Watch Dogs (Not a review, but to much to be a Nibble!)

Title: Watch_Dogs
ASIN: B00FX6QTLK
Release Date: 27th May 2014
Language: English
Publisher: Ubisoft
Format: PC DVD
Type: Game, Single Player, Multiplayer
Genre: Action, TPS, RPG

Synopsis:

All it takes is the swipe of a finger. We connect with friends. We buy the latest gadgets and gear. We find out what’s happening in the world. But with that same simple swipe, we cast an increasingly expansive shadow. With each connection, we leave a digital trail that tracks our every move and milestone, our every like and dislike. And it’s not just people. Today, all major cities are networked. Urban infrastructures are monitored and controlled by complex operating systems.

You play as Aiden Pearce, a brilliant hacker and former thug, whose criminal past led to a violent family tragedy. Now on the hunt for those who hurt your family, you’ll be able to monitor and hack all who surround you by manipulating everything connected to the city’s network. Access omnipresent security cameras, download personal information to locate a target, control traffic lights and public transportation to stop the enemy… and more.

Watch_Dogs takes place in a fully simulated living city where, using your smartphone, you have real-time control over the city’s infrastructure. Trap your enemy in a 30-car pileup by manipulating the traffic lights. Stop a train, and then board it to evade the authorities. Narrowly escape capture by quickly raising a drawbridge. Anything connected to the city’s CTOS can become your weapon.

Living in inner city Chicago where violence is best answered by violence, you have the skills to take the fight to the streets. Take down enemies by delivering devastating blows with your baton, or experience a shoot-out like never before with a physics simulation that rivals anything in the shooter category. Use a combination of shooting and hacking to gain advantage in any given situation. The streets are designed for you to create your own plan of attack.

Ubisoft Montreal has partnered with studios such as Ubisoft Reflections, the acclaimed studio behind the award-winning Driver series to bring you a game bursting with horsepower. Get behind the wheel of more than 65 vehicles, each with state of the art physics and handling, and explore the massive city while completing missions.

Disrupt, the all-new game engine dedicated to Watch_Dogs, uses advanced processing and graphics to deliver a stunning visual and an incredibly realistic experience. Disrupt gives you the power to affect the story, the city and the life of the population with your choices creating a ripple effect throughout the city.

Discover new levels of interaction, cooperation and confrontation between players thanks to a brand new multiplayer game system that links the single and multiplayer modes into one seamless experience. That means no menus, no loading screens, just instant open world multiplayer action.

Take your experience beyond the console with a ground breaking, real-time, companion game. This innovative mobile platform allows players to connect and compete with friends, even when away from their home console. The Watch_Dogs companion game delivers revolutionary dual-screen gameplay that enables you to play from anywhere, at any time

If i was to give this game a genre definition it would be Arsehole Simulator. You can hype Aide up as much as you like, about how he’s out for revenge against the murder of his niece, and takes out criminals left right and centre. Which is all true, but that’s not the whole story. You need to remember that Aiden was targeted because he was hacking and stealing huge sums of money. So he got his niece killed by being a criminal, and he knows it, he constantly talks about his guilt.

Of course that guilt doesn’t stop him from steal tens of thousands of dollars from anyone he meets. I’ve had him taking money from abused spouses, terminally ill people and your average Joe. Initially i found this aspect of the game a little off putting, but you just need to remind yourself, this is a PC game

A few things to mention before i get going. I didn’t buy my copy, it came with my new GTX 770 4GB card. Also this is a UPlay exclusive, so no matter where you buy it you’re going to need UPlay. However after the initial verification it no longer needs UPlay to be online.

Also this is by no means a review, I’ve spent around 13 hours in game and I’ve only just recently gotten to Act 2, no where near enough to do a proper review.

So, lets get going and talk about this, once again I’m gonna split this into several sections again, Graphics & Optimisation, Story & Music, Gameplay & Mechanics, Launch Issues & Conclusions.

Graphics & Optimisation

You would think given the time they spent on the game that both the graphics and optimisation would be top notch, sadly they aren’t.

Graphically the game isn’t that bad looking, and during the day you can see some amazing lighting effects, and sunset can be even more stunning; so long as your running on the right settings. Textures aren’t that bad either, however i found that, to me at least, it didn’t look better or worse than say Sleeping Dogs.

They’ve made a big issue over the special Nvidia tech in the game and for the most part i found myself with a ‘meh’ attitude. Games like Sleeping Dogs spoiled me, it managed to do a hell of a lot more with lighting and city scape that Watch_Dogs has done. Which sadly is a let down, but not a big one, because when you get right down to it the game does look really good.

I’ve avoided all the hype and videos shown at E3 last year, so i don’t know how ‘good’ it was back there, but the game we have now is pretty damn good looking IMO.

The wandering NPC’s are pretty well detailed and varied, something that is very important in an open world game like this. Both Sleeping Dogs and Saints Row Third used the same NPC multiple times, because while they were needed to flesh out the world they weren’t important in and of themselves. In Watch_Dogs however it’s different, due to the dev.’s trying to make you care about the NPC’s, having you save them from assaults and stuff. As well as giving you bits of information about each one you come across.

The world at large is well designed and put together, though I’ve no idea if they actually used a map of Chicago for the game, or just made their own version. The characters you come across are awesome looking, except for Aiden, who i frankly think looks like a hobo. Everyone else looks pretty damn sweet, and what’s more alive. I have to admit that graphically, while not as amazing as i was hoping, it’s not a shabby game!

The optimisation of the game is not very good, but i find myself wondering if anyone is really surprised? After all it’s a Ubisoft PC game, they’re never well optimised at launch. As it is at the moment it’s impossible to play the game on full ultra with all the bells and whistles, and keep the FPS above 60. However I’ve been playing on full high settings with all the bells and whistles and have had a solid  60FPS throughout the session, and honestly,  there was no difference between high and ultra as far as i could see.

This is also a Nvidia game, as in Nvidia working in partnership with Ubisoft and the game has a lot of Nvidia’s propriety graphics tech in it. What this means is that if you have a AMD GFX card you’re gonna  be pretty screwed. High end cards have been able to play it fairly well (the R9 series), however other cards are having a hard time and some just can’t play it. AMD will start to release new drivers later today for the game, but it’ll never run as well as it does on a Nvidia card.

There’s been a lot of moaning and whining about this on the Steam forums, but it’s not a new practise. Both Nvidia and AMD do exclusive deals with publishers, and these deals always screw over people who use cards from the other company. If you’re a PC gamer you’ve just got to accept it and wait for the drivers.

It also fails on the input side of things, while it allows you to use either keyboard or controller, there are limitations to each. The keyboard has almost fully rebindable keys, in so much as that while each action can be rebound, i found the keys i usually use in games like this couldn’t be bound to. Which is very annoying, to the point i gave up in the end and used the controller. The mouse also has stupid amounts of acceleration on it, in the menus. Then it goes stupidly slow in other areas, and damn annoying, yet again.

Sadly the controller lacks a key feature, the ability to quickly change your weapons. On the K&M you can just use the mouse wheel, nice and easy. Not so on the controller, you’re left with a clunky method that has gotten me killed a couple of times.

Both are okay, but if you’re left handed I’d recommend you go with the controller.

Story & Music

As i said in this game you’re an arsehole of the first order, but the story is quite engaging and managed to keep me playing for a good 13 hours or so. I liked the various characters, and while Aiden is an ass, he’s a well scripted and portrayed ass. However he is not a hero, he very much fits the antihero archetype, which i felt at times was a bit over done. there were a few times he does things, almost seemingly, to prove he’s an ass and not a hero.

The story is pretty well paced, but there’s no real sense of urgency when you finish a mission to move right on with the next, rather each mission is like a chapter in a book. Wrapping up a few things and paving the way to the next chapter. However there are plenty of other things to do in the game, a lot of side missions, as well as just random crap. The side missions i found got a little uninteresting after a while, as they almost always (so far) just have you waiting for the criminal to arrive, then intervening just as he commits the crime.

Story wise, i honestly don’t really know what to make of it properly yet. Partly due to it being early stage of the game, and partly because it’s the first antihero game I’ve played in a long time so i forgot how stories work in these settings. Going to be interesting to see how it progresses over the coming acts.

The music is weird, in so much that while your out and about running around the world you have no music at all. Which i find rather weird. As soon as you step into a car though you get music from the radio, which is all licensed for the game. You do occasionally come across music coming from shops and stalls, but it would have been nice to have some sort of instrumental music as well for general gameplay, since TBH you’re not going to be using cars for very long during the main campaign.

The music however rather surprised me as i found i rather liked it, sure there was some that was frankly terrible; but the game includes a wide variety of music tracks. These can be changed in the cars so you can listen to the tracks you like.

Gameplay & Mechanics

These are essentially one and the same, and if I’m honest are where the game fails the most. Being a open world game it’s going to be compared to games which are seen as the best of the best. Sleeping Dogs, Far Cry 3 and Batman Arkham City. Sadly it doesn’t come close to any of them.

With the exception of hacking, all of the mechanics in the game have been done elsewhere, and better. For example, Far Cry 3 does the gunplay significantly better. Hand to hand combat is still done the best in Batman, but in Watch_Dogs they don’t even try with it. You literally go up to the guy and press ‘B’ and he’s down and out. You can’t miss and there’s no chance for them to defend against you. Very disappointing, and not really very satisfying after a while. Don’t get me wrong, watching Aiden best the snot of someone with a police baton is fun, for a while. However the lack of variety in his takedowns really does hurt here.

Driving? Well, i personally think the driving in sleeping dogs was better. In Watch_Dogs it feels very arcadey. You’re car is essentially a tank that can plough its way through just about anything, and even keep on driving after a head on collision with a 10tonne lorry. Yet you’ll float all over the road, which in some cars makes them damn hard to control.

The hacking, i both like and hate. On the one hand it’s an interesting new feature that should have been the back bone of the game. Sadly for a lot of the hacking it’s simply hold X to win, again not very satisfying. You do get some mini games now and then in the hacking where you need to make connections to unlock doors or hacking to mainframes. And frankly these were what i was expecting a lot more of. I do understand why they choose the press X to win, but at the same time i feel there was so much more to be explored within this mechanic.

Then we have the always on, which according to Ubisoft is mandatory, but you can’t turn it off. I am starting to see a horrible trend of late in games with this sort of multiplayer, and i personally hate it with a vengeance. Multiplayer should always be an option, not force, in a supposedly single player game. There is an option in the menus to apparently turn it off, but that doesn’t seem to be working at the moment.

Yet as much as i dislike the multiplayer aspect, it can see why some people would like it. It will certainly add to the games life cycle as there are a number of multiplayer options such as races and tasks to be done. But for me i don’t want it, and i feel i should be able to turn it off without being made to feel like losing half the game.

The game does have a lot of other things to offer, the augmented reality stuff is bloody funny, which is what it’s meant to be. Watch_Dogs takes itself all to seriously and while it’s a good ride everyone needs to let of steam now and again. Augmented Reality allows you do that. You can basically jump into a tank and just go blow everything up for sheer lol’s. What i especially like is that this has no impact on the main game, but is still really good fun. There are a number of other options as well, from Fixer jobs, to casinos and gambling, to coffee shops. A lot of variety to fill your time and prevent you getting bored of the game.

Launch Issues & Conclusions

As a UPlay game it has the usual launch day blues attached to it. Servers are congested, and it can take a few attempts to get the game registered on UPlay. However once that was done you can just let it go into offline mode and ignore it. I already talked about the graphical problems in the optimisation section, so i wont repeat myself.

Personally, i had no problems with the games launch per se. Since i got my copy with my card it activated on UPlay directly rather than steam, and was for some reason released an hour late on UPlay. However it downloaded perfectly fine, took all of 20minutes, which is bloody fast for a launch day. Installed fine, and launched fine. Thankfully because it was pre-registered to my account i didn’t run into the problems of trying to register the game and just let it go into offline mode. A few hours later it reconnected perfectly fine.

So, do i think the game is worth buying? This is a hard one to say, but as much as I’ve enjoyed the game and probably will complete it, I can’t really give it an out and out recommendation. Sleeping Dogs, Far Cry 3, Batman Arkham, and even Saints Row Third are, for the most part, better open world games that have a lot more on offer.

Watch_Dogs, is sadly lacking in something to make it a great open world game. As it stands, i wouldn’t recommend getting anything other than the standard game, and only then from somewhere like GMG or Amazon which will (usually) have a discount applied. At it’s full asking price, especially as it has a Season Pass for DLC, i have to say no.

If you can wait a few months it’s most likely going to go on sale during the steam summer sales for around 30-40% off. However as i said initially, this is based off of only having completed the first act. Things could become a lot better as i go forward to the point were I’m shouting this is the GOTY. Sadly right now all I’ll say is it’s a GOOD game.

One Comment

  1. Sounds like it didn’t live up to the hype. I don’t like the idea of publishers making deals with card makers. Developers should try to make their products function on the most devices possible.