WatchDogs Review

Lets talk about Watch Dogs, or rather the disappointment of Watch Dogs. Two years ago an amazing trailer was shown which promised groundbreaking graphics and game play to showcase the power of next gen systems i.e PS4 Xboxone,Wii u, etc. However since the release of Watch Dogs theirs been a torrent of upset users from every blog,vlog, and comment section from around the internet.Why, not because Watch Dogs is a bad game, no not at all. This is simply what happens when a game is hyped to ungodly proportions and doesn't quite make the cut. In fact Watch Dogs is a really good game just not as epic and groundbreaking as promised. Lets start with what upset gamers the most,graphics. At E3 2012 the game looked amazing, with a detail to shadowing, lighting, and some of the best weather effects we've ever seen. My eyes were about to start bleeding from the beauty of what I was seeing. However fast forward to 2014 and even with the best PC's pushed to the limit can not replicate what was seen at E3 2012.Its like meeting a girl online only to see them in person and find that their 50, 500lbs and a man. That hurt UbiSoft that hurt, next topic.

Gameplay

Now this is where Watch Dogs excels in my opinion. Never before in an open world game do we get the options we do in this game.The city of Chicago is truly alive more so than any other game I've seen even surpassing Grand Theft Auto V. Every character you see or walk pass can in one way or another be interacted with. Your world pretty much revolves around a smart phone from hacking someones bank account to causing a black out around the city it's your best friend. If you're chased by enemies there's multiple ways to escape, hacking traffic lights, blowing up steam pipes its all there, hacking grenades jamming communications anything can be done. Unless you happen to wanna back hand a random person or preform a melee attack.Now players can use hand to hand on attacking NPC's (non playable characters), but the attacks you preform get stale very quickly. It basically consist of a hitting someone with a stick over and over again. From time to time you'll come across mini hacking games which are fun but aren't anything special. The AI is more than enough to keep you on your toes. You'll often find yourself surrounded if you sit in one place to long since most of the time you'll be outnumbered. Once again you got plenty of ways to even things out. Environmental attacks, lures, black outs etc. And if you get chased you can always total a couple of police cars it just ads to the fun.When it comes to multiplier Watch Dogs is pretty inventive. You'll most likely be hacking other players the most in which you have a limited amount of time to find who is hacking you or hide until you're done hacking them. Theres also racing, tailing missions and Saints row esque mini games on your phone. But hacking other players is honestly one of the funniest parts of the game,since the side missions while not bad get old pretty quick. It'll come down to stopping criminal convoys, killing of a gang or finding crimes and stopping them before they happen.One thing that really bugged me in this game is the driving. The physics are absolutely horrible, Every time you make a turn you end up plowing into pedestrians or side swiping a cop. Driving physics are just not up to par with the rest of the game.

Story

To be honest the story is average.The supporting characters are awesome and each one has there own back story. A contract killer, punk rocker/hacker girl, former CIA crackpot, the list goes on. My beef is with the main character Aiden. He's just so,boring. He seems devoid of emotion and honestly comes off as kind of anal. Sure we understand he's out for revenge but where's all the flame, anger, sadness,regret, give someone that's charismatic and gives us something the care about. Aiden is just kinda... meh. This wouldn't be so glaring if the supporting characters were just a bit better utilized.For instance it would have been nice to call up Jordi and have him snipe a couple of baddies when you're overwhelmed.Little things like that are what give games value.But all in all the story serves its purpose.

Final Thoughts

Watch dogs is a good game that falls short of being great. Held back by a stale main character and an average story. What saves it is the game play which other open world games could take note of which is why I give Watch Dogs a 4 out 5 not a bad game, just way way way over hyped.