Watch Dogs
Developed by Ubisoft Montreal
Published by Ubisoft
” They think I’m a man out of control…..but I’ve never had so much control ”
The Story
You are Aiden Pearce, a hacker trying to make quick money by siphoning bank accounts using a hacking device known as the Profiler.Aiden tries to hack accounts around the Merlout hotel which houses a variety of very wealthy people but soon decides to opt out despite his partner Damiens protests. Soon after Aiden is driving along a tunnel with his niece Lena Pearce, however things take a turn for the worse when a hitman shows up and shoots out the tire of Aidens car killing Lena in the process, Aiden swears revenge on the people responsible for Lena’s death and will stop at nothing until he gets it.
The Gameplay
Watch Dogs is an Open World 3rd person shooter, similar to GTA but with different elements that set it apart, most notably is the fact that you can hack pretty much everything from Traffic lights and Bridges to Steam pipes and Cameras, I love how easy it is to do this and it integrates very well into combat as well as traveling in a car and combat in a car. the shooter mechanics are nothing too special but there are a good variety of weapons but with how quickly you can acquire money through hacking bank accounts the best weapons can be obtained from the beginning of the game. The player can’t shoot from the seat of a car so Watch Dogs forces you to take down enemy vehicles in other ways such as disrupting the Traffic lights to cause a crash or bringing up road blockers to make the fleeing vehicle smash into them, I personally enjoy this mechanic as it makes you think and doesn’t have you mindlessly shooting away at the other car. Watch Dogs also has a stealth system which works pretty well.
The Sound
Probably Watch Dogs weakest link, the soundtrack isn’t too interesting especially when driving, there are some decent songs like Kid Cudi – Day n Night & Help is on the Way – Rise Against but it’s done in a style I’m not familiar with in that the background music on most of the songs are different so most of the time traveling I put in earphones and listened to my own music or just turned the music off altogether. The voice acting in Watch Dogs for me isn’t very good especially for Aiden, it doesn’t help me to feel for the characters when they don’t put on a good performance, it just makes Aiden feel like a zombie with no personality. as a side note I know if you’ve lost a loved one like Aiden has you can probably expect the character to be down in the dumps all the time, but the same thing happened with Joel from The Last Of Us and he was arguably the best character from that game.
The Graphics
The graphics on Watch Dogs look fantastic however they are not quite as good as they were originally made out to be. The cars, people and buildings all look realistic and are quite impressive however they are not the best graphics on the PlayStation 3.
Lasting Appeal
Watch Dogs has a pretty meaty campaign which I beat in about 8-10 hours in total but the real selling point of Watch Dogs is the side activities such as stopping crimes before they take place Minority Report style…well maybe not that cool, a lot of the activities are the same but it’s still a nice distraction.
Final Thoughts
Overall Watch Dogs is a good take on the Open World genre, while it’s sound design is pretty poor, the gameplay and story make Watch Dogs a overall good experience
My Score = 8/10
The Good
- Very well worked gameplay
- Good Story
- Plenty of re-playability
- Car Chases
- Decent Visuals
The Bad
- Bad voice acting
- Uninteresting characters
Watch Dogs is available from all good retailers right now. Thanks go to Ubisoft for supplying the game and assets used in this review. Be sure to let me know what you thought of the review in the comments section below and be sure to stay tuned to UGNN for all your gaming news and reviews and remember to follow us on WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Reddit & YouTube.
Review by Matt Mcnamee