It fails to expand upon its own principles though, and as a result remains slightly out of line with its potential. But damn, what potential it has.
All in all, definitely one of the most unique and creative games of this genre I've played. Great voice acting, excellent cut scenes, damn decent dialogue, and lots of replayability.
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.
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 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.
Watch_Dogs delivers on all fronts providing the player with intense gameplay mechanics and an intriguing mission structure.
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.
Fundamentally that's the overriding feeling of Watch Dogs. It's a game that has so much to offer and so many things to do that it can't fail to engage you as a player. But eventually you'll realise it's not all good and what you find interesting is done. There's little to compel the player to finish in terms of the way it does things, aside from that square button which allows magical occurrences to happen. With this introduction to the world of hacking Ubisoft have created a behemoth of an IP, one that promises much. Like its predecessor though, we'll have to wait for the tighter and more focussed second iteration, removing what didn't work and improving that which did, to realise that full potential.
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.
Watch Dogs is here and it's good but not great.
Watch Dogs is an unmitigated triumph, that's for sure. Considering the game is a new IP, it does a lot of things incredibly well and lays the foundation for a franchise that has the makings of being a potential Assassin's Creed beater. Despite a few puzzling design decisions and an almost glacial start to the campaign, Watch Dogs is worthy of your time. There's no doubt about that.