Watch Dogs Review: Hack-a-lacking

I’m going to break this review down into a single questions – it’s the one on everybody’s lips – “Is Watch Dogs as good as the hype suggests?”

 

Frankly its neither the tragic failure some expected nor the introduction to a 'proper' next-gen others craved, Watch Dogs is instead best thought of as an open-world sandbox: Chicago Edition. As with other titles from the publisher – Far Cry and Assassin's Creed being the obvious examples – it is almost compulsively appealing, thanks to Ubisoft Montreal's tried and true onslaught of collectibles, missions, sidequests and other bite-sized reward loops.

 

The gameplay is as fluid as the best parts of Assassin’s Creed where the systems complement the player rather than hindering them. I’ve played around 20 hours of the title so far, and honestly haven’t made it to the end, so feel I am in a strong position to tell you that I haven’t been bored yet. Sadly, I haven’t been thrilled very often either.

Watch Dogs is set in a fairly large, populated, sandbox but doesn’t catch the intrigue of Creed or the appeal of Far Cry – instead feeling like the love child of GTA and Driver. Critically the title is let down by not feeling like a living “breathing” world. NPC’s walk the streets but seem, largely, like robots out for a stroll in a world they don’t really understand. Thankfully, this is somewhat saved by the titles focus on giant corporations and social inequality; which the world does very well to diversify in its five moderately different districts.

Probably the strangest element, and the one most people are interesting in, is the fact the Hacking plays a relatively small part in the proceedings. The morally dubious activities undertaken by Aiden are a stark contrast to the main storyline and the abuse of power he deals with in it. The interface for interacting with the city is exciting, at first, but quickly fall’s foul of Watch Dogs own marketing features. You’ll blow out lights, hack road signs and lift bridges but it never gets any more involved than that. It’s like the bonus perks of GTA with a little but more spice added in.

At some points you’ll hack the bank accounts of the very people you are looking to “help”. It’s a strange decision that’s made worse by the fact that every action has a negative quality to it and it makes Aiden less enjoyable to play as.

Watch Dogs does take a lot of pointers from Ubisoft’s other titles and fills the world with many enjoyable activities for the player to enjoy outside of the main quest. Side-missions and activities are fun to complete and are the right length that they don’t get boring before you get to try something else new. The only nuance to this is the relatively samey main quests as the drive/hack/escape dynamic can only last so long without feeling repetitive.

The online portions of the game work exceptionally well. The hacking and tracking gameplay is interesting but can get a tad tedious when you are on the receiving end for any length of time. Patience is a virtue here and sometime just playing the “waiting game” holds more than its fair share of rewards. It also has a nice twist on the Assassins Creed multiplayer ideas and if you are a fan of that set-up then you’ll certainly find a lot to enjoy here.

In practice the game works: it’s fundamentally interesting, at times looks amazing (especially the water effect on the next gen system), has good shooting/cover gameplay and AI that seems to learn your movements. The problem with it is that we have seen most, if not all of, this before. It hits the high benchmark we expect from AAA titles but it doesn’t push the boundaries in any directions.

6/10. Good, but not Great!