Watch_Dogs (PC)
Greetings
Ladies and Gentlemen. I’m the Guardian and welcome to the No Holds Barred
review of Ubisoft’s latest, and most anticipated, game to grace our screens. This,
is Watch_Dogs.
Now
before we begin I should make one thing perfectly clear, Watch_Dogs, by no means, lives up to the hype but then…how could
it? Let’s face it, after all the hype that surrounded the game since we saw it
at E3 2012 it would have had to have teleported the princess Zelda herself in
front of my computer to even come remotely close
to living up to its reputation but does this mean Watch_Dogs is a bad game like so many of the pissed off masses
claim it to be? No, not by any means, but it does have its fair share of
problems with the first of which being the games story.
Now, just so
I’m clear, I’m not saying that it’s a particularly bad story by any stretch of
the imagination as it is indeed serviceable, but at the same time it’s horribly
clichéd. Basically you play as Aiden Pierce, a hacker and thief, who pissed off
the wrong people and got a hit taken out on him in which his 6 year old Niece
paid the price instead. As such this leads Aiden to become “the vigilante” of
Chicago, a man on a quest to take revenge on the people responsible. So basically the whole plot boils down to the
same revenge storyline we’ve heard a million times before as you hunt down the
people who hurt your family and make them pay in blood…lots….and lots….of blood,
but surely this clichéd plotline is compensated by a strong main character
though…right? Sadly this isn’t the case as Aiden is a pretty boring character for
the most part, not to mention an arse and a walking contradiction who makes
constant claims to how much he cares for his family but will gladly put them in
danger for the sake of his quest at the drop of a baseball cap. It also really doesn’t help that the scripting
and dialogue for Aiden is horribly done and leads to him being played far too straight which detrimentally gives
Aiden the depth of a damp carrot and thus creates and uninteresting character that
makes it next to impossible for most players to form any sort of attachment to him
at the best of times.
I have to
admit however that even though Aiden is hardly up there with my favourite
characters of all time, I still see some hope for him as a character. Or at
least I do if Ubisoft fixes up its writing team between now and the almost
inevitable sequel and straightens out his character with better writing, more
depth and more humanity than the empty overcoat that we were given in the first
place and even then it still comes down to whether or not Ubisoft doesn’t
decide to bin him off in favour of a clean slate and a fresh new character like
they did with the first Assassin’s Creed.
That being
said though, Aiden may be the main character but he’s by no means the only one
as alongside him on his quest we also have hired gun, and criminally underutilized,
Jordi Chin, the skilled hacker Clara Lille and the absolutely brilliant, if not
slightly eccentric and vastly drunk, computer genius T-Bone. All of who, I should add, are amazing fun to have on
screen – especially T-Bone, a personal favourite of mine.
And as for the
villains of the piece? Well for the majority of the game the villains do their
job well. You hate the bastards by the end and you wish to see them dead…very
dead in fact…but there is one overall problem hanging over them (and the rest
of the story when you think about it) and that is the fact that their ultimate
reason for doing what they did, and the entire reason you end up on this quest
in the first place, is incredibly
weak…almost insultingly so as a matter of fact and though I’m not that I’m
going to spoil anything I will say this. When you find out just why the hit was taken out on Aiden in
the first place you may just want to faceplam your hand through your head…or if
not right then and there, you will by time you finish thinking about it.
And
with that, I suppose it’s time to move onto the much bigger issue at
hand, the elephant in the room if you will, and that is the games graphics. Now
as I’m sure many of you are aware, especially considering how late this review
is, that there has been a great amount of controversy surrounding the graphics
of Watch_Dogs. Simply put, this
controversy being, for those who don’t know, a massive downgrade in graphics
since the games initial showing at E3 as well as Ubisoft releasing statements
saying that the game hadn’t been downgraded at all – a blatant lie that’s
easily proven if you run the E3 trailer next to the final game…which I’m going
to do right now in fact:
But
this isn’t the end of it however, as the graphical problems of the game run
deeper still due to Ubisoft having done a poor job of porting the game to PC,
causing the games frame rate (FPS) to cap out at 40 on most player systems (PC)
even though the games auto-configure function sets the game to “the best”
graphical options for that specific system. For example, on my system the auto-configure
sets the game to ‘high’ but I can only get a solid 60FPS if I run the game on
the lowest graphical option, a really annoying thing for me to have to do
considering the amount of money I invested into my system and basically a slap
to the face from Ubisoft, not just to me but to all PC gamers. Hardly a smart
move on Ubisoft’s part when all things are considered.
Setting
the controversies and problems aside for a moment however, the question still
remains, just how well do the
graphics hold up? Well, I would certainly be lying if I said that they were bad.
The weather and water effects are beautiful and the partial effects on steam
pipe explosions are truly something to behold; also the textures aren’t to be
sniffed at and the lighting and shadow effects are masterfully done for the
most part – sometimes even to a truly staggering level with one great example
being a projector in the first safe house you visit that realistically reacts
realistically to Aiden’s position in front of it…not an easy thing to put into
a game by any means.
That being
said however there are a few things that could have done with some more work.
For instance I would have liked the cars to show a tad more variety in the
damage you can cause them and though the lighting effects across the game are
brilliant and very nicely done, the city at night can seem a bit lacking. Other
than that, and the obvious graphical downgrade (which is still BS by the way)
the graphics of the game hold up pretty nicely, though it would be nice if
Ubisoft released a patch now to stop Watch_Dogs
running like arse on my computer.
EDIT: Not
my usual forte to sling an extra paragraph in the middle of a review but I
think in this case I’ll make an exception as certain things have now come to
light since writing this section on the graphics of Watch_Dogs, or to be more exact it has come to light, at the hands
of a community member who probed the game files on the PC version of the game,
that all the original E3 graphical effects are in fact still in the game – disabled by Ubisoft themselves.
As to why the effects where disabled is
unknown at the time of me writing this but there are many suspicions, rumours
and theories as to why, ranging from a conspiracy between Ubisoft, Microsoft
and Sony to Ubisoft being a bunch of idiots who don’t know how to make games. Thankfully
though I don’t have to write out all these theories as the brilliant
TotalBiscuit has already done a video outlining them and as such I have linked
it below for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy.
Moving
on we have the audio and sound design with both being pretty good for the most
part with the soundtrack for the game being very well scored and matching up
brilliantly with the in-game situations that it plays over. Unfortunately
though, this is spoiled slightly by the in-game radio (available while walking
as well as when in a vehicle) which is so full of crap that I can’t help but
think Ubisoft hired a hipster who just used their personal iTunes library to
fill the tracks list because they couldn’t be bothered with looking for some proper
music to put into the game. To be honest I can’t help but wonder if Ubisoft
didn’t realise this as well during the production as they had the forefront to
include a ‘Media App’ on Aiden’s phone that allows you to pick and choose what
songs play on the radio which I greatly appreciated – though the list of tolerable
songs available was a very short one indeed by time I got through with it.
As for the
voice acting of the game. The voice acting, for the most part, is also very well done with a
terrific main cast and all voices matching up perfectly. Though honestly,
Aiden’s voice could have done with a bit more emotion at times but, as I said
before, I think this is less to do with acting skill and more to do with bad
direction and a badly written script.
Moving
into the gameplay now; we encounter a 40 hour campaign and Assassin’s Creed:
Brotherhood levels of side missions to work through throughout the city. However,
this isn’t as good as it sounds as all the side-missions in the game server
little to no purpose, besides cluttering up the map, and lead pretty much
nowhere. This also includes, annoyingly enough, the side missions that are
linked to the games campaign, and don’t think that you get and sort of pay off
at the end because the most you ever get is an achievement, an unlockable of
some sort and little to no closure for the vast majority of missions and while
I’m at it, the game suffers some sizable difficulty spikes at times as the
mission constraints have a tendency to range from normal to ridiculously high which
makes some missions stupidly easy to fail which something to keep in mind as
I’m sure it will annoy a lot of people as they play through the game.
As
for the open world itself, we find a good sized map with plenty of places to go
and explore. We also see a vast garage of vehicles at our disposal in order to
transverse this world and it is here that we find another problem with Watch_Dogs, the driving. Now for the
most part the driving isn’t too horrible but I can also see it annoying a fair
amount of people (GTA V players in particular) as the cars feel less like cars
and more like fridges, as proven by almost everything you crash into, be it a
streetlight or another car, being flung out the way as if it’s been hit by a
wrecking ball. The cars also seem to slide around at times in an almost
arcade-like fashion, which I must admit is brilliant fun…until you’re being
chased by thugs or the cops, then it’s a case of you smashing into nearly every
part of scenery you drive past or having 5 cars just ram you into a corner or
into multiply civilians – sufficed to say, the games AI is really cheap when it
comes to the car chases…not to mention really
annoying at times. Also, before moving on, I suppose I should also give some
note to the stealth driving sections of the game where you have to use back
ally ways and stealth tactics to avoid the cops. In short, it’s an interesting
idea but at the same time incredible tedious; especially later on in the game
where you have the police helicopter hunting for you which means you can’t so
much stealth as just drive very quickly around it. Also while on the subject the
unlockable hacking skill to disable helicopters doesn’t work unless you look
directly at them which is impossible
to do when in a car and as such means you have to get out of that car and look up as both the sniper in the helicopter,
who never misses by the way, and
ever police officer behind you starts taking pot shots at your head and then just to give the knife an extra
twist, the disable the only works for a poxy for 30 seconds and then you have
to do it all over again! Thankfully though there is a
saving grace to this as the helicopter will eventually turn away after you’ve
hacked it 2 – 3 times but that’s only if the cops haven’t turned you into a
bloodied pulp before then…or you’ve killed all cops but considering the fact
that the sniper has the BS ability to constantly lock-onto you however, chances
are you will have died to several sniper shots to the head before you’re even
close to killing half of the cops that are after you.
Actually,
this brings be onto possibly one of the biggest flaws, and one of the biggest
exploits, of the entire game and that is the simple fact that you can get out
of every, and I mean every chase
situation by simply getting into a boat and sailing away. I’m not even
kidding…one of the biggest components of the game, and it can be bypassed as
simply as getting into a boat. Well done Ubisoft…well done. Here’s a tip; next
time you make a game like this how about you give the Cops some boats as well
as the high speed sports cars. Just an idea.
Don’t
think that driving and walking are the only ways to travers the world of Watch_Dogs however as you also get fast
travel via the intercity train stations or
if you can’t be bothered with that, from the map screen to any of the safe
house locations across the city that you’ve gained access to via unlocking the
ctOS towers scattered across the map which also unlock additional side missions
and points of interest such as mini-games in the form of AR trips, that
basically play out as over-the-top mini-games, drinking games, gambling or even
chess if you fancy a game or two of that – a clear copy from Assassin’s Creed’s
viewpoint system if I’m not mistaken. Unlocking the ctOS towers isn’t as simple
as flicking a switch however as you have to make use of your hacking and free
running skills (which basically play out as a much more watered down version of
the Assassin’s Creed free running mechanic) to solve environmental puzzles that
are barring your way to the tower. Unfortunately, don’t expect much of a challenge
from these as they all pretty much play out the same and are very easy to work
out.
Moving
on we see that the games gunplay, much like the driving, has an arcade-like
quality about I, and for the most part works pretty well, though it is quite
noticeable at times that this game really isn’t set up for running and gunning
but rather a more stealthy style. For example, if you play like me you won’t
need to delve any deeper into the weapons wheel than the silenced spec. ops
pistol and the games focus mechanic, basically a slow-down mechanic that allows
you more time to aim, as the games stealth system is well implemented and makes
use of the games hacking mechanic to great effect via the CCTV cameras, through
which you can distract guards, hack explosives to take out one or more enemies
and open and close doors in order to help you sneak past specific patrols. This
is also aided by Aiden’s ability to craft useful gargets on the fly (unlocked by the games, fairly standard, skill tree system) in order to
distract and take out enemies or to even cause a blackout which allows you to
sneak by un-noticed – only at night or inside building though. That being said
however; if there is a silenced sniper rifle in the game it would have sure
been nice to have found it as there where more than a few instances where it
would have been very helpful to silently snipe out guards (or snipers) in
practically troublesome positions as I snuck around their compounds – and if
there isn’t a silenced sniper rifle in the game, then I have to once again
question Ubisoft’s logic because the unsilenced ones, though functional, where
useless for stealth.
It would have
also been nice if the game gave you some form non-lethal options for combat,
much like Deus-Ex Human Revolution did, rather than the standard, “these bad
guys – you kill”, system that they dump upon you as if your some sort of
Terminator sent out to execute all criminals...actually…that would explain why
Aiden is so bland if you think about it.
That little
revelation aside however, Ubisoft has also implemented a karma system of sorts
which is, strangely enough, much akin to the one seen in The Amazing Spiderman
2 which came out not to long ago…though thankfully in the form of a much more
refined version.
Basically the
system works the same as any other karma system, you do good deeds and people
help you, you do bad deeds and people will hinder you or in the case of Watch_Dogs you do good deeds, such as
stopping crimes and not going on a mass murder spree, then you start to build a
good reputation and people will come to see you as the protector of Chicago
which means they won’t call the cops on you the moment your face is shown on a
news bulletin. If you act like Trevor from GTA V however, such as killing
everything with a pulse and then killing some more, then you will build a bad
reputation and thus people will call the police the moment they recognize you
and shopkeepers will trip their silent alarm the moment you walk into their
store. All in all a nice little system
and though it would have been nice to see it have a bit more impact on the
world around you and though it’s still nice to have the option, and the
freedom, to choose how you want the people of Chicago to see you it really does
feel underutilized.
As for the
games controls, I strongly recommend that you use a controller to play the game
if you have one available because Watch_Dogs
control scheme is very much set up with a consoles in mind. To be brutally
honest the only area where the game does well with keyboard and mouse is the
shooting, other than that the rest of the game is very much controller base
which, annoyingly, includes the in-game menu’s such as Aiden’s phone and the
weapon select wheel which are all set up to be controlled via an analogue stick
rather than a mouse. For some reason the game also has horrendous mouse acceleration on the pause and main menus for some
reason. No doubt more examples of a shoddily done port if I’m not mistaken but
then, how could I be when Ubisoft have given me some much evidence to work
with.
I
suppose I should also mention the multiplayer mode of Watch_Dogs. Now when I first heard about it I was pretty much
filled with dread as friends started to plan and threaten with going into each
other’s games simply to troll but thankfully though this is far from the case.
Granted you go into another person’s game but, from what I’ve seen and played,
the player you face off against is always random and as for the game modes
themselves, each is a new idea and though the multiplayer is a touch more
limited than many would like and apart from the online hacking/invasion mode
where you enter another players game and hack their phone while they try to
find and stop you, or in the case of invasion mode; the roles are reversed,
most of the multiplayer is the same stuff we’ve seen before in over games such
as GTA V such as racing and capture the flag. As such there’s not a lot of
variety to it sort of the one fun new idea but hey, at least that one idea is
an entertaining one.
Also
before moving on, a quick letter to Ubisoft…
Dear Ubisoft, Stop using Uplay already! It’s bad
enough that I couldn’t play the game on the day I got it for nearly 2 hours
(with many people not being able to play at all) because your piss-poor servers
fell on their faces but on top of that, even though you put your game on Steam you still force me to log into
your Uplay client as well as Steam in
order to play your damn game. I
don’t need two damn middle men between me and my bloody game! So please, just
kill of Uplay already.
And with that, I guess all that’s
left is to note down my final thoughts on the matter. Now I’m pretty sure most
of you can see that, yes, Watch_Dogs was massively over hyped over the last couple of years and yes, there
was no way that it was ever going to live up to the expectations that everyone
thrust upon and it also under delivers in multiple areas. But, even with all
that ill-gotten hype surrounding it, Watch_Dogs
is far from the bad game that so many people keep saying it is and in actual
fact I really did enjoy it but at the same time I also know it has many things
wrong with it (for cry out loud I’ve just written most of them down) but no
game is perfect and when you look past all the buggery that Ubisoft dumped upon
it you see a new IP taking its first shaky steps into the world and yet still
able to shine as a great game, much like Assassin’s Creed 1 before it, and I honestly
hope to see it go onto do great things if placed into some more capable hands.
Maybe a better story and some more freedom to explore. A more interesting
protagonist and a better use of cast as if at all possible, and heck maybe some
fleshing out on the multiplayer would be nice as well but then, I’m not Ubisoft
so hell if I know what’s going to happen with the next game but…until that next
game is released, I guess all I have left to do is say that Watch_Dogs is available right now from Steam for £39.99 or your regional
equivalent or if you wish to empty your wallet you can also buy one of the 5 limited editions via the Uplay client
of Ubisoft’s online store (availability may vary) for anything
between £50 - £95.
And with all that said and done I
hereby give Watch_Dogs a solid…
7/10
(Great
Game)
And with that Ladies and Gentlemen. I’m the Guardian,
and I thank you dearly for reading. Farewell and be safe.
No comments:
Post a Comment