This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/27/watch-dogs-review-round-up-ubisoft
The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| Watch Dogs review round-up – can it live up to expectations? | Watch Dogs review round-up – can it live up to expectations? |
| (3 months later) | |
| At the E3 video game event in Los Angeles two years ago, one new announcement stole the show. It was Watch Dogs, a seemingly ambitious cyber thriller all about data security, surveillance and hacking – it couldn't have been more timely. | At the E3 video game event in Los Angeles two years ago, one new announcement stole the show. It was Watch Dogs, a seemingly ambitious cyber thriller all about data security, surveillance and hacking – it couldn't have been more timely. |
| What Ubisoft promised went beyond the technological considerations of our online culture. Watch Dogs would consider the moral implications of centralised computer systems, CCTV observation and trusting our personal data to corporations. And it would build these into a story. Vigilante hero Aiden Pearce was once a hacker-for-hire, happy to jack in for anyone if the price was right – but then he uncovered a little too much info on a rich client and a family member was murdered. So Pearce sets out for revenge, using his PDA to hack into everything from the city's sewer system to the phones of passers-by. How you use this information is a key element of the action. | What Ubisoft promised went beyond the technological considerations of our online culture. Watch Dogs would consider the moral implications of centralised computer systems, CCTV observation and trusting our personal data to corporations. And it would build these into a story. Vigilante hero Aiden Pearce was once a hacker-for-hire, happy to jack in for anyone if the price was right – but then he uncovered a little too much info on a rich client and a family member was murdered. So Pearce sets out for revenge, using his PDA to hack into everything from the city's sewer system to the phones of passers-by. How you use this information is a key element of the action. |
| It seems some reviewers have really connected with the idea of hacker as a moral agent. "Occasionally, I would hesitate to put a bullet in a guard's head if I knew his wife was expecting a child, but I rarely had reservations about murdering a prison escapee," writes GameSpot's, Kevin VanOrd. "I was deciding whose life had greater value, and I'm grateful that Watch Dogs, in its own subtle way, led me to ponder why I would prize one man over another" | |
| Games rarely make us think of enemies as functioning human beings with lives beyond the three-seconds their head is in our rifle sights, so this is compelling stuff. | Games rarely make us think of enemies as functioning human beings with lives beyond the three-seconds their head is in our rifle sights, so this is compelling stuff. |
| Far Cry + Assassin's Creed + GTA ≠ innovation | |
| But while all this was interesting, others saw in Watch Dogs an amalgamation of other big open-world blockbusters – at least two by Ubisoft itself. From the Eurogamer review: | But while all this was interesting, others saw in Watch Dogs an amalgamation of other big open-world blockbusters – at least two by Ubisoft itself. From the Eurogamer review: |
| Aside from the inevitable debt owed to Grand Theft Auto - over 10 years on from GTA 3, we're still carjacking and stunt-jumping around virtual cities - the echoes of other games are loud. The way Aiden jogs and clambers as he navigates back alleys and rooftops, with you holding down the shoulder button to seamlessly vault and climb, is reminiscent of Assassin's Creed, for example - though without that game's nimble verticality and vertiginous parkour. | |
| You won't be scaling any sheer walls or taking flying leaps here, but you will be barging through crowds and working your way around CtOS towers, each of which unlocks more map icons and side missions. That's much the same as the lookout towers from Assassin's Creed but also identical in function to the enemy outposts of Far Cry 3. Call it Ubisoft's house style, if you like, but it leaves Watch Dogs feeling more like a greatest hits compilation than a distinct title. | |
| And that's fine in a lot of ways. The great thing about Ubisoft's triforce of open-world brands is that player experimentation is always encouraged. "Watch Dogs is, if you’ll pardon the cliche, a thinking-person’s open-world game," says Arthur Gies on Polygon. "In the first half of the game, I scrounged what gear I could, making do to find solutions to the situations I was presented. Maybe an IED would have worked to take out a cluster of troops, but there were none to be found — instead I triggered a forklift and, when enemies went to investigate, detonated a junction box, which cleared up my problem nicely." | |
| The sense of being | The sense of being |
| There's an intriguing lack of consistency on the subject of Chicago as a sandbox though. Jim Sterling on Escapist writes that "Watch Dogs' ultimate triumph is in just how alive it makes Chicago feel. More than Saints Row, more than even Grand Theft Auto V, Ubisoft's Chicago feels populated, thriving, buzzing with life. There's an ambience to it, a sense of belonging to the world that no other city-based game has managed to capture as well. From the amount of civilians on display, to the random snippets of conversation and the bundles of optional content and dialogue, Watch Dogs' world is satisfying to simply be a part of." | |
| But while Polygon concedes that there are a lot of people to interact with and side-quests to get lost in, for the most part the extraneous activities feel like less interesting riffs on the main narrative missions. Which sounds like pretty much every open-world adventure, but there you go. | But while Polygon concedes that there are a lot of people to interact with and side-quests to get lost in, for the most part the extraneous activities feel like less interesting riffs on the main narrative missions. Which sounds like pretty much every open-world adventure, but there you go. |
| What everyone seems to agree on, is that Watch Dogs isn't so lost in its hacking culture dynamic that it forgets the basics: the shooting system is slick and fun, the cover system works and the vehicle handling is exciting. What's more, all of this elements are enhanced by the player's ability to set up traps and blocks with the PDA, like lifting a draw bridge during a car case, for example. | What everyone seems to agree on, is that Watch Dogs isn't so lost in its hacking culture dynamic that it forgets the basics: the shooting system is slick and fun, the cover system works and the vehicle handling is exciting. What's more, all of this elements are enhanced by the player's ability to set up traps and blocks with the PDA, like lifting a draw bridge during a car case, for example. |
| You're a hero not a hacker | You're a hero not a hacker |
| Ultimately though, all the stuff Ubisoft was originally pushing – the idea of exploring the data state; the personal ramifications of observation – seem to be underexplored. Hacking itself is, as in most other games that feature it, just a locked door puzzle. "When you do get to actually hack into things at a system level, it's via a tired old PipeMania-style puzzle where you rotate pieces to guide a blue power line to a goal," yawns Eurogamer. | |
| As for morality - it's hinted at when you hack into the phones of potential victims or just people passing in the street and realising how much power you have other the lives of others. But the wider questions may well be left unanswered. Eurogamer again: | As for morality - it's hinted at when you hack into the phones of potential victims or just people passing in the street and realising how much power you have other the lives of others. But the wider questions may well be left unanswered. Eurogamer again: |
| I kept waiting for the game to offer some shift in perspective, some commentary, that made Aiden's insufferable nature more palatable or interesting, but it never came. By the end, he is all but positioned as a superhero. Nor does Watch Dogs have anything to say about the surveillance state, or about questions of privacy and identity in a data-driven world, despite using these topics to drive so much of its gameplay and story. | |
| Meanwhile, the game's array of fairly standard multiplayer modes are faintly praised. The standout of course is the "Invasion" mode which lets players storm into the games of others setting up mini-head-to-head challenges. From Destructoid: | Meanwhile, the game's array of fairly standard multiplayer modes are faintly praised. The standout of course is the "Invasion" mode which lets players storm into the games of others setting up mini-head-to-head challenges. From Destructoid: |
| Much like a Souls game, players can invade your playthrough (you'll show up as an NPC on their screen) and choose to "hack you" for fun and profit. | |
| The victim will then have to find and identify the invader alongside of all the innocent NPCs before the hack is complete, which makes for some interesting gameplay reminiscent of Assassin's Creed multiplayer modes. This can lead to a ton of really cool shootouts or chases, and the intimate one-on-one nature leads to some fun moments. | |
| This is intriguing stuff, and is perhaps the one aspect of Watch Dogs that really reaches and even surpasses what the marketing hype was tempting us with two years ago. | This is intriguing stuff, and is perhaps the one aspect of Watch Dogs that really reaches and even surpasses what the marketing hype was tempting us with two years ago. |
| So, the consensus is that Watch Dogs is a very solid, extremely well-produced open-world adventure, with some neat ideas and a few nods toward information age paranoia. But it isn't as clever or philosophical as it thinks it is, and in its world, hacking is often just another button to press to kill the enemy in an interesting way. Hacking as smart bomb. Most players will be happy with that – as long as they weren't watching the coverage from E3 2012 and looking forward to a game that asked deep questions about identity, privacy and responsibility in the digital era. | So, the consensus is that Watch Dogs is a very solid, extremely well-produced open-world adventure, with some neat ideas and a few nods toward information age paranoia. But it isn't as clever or philosophical as it thinks it is, and in its world, hacking is often just another button to press to kill the enemy in an interesting way. Hacking as smart bomb. Most players will be happy with that – as long as they weren't watching the coverage from E3 2012 and looking forward to a game that asked deep questions about identity, privacy and responsibility in the digital era. |
| • Destructoid – 8/10• Escapist – 4.5/5• Eurogamer – 7/10• GameSpot – 8/10• Polygon – 8/10 | • Destructoid – 8/10• Escapist – 4.5/5• Eurogamer – 7/10• GameSpot – 8/10• Polygon – 8/10 |
| • Our review of Watch Dogs will arrive later in the week as we required longer with the game, and want to test the multiplayer component on public servers. | • Our review of Watch Dogs will arrive later in the week as we required longer with the game, and want to test the multiplayer component on public servers. |
| • Watch Dogs – freedom and morality in open-world games | • Watch Dogs – freedom and morality in open-world games |
| • Watch Dogs is a wake-up call on internet security | • Watch Dogs is a wake-up call on internet security |