Watch dogs was one of my most anticipated games of this year, I am a huge fan of open world games and am also a fan of Ubisoft's Assassin Creed and Far Cry series, I was really hyped up for this game.
Watch dogs does have unique elements, you can hack everything use that to your advantage which makes for innovative game-play. You can hack grenades, steam pipes, traffic lights, cell phones and find out the names, occupation & income of all the civilians. The civilians are also extremely realistic in the activities they do in this game, and their phone conversations are always fun and interesting. The missions are fun, specially the ones which allow you to play the game anyway you want, MSG style by silent head shooting enemies or taking them them down. Or you do not even have to enter the premises just hack cameras and then hack into the place. Or obviously you can go all guns blazing where you can still make things explode around enemies and blow the grenades that are on them. The gun-play is still pretty basic but mixing it up with hacking makes it unique. And the RDR/GTA V weapon wheel is a welcome addition. Car chases can be fun with you disabling cars through blockers, steam pipes. The upgrade is system is extremely well designed and does change the game-play.
Missions however that force you to go all guns blazing or forcing you to go through it without being detected can get annoying, if you put all your points into hacking and crafting, and you end up in a obligatory gun fight you are screwed why these restrictions during certain missions? Missions overall tend to get repetitive, car chases, hideouts, enemies surrounding the area. Only a few are unique like guiding your friends to stealth past the enemies. Driving in this game is not good, it is hard to make turns and control the car specially at high speed and off-road.
The side missions are even more repetitive. Gang Hideout missions, go to a hideout, knock out the boss, just at different locations, convoys, either knock out the target or kill him. There are 40 fixer contracts with only 4 variations, same goes for crimes, all these activities start out fun but eventually get repetitive & boring. The mini-games like Poker and Chess are fun. Cash Trail and Alien invasion are OK. The Spider Tank digital trip is just fantastic, Alone is also good. The investigations also get repetitive, they had some interesting aspects like human trafficking and murder investigations but it was all squandered by forcing you into another redundant side mission at it's conclusion. For example the final mission of the human trafficking investigation is like any other convoy mission. Poorly handled.
There are also annoying restrictions like why cant you punch anyone in the game but the A.I can, that is just another mind boggling decision along with with No drive-by.
Chicago is a good looking city although some landmarks have been missed but many many hot-spots are highlighted telling you about the history of that place which is actually interesting. The city looks beautiful, attractive but unfortunately it is just too small in size. The graphics are excellent although downgraded from the E3 trailer, the animations are smooth, the character models are extremely detailed although their lip syncing needed more work, the weather environments also look good. Inooor areas have also had detail put into them along with civilians, there are transitions between game-play and cut-scenes but unfortunately there could have been more of them because loading screens really break the immersion.
The storyline had potential but it started out so slow that I lost interest, the second act was interesting and felt like that a major twist was going to be revealed, but that major twist was just cliché and poorly handled, putting a mob boss & politician at the center of everything. The characters are all actually good apart from Aiden Pearce, he has a cool look for a protagonist, thats about it, he is a hard guy to like, he just does what he wants, never listens to anyone, hardly showed a lot of emotion, plus I am confused about the moral high ground he stands on, in one mission he knocked out and killed several enemies to save someone he cared about after that he showed remorse, WHAT ABOUT ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE HE KILLED? (In Storyline Alone). That is why the ending choice also seems pointless because sparing someone is not something Aiden would actually do. Tbone is an excellent character and Damien is just a fantastic villain. Unfortunately the plot that surrounds these characters is pretty average. The voice acting is actually good, although I think Aiden's Voice actor just sounds robotic in many scenes.
The OST is good specially during missions, off mission OST is OK but the cop chase music is excellent, but the songs are poorly implemented they are not divided into radio stations like in most open world games and they are a very few of them some are flat out bad, some are repetitive, I only liked around 3-4 songs. Apparently this game hates it owns songs because they wont let you play them during any main or side missions only during free roam, another confusing decision.
Watch dogs overall is a fun open world game but was falsely advertised the the game-play in the E3 trailer is not even there plus the game has been downgraded in some ways and it feels apparent, but the game has many unique aspects going for it and does have a lot of lasting appeal and tons of things to do, even if those things will get repetitive after a while. But it is still a pretty good open world game but it just did not live up to all it's hype.
Rating: 7.5/10
Watch dogs does have unique elements, you can hack everything use that to your advantage which makes for innovative game-play. You can hack grenades, steam pipes, traffic lights, cell phones and find out the names, occupation & income of all the civilians. The civilians are also extremely realistic in the activities they do in this game, and their phone conversations are always fun and interesting. The missions are fun, specially the ones which allow you to play the game anyway you want, MSG style by silent head shooting enemies or taking them them down. Or you do not even have to enter the premises just hack cameras and then hack into the place. Or obviously you can go all guns blazing where you can still make things explode around enemies and blow the grenades that are on them. The gun-play is still pretty basic but mixing it up with hacking makes it unique. And the RDR/GTA V weapon wheel is a welcome addition. Car chases can be fun with you disabling cars through blockers, steam pipes. The upgrade is system is extremely well designed and does change the game-play.
Missions however that force you to go all guns blazing or forcing you to go through it without being detected can get annoying, if you put all your points into hacking and crafting, and you end up in a obligatory gun fight you are screwed why these restrictions during certain missions? Missions overall tend to get repetitive, car chases, hideouts, enemies surrounding the area. Only a few are unique like guiding your friends to stealth past the enemies. Driving in this game is not good, it is hard to make turns and control the car specially at high speed and off-road.
The side missions are even more repetitive. Gang Hideout missions, go to a hideout, knock out the boss, just at different locations, convoys, either knock out the target or kill him. There are 40 fixer contracts with only 4 variations, same goes for crimes, all these activities start out fun but eventually get repetitive & boring. The mini-games like Poker and Chess are fun. Cash Trail and Alien invasion are OK. The Spider Tank digital trip is just fantastic, Alone is also good. The investigations also get repetitive, they had some interesting aspects like human trafficking and murder investigations but it was all squandered by forcing you into another redundant side mission at it's conclusion. For example the final mission of the human trafficking investigation is like any other convoy mission. Poorly handled.
There are also annoying restrictions like why cant you punch anyone in the game but the A.I can, that is just another mind boggling decision along with with No drive-by.
Chicago is a good looking city although some landmarks have been missed but many many hot-spots are highlighted telling you about the history of that place which is actually interesting. The city looks beautiful, attractive but unfortunately it is just too small in size. The graphics are excellent although downgraded from the E3 trailer, the animations are smooth, the character models are extremely detailed although their lip syncing needed more work, the weather environments also look good. Inooor areas have also had detail put into them along with civilians, there are transitions between game-play and cut-scenes but unfortunately there could have been more of them because loading screens really break the immersion.
The storyline had potential but it started out so slow that I lost interest, the second act was interesting and felt like that a major twist was going to be revealed, but that major twist was just cliché and poorly handled, putting a mob boss & politician at the center of everything. The characters are all actually good apart from Aiden Pearce, he has a cool look for a protagonist, thats about it, he is a hard guy to like, he just does what he wants, never listens to anyone, hardly showed a lot of emotion, plus I am confused about the moral high ground he stands on, in one mission he knocked out and killed several enemies to save someone he cared about after that he showed remorse, WHAT ABOUT ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE HE KILLED? (In Storyline Alone). That is why the ending choice also seems pointless because sparing someone is not something Aiden would actually do. Tbone is an excellent character and Damien is just a fantastic villain. Unfortunately the plot that surrounds these characters is pretty average. The voice acting is actually good, although I think Aiden's Voice actor just sounds robotic in many scenes.
The OST is good specially during missions, off mission OST is OK but the cop chase music is excellent, but the songs are poorly implemented they are not divided into radio stations like in most open world games and they are a very few of them some are flat out bad, some are repetitive, I only liked around 3-4 songs. Apparently this game hates it owns songs because they wont let you play them during any main or side missions only during free roam, another confusing decision.
Watch dogs overall is a fun open world game but was falsely advertised the the game-play in the E3 trailer is not even there plus the game has been downgraded in some ways and it feels apparent, but the game has many unique aspects going for it and does have a lot of lasting appeal and tons of things to do, even if those things will get repetitive after a while. But it is still a pretty good open world game but it just did not live up to all it's hype.
Rating: 7.5/10