Watch Dogs Reviews
Undoubtedly enjoyable, but it won't linger long in the memory.
Though the new-generation moniker may be cliché, it rings true in the dense and beautiful presentation of Watch Dogs. Most of the many, many systems on display have been sharpened to a fine point despite a few that fail to reach their full potential. While minor bugs, inconsistencies, and a lackluster story restrain Watch Dogs, its impressive environments, fluid interconnected mechanics and welcome multiplayer components set the bar for future open-world experiences, and help it to stand as a sign of things to come.
'Watch Dogs' delivers big action and creepy thrills by way of its innovative hacking, even if the story falls a little short.
Ubisoft Montreal's vast, multifaceted, and thoughtful open-world action game presents a world in which a simple phone is your key to a heavily networked city
Then I remembered. Those things aren't a game. The game is sloppy controls which cause you to constantly do the wrong thing accidentally with disastrous consequences; is inconsistently interactive world design; is a cover system whereby you get stuck on scenery or it guesses incorrectly where you want to move. The game is insta-fail stealth missions, wave-defense missions, escort missions, missions where what the characters say and what the objective is don't match up. The game is five crashes to desktop, including two which required me to reboot my machine before it would reload. The game is restrictive objectives which don't make use of the possibilities provided by the open city or the hacking mechanics, and checkpoint positions that force you to re-watch short cutscenes or re-perform rote actions after every death.
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.
Watch Dogs represents a step into a scary real-world future. It raises social and governmental questions around a person's right to privacy. It delivers combat, stealth, story, and an incredible amount of side content to bring the whole world to life. I'm amazed at what the team at Ubisoft has delivered here, and I'm glad that they treated the hacker world with more respect and attention to detail than any other game or movie to date. I'm hopeful that Watch Dogs becomes a franchise because it is the best sandbox title I've ever played.
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.
Ubisoft's hotly anticipated open-world action game provides decent entertainment but is let down by over-familiarity and a dreadful protagonist.
Watch_Dogs was supposed to be the chosen one, but it's neither the coming of the new generation nor a particularly good game.
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.
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.
Although we would have liked greater rewards and penalties, the technology powering multiplayer is impressive, and there's lots to do, from hacking rivals and hunting fixers, to searching for files and escaping a tablet-controlled police force. After an opening act bogged down by tutorials and dodgily scripted story sequences, Watch Dogs removes the shackles, takes some chances and begins to live up to its own hype. Despite its pacing issues, Watch Dogs manages to tell a worthwhile story that's backed up by some novel new ideas in both single and multiplayer.
Watch Dogs is a great game that has a lot to do in the singleplayer but the multiplayer is painfully repetitive and not fun. The game stands on its own as a great singleplayer free roam but one that is outshined by Grand Theft Auto V.
With a deep storyline, plenty of side content, and a gorgeous rendering of Chicago to explore, Watch Dogs brings a lot to the table and truly unlocks next-generation graphics in a whole new way. Watch Dogs is a beautiful, mesmerizing title.
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.
Watch Dogs isn't a hack job, but it isn't the next-gen revolution that many were expecting either. It's a game largely made up of mediocre bits and pieces, but is elevated far beyond the sum of its parts by its brilliantly dynamic sandbox and often gripping mission design. You'll want to see Aiden Pearce's tale through to its conclusion despite its flaws, but it's those unpredictable and sometimes spectacular moments of vigilante justice that will keep you connected to Ubisoft's latest open world.
Polished to a mirror sheen, and bursting with content, Watch Dogs is a great looking game with a thriving open world and an empowering premise. It suffers from being an amalgamation of every other major Ubisoft game, to the point where it doesn't feel as fresh as it deserves to, but it's still a varied, rich, thoroughly dense experience.