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!

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The Kinect U-Turn

So, the mandatory Kinect is no more, Microsoft have once again made a U-Turn on its original next-gen plan. Kinect has gone from being an integral component to an optional peripheral. Like most other Xbox One gamers I haven’t even used the Kinect for much more than showing off (and the odd dashboard navigation when my controllers have run out of battery.

That being said – it is a good piece of hardware and holds far more potential than the original ever did (both in accuracy and speed).

For Microsoft this solves many problems: the price differential with PlayStation 4 has now been addressed, while internal resources dedicated to Kinect processing can now be returned to game developers.

However, on the flipside, the original vision for Xbox One as a multi-faceted all-in-one entertainment system as well as a games machine now lies in a much less coordinated manner than ever – unless this was always the plan (which we doubt).

Kinect was at the heart of everything that made Xbox One different and without it we're left with a machine that offers pretty much the exact same proposition as PS4. In fact, it’s a horrible chance of pace for a company that always stripped its rivals in the race for innovation. Just two years ago Sony were doing everything they could to match their American counterparts but now it seems that the more Xbox changes, the closer it becomes to the PlayStation design choices from launch.

This week's announcements are all about levelling the playing field with Sony. The price is the same, Games with Gold moves closer into alignment with PlayStation Plus, while non-gaming services are also like-for-like thanks to the removal of the almost criminal payment requirements that saw users charged for the privilege of using Internet Explorer, Skype and even non-Microsoft services like YouTube and Netflix.

Here at Rajakaru Games we appreciate that Microsoft is finally listening.

This market repositioning was a must for our beloved console. Microsoft’s vision for an entertainment system certainly wasn’t a bad decision in principle but the implementation and demand for this hardware was misplaced.

Kinect is the main gateway to the media functions of the Xbox One and without it the hardware looks more like the set-top boxes it was trying to replace rather than the state of the art ideas that it hasn’t fully realised.

Statistics showed that for many users, the Xbox 360 was being utilised more for media streaming than it was for actual gameplay. This was the main reason for the strategy they tried desperately to maximise but unfortunately the impact didn’t really take off.

We've seen Oculus Rift, we've experienced Sony's Project Morpheus prototype but we've still not seen Microsoft's 'Fortaliza' hardware. Envisaged as a Kinect-powered augmented reality concept, Microsoft saw it as the penultimate stepping stone in console technology before the cloud took over, rendering new client-side hardware obsolete. These industry changes and innovations certainly mean we can expect some new gameplay styles over the course of this console lifecycle and, you never know, Microsoft might just U-Turn again.

The good news for Microsoft is that games and content will always trump hardware spec. This week’s Halo 5 tease was short on details but at least re-introduced a key title with an immense level of anticipation alongside it, and the E3 line-up should be strong. Beyond that we understand that Microsoft isn't done with the cloud, and that games are being built around Azure that go beyond the utilisation's we've seen thus far.  

We definitely won't see a total rethink of the Xbox One system, but at least the focus will be where it should have been from day one - on the games.

 

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Halo: The Master Chief Collections - Is It Real?

Fresh off the heels of the Halo 5: Guardians announcement earlier this week, we have some more news about the sci-fi shooter franchise. [Please take this with a pinch of salt]

It has been widely suggested that Microsoft will release Halo: The Master Chief collection for Xbox One later this year and now a new report from Engadget claims this is truly the case.

The Master Chief collection will include Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3 and Halo 4 in a repackaged high definition pack. It currently looks like Halo3: ODST and Halo: Reach won’t make the cut and this doesn’t seem strange considering the main protagonist of the collection didn’t feature.

Engadget suggests that Saber Interactive would be the developer, given its previous work on Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition for Xbox 360.

To add fire to the flames the report ties into Microsoft’s pledge that the Halo journey on Xbox One would begin in 214. This November also marks the 10 year anniversary for Halo 2, which has again be rumoured for the HD treatment ever since the original title obtained an HD remake in 2011.

During the Halo 5: Guardians announcement last week, 343 Industries' Frank O'Connor also emphasised the developer's previous statement that the journey towards Halo 5 in 2015 would begin this year, and that another announcement was seemingly on the way.

Engadget's report reinforces the claims of a NeoGAF poster from February this year who appeared to leak Microsoft's Xbox One-related plans for the future.

The poster said Halo 2 Anniversary Edition would launch in two forms: a Collector's Edition with Halo 5 beta access and a War Collection, which includes all of the above as well as Xbox One ports of Halo 3 and Halo 4.

Looking over the web we cannot find any confirmation or comments from Microsoft about this “announcement”. With E3 just a few short weeks away we can certainly expect confirmation then if nothing comes out before. It wouldn’t be completely outrageous to expect at least some form of Halo to hit stores this year – though we will need to hear something official to know what that will contain.

As massive Halo fans here at Rajakaru Games we certainly hope Master Chiefs next outing – or remake - is coming sooner than the Christmas build up next year. 

Please let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

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