Watch_Dogs Review

Alright, so I've  been slacking on my reviews for about two weeks now and I figured I would get back on this by giving my first actual "not very happy with this" review. [Patent Pending]


Watch_Dogs-

I'm going to start by saying I was not very impressed with this game. Ubisoft definitely dropped the ball here and I'm not afraid to admit it. I mean for Gods sake, they promised us that this game would be the "modern Assassin's Creed" we've all been asking for [None more than me] and then they completely changed what had the potential to be just that.

Now let's be clear, I wasn't looking for scaling buildings in this. After all, it wasn't ACTUALLY an AC game, but they promised it would feel like it in certain aspects, and I didn't get that feeling at any point in this joke of a game.

Let's just get the list of things I didn't like out of the way here before I say anything I DID like here. It's not a long list, but considering what they are and how big of a role they play, I feel like they killed the entire experience for me.

The result of a trip around the corner...

First and foremost, the absolutely terrible driving in this game had me frustrated more times than I could count. Sure enough, I did get used to it, but after playing Grand Theft Auto V it was just so hard to control. It was virtually impossible to get to a destination in this game without your car looking like it just went through a freaking blender. I have to say, the Saints Row: The Third driving mechanic was better, and it was virtually impossible NOT to crash in that game. I'll take too easy over too hard on the gameplay side any day.

Next up is the main character. I get it, people like Batman as much as the next guy, but why on Earth did Aiden have to be Batman with a gun? He was such a cookie cutter protagonist it made me sick. Sure, I

get the hacking thing, I really do, but for Aiden to simply get in and hack sophisticated things or things that really can't be hacked is ridiculous, even if it wasn't from a smart phone. [How the hell can you hack a manhole cover to explode? Seriously Ubisoft? Get your act together.]

Even his backstory and struggle was ridiculous to me. I mean come on dude, I get it, your niece died in an accident that was meant to kill you, but lets face it, there was no way you could have even known that it was at all tied to a failed hacking/robbery job. It could have just been a rival hacker out to take out the competition, or your buddy that set up the job you chickened out on, yet you somehow automatically make the connection to the hotel? [I'm losing faith here, Ubisoft.] And then of all things, Aiden gets caught up in a gang war. I mean how? How does this happen? Every single problem in the entire city of Chicago apparently has something to do with Aiden freaking Pierce? I'm not buying it.

To be clear, I would get it a bit more if they had massacred his entire family Punisher style, but his sister and nephew are dealing well with this entire situation. They just want Uncle Aiden to stop doing what he does and settle into a normal life. I mean with his skills he could have been Chicago's Commissioner Gordon instead of murderous Batman. He's trained with firearms, half the game is pursuing other criminals, and that hacking aspect would have helped him catch criminals.
"Oh, you want to escape this building? Well let me just activate the remote locks apart from the ones that lead you to the exact room with no windows or anything for you to hide in so I can catch and cuff you."

But no, we don't get that here. We get "I hate the guy who put a hit out on me that put my niece in danger. So I'm going to hunt down every single gang member and boss in Chicago with the help of my not-at-all-helpful hacker friend with an obvious mental imbalance.


Moving on, I have to give credit where credit is due. Some aspects of this game are actually pretty fun, and I kept coming back for those in particular.

For instance, I loved the supporting characters. Aidens sister was the most realistic family member to a video game character I've seen in a long time. She was concerned, voiced her concern, and after being rejected and not having her concerns taken care of, cut her brother off entirely.

I'm not afraid to admit either that I absolutely adored Clara. She was real, she was fun, and she didn't take things as seriously as Aiden. Even her story made more sense than Aidens, even if we didn't get much of a background on her, how she tied into the story worked. She was more helpful than most people would care to admit after playing this game, and I actually got emotionally invested in her character. I could have given a crap about Aiden, but Clara broke my heart.






T-Bone was equally amazing. I honestly felt bad that he got dragged

into Aidens crap when I went to find him. The creator of the CToS system that controlled Chicago, hunted down after creating it, and living in hiding under an assumed name. Hackers tried finding him to get control over the system and the rumored "Bunker." Authorities hunting him for fear that he would turn the system against them. This man just wanted peace, and Aiden had to take that away. [I'm going to say it again... BATMAN. Seriously, just let Robin have his revenge and then let him go...]

Again, giving credit blah blah, I actually enjoyed the idea of hacking,

and getting profiles on civilians based on the CToS facial recognition software that kept a tab on everyone in the city. It was fun just turning on the software and getting a little insight on the people of Chicago. Some of it was disturbing, some was hilarious. I actually caught video surveillance of someone cutting up human body parts to eat for dinner and more of a kid showing his dad Assassin's Creed. While not exactly an important aspect, it was something I enjoyed and had to compliment. [Not EVERYTHING was terrible. You win here, Ubisoft.]

Keeping with the gameplay features I enjoyed, I have one thing I have

yet to see a failure for from any game I've played, the GPS.
I know it's not important, but I actually appreciate when a game has a decent navigation aspect. What really helped me is that the highlighted path not only shows up on your map, but trails in front of you along the street as well. And to top it off, something most games don't tell you, there were indicators on the map that told you if a certain path went underground or not.

While I didn't keep coming back to Watch_Dogs for the gameplay, I did find the mini games or "Digital Trips" to be pretty fun. My favorites had to be Spider Tank, or Alone.

Spider Tank puts you behind the wheel of the experimental Spider

Seriously, how cool is this thing?

Tank to wreak havoc on the city by climbing the walls of buildings, firing rockets and lasers, and simply smashing things with your giant spider legs. However, it wasn't just a "cause destruction" game, but there were little objectives that got harder and harder to accomplish like doing a certain amount of monetary damage to the police force, destroying so many cars, finding something or a group of somethings and destroying them. Overall not very impressive sounding, but definitely a fun side game.

In Alone, Aiden is the sole survivor of an alien invasion that took the citizens of Chicago as proxies to hold the planet. Aiden must travel through the city, avoiding the deadly gaze of these invaders as he deactivates their homing beacons and frees the city from their control. Honestly, I thought this was a better premise than the rest of the game. While the solitude was depressing, the fact that there was a reason for what you were doing was a beautiful departure from the actual game. I spent hours playing this Digital Trip, and less time actually playing Watch_Dogs. To be perfectly honest, I hope Ubisoft expands on this idea enough to make an actual game out of it.

Alright, despite the fact that this game had some good features and characters, too many big things were wrong for me to want to come back and play it again. It wasn't what was promised at E3 the year before, and it certainly didn't live up to the games it was compared to, those being GTA V, and Assassin's Creed. Ubisoft made a lot of promises with this game, and failed to deliver on too many of them. So I sadly have to give a poor rating to Watch_Dogs with a low 3/10. I just can't bring myself to give it anything higher, and with that rating alone I'm giving them some slack.

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