Guest Review: Watch_Dogs (PS4 Version)

(This review was guest written by Bioware enthusiast and Australia Day celebrator Ryan Mains)

So...Watch_Dogs. What can I truly, honestly say about Ubisoft's ambitious open-world hacking game that hasn't already been said? Well, I suppose to make it easier, I'll break it into parts. NOTE: To justify the use of that picture, I will refer to the game as Watch_Doge from here on out. 

Story

  Seriously, the DVD costs 12 dollars.
You have no excuse. 

Watch_Doge's story focuses largely on Aiden Pearce, a hacker who, after the murder of his niece during an attempt on his life, embarks on a path of revenge against the criminals responsible. In doing so, he uncovers a much larger conspiracy that is strangely absent from the game's promotional material. Watch_Doge major issue is that the actually interesting characters don't receive enough time in the plot, like sociopathic fixer Jordi Chin or mob boss Lucky Quinn, and are instead shafted in favor of less interesting (and sometimes ridiculous) characters, like French/Swedish/vaguely European hacker Clara Lille and stereotypical gangsta/top enforcer Anthony "Iraq" Warde. (Why is it
so hard to write realistic black characters in a world where The Wire exists?)

On that note, that lets me talk about a major pet peeve of mine that is in every Ubisoft game. Essentially, the game introduces a big bad for one mission, then has them vanish for much of the plot in favor of their top enforcer, who actually drives the plot forward. For instance, Woodes Rogers to Governor Torres in AssCreed4, Cesare Borgia to The Spainard in AssCreed: Brotherhood, Vaas Montengro to Hoyt Volker in Far Cry 3, and yes, Iraq to Lucky Quinn in Watch_Doge. Why do we

introduce major villains only for them to play hardly any role in the actual plot? While I get it builds suspense for the villian's actual appearance, it also leaves me disappointed. I got my big climactic battle with the enforcer and crushed his army after killing him, why should I care about you, useless old man hiding behind a wall?

The only other major issue story-wise is that the supporting cast is kinda sorta way more interesting than Aiden, who is kind of a bland, generic anti-hero. I get his motivations, but his only real emotions are anger, sadness, and this vague look that can be described as that feeling you get when you have other work to do, but you have to sit through a boring lecture in class. Every member of Aiden's team deserves a DLC pack dedicated to them. Heck, T-Bone already got his. Where's Jordi's epic Hitman-esque DLC pack? That'd be great. Watch_Doge also semi-remedies the whole "weaksauce Big Bad needs plot-driving enforcer" cliche by giving us Damien Brenks, Aiden's hacking mentor and the true final villain of the game. Damien carries himself with such a chummy, smug bravado that he dominates every scene he's in, and the final confrontation with him is one of the most memorable endgames since the battle of Denerim in Dragon Age: Origins.

Anyway, Watch_Doge plot is a pretty strong revenge thriller/tech noir with an interesting cast of side characters, traditional Ubisoft cliches aside.

Overall Story Score: 4 out of 5

Gameplay

Watch_Doge shooting gameplay is solid, if somewhat infuriating, as the sheer amount of enemies for gunfights tends to cause the game to devolve into bullethell, with frustrating deaths ensured. The stealth gameplay, in which the player uses hacking, darkness, and a whacking stick to their advantage, is much more enjoyable thanks to the ever broken silenced Colt M1911 that works as Aiden's main weapon and renders the majority of guns useless because of how it's much easier to slow time and land headshots than it is to spray and pray. There's a certain thrill to distracting an enemy, clubbing him over the head, then darting into cover just as a sniper spots you.

Of course, when the enemy inevitably flees, you have to get in a car chase. And that's where the driving system rears its ugly head. Essentially, cars turn into ice skates as soon as you go a little too fast, trucks are useless and slow, and motorcycles are fun, if absurdly dangerous. The driving system doesn't feel quite as realistic as it should, as you hurtle irreparably out of control down the street, try to turn, and slide into a wall that immediately breaks as soon as you hit it. This is especially annoying in car chases, when the enemy apparently has telekinesis and can keep his goddamn truck in line while my sports car flies off a cliff because I'm trying to make a left turn.

Another notable thing not mentioned in promotions is the Digital Trips, in which Aiden stops to take a hallucinogenic drug that causes apparently awesome minigames. The best one of the four is Spider Tank, in which the player controls Aiden as he falls in love with an immortal woman, grows old, and dies as Queen's "Who Wants To Live Forever?" plays in the background. Just kidding, it's totally about Aiden rampaging around in a spider tank. The game has just the right amount of destructive mayhem to be enjoyable and never get old. The second best minigames is Psychedelic, in which Aiden bounces around on flowers, laughing and smiling like an actual character, as music straight out of the Great Gatsby plays. The minigames has a certain comedic quality that makes me love it so much. Of course, Madness, a driving game is enjoyable, because it's narrated by Damien, and Watch_Doge driving controls are not garbage just for a little bit. And then there's Alone, a bizarre Alan Wake-esque stealth experience, that is supposed to represent Aiden's guilt by having him...get
haunted by lighthouse monsters? Of course, people will disagree with me over the best and worst minigames, because that's just how minigames work. 

Anyway, the side missions in Watch_Doge are enjoyable, even if each one ends in a comically bad anti-climax. My favorite was Missing Persons, in which Aiden hunts a serial killer who poses his victims in strange fashions and leaves audio messages in which he describes a mysterious godlike voice urging him to kill people, which is either clever satire mocking bloodthirsty gamers or an awkward attempt to reference the cosmic horror elements of AssCreed. 

There's only room for one cosmic
horror detective story in my life. 

There's also Gun Shipping, in which you follow a series of weapon crates to a mysterious supplier, Human Trafficking, where Aiden busts a prostitution ring, and QR codes, in which Aiden uncovers a conspiracy within Dedsec, a shady Anonymous-expy that is somehow even more annoying. The major issue with each of the side quests is that they don't end with a particularly large setpiece. When you complete these missions, you usually just end up getting in a small gunfight or brief car chase. At the end of the 16 QR missions, you literally just hold down square for 5 seconds and defeat another hacker. I really don't like investing hours of time for nothing. 

Well, I suppose that's all the major gameplay features, and on a scale of 1 to 5, I'd give this a-OHRIGHTTHEHACKING. The hacking is by far the most interesting twist Ubisoft brings to Watch_Doge. Aiden can often use it to turn combat in his favor or offer interesting twists to missions, like following an enemy through a building with cameras or directing allies to safety. It can also be used to lose enemies in car chases, thought the rubber band AI makes it less about losing them and more about evading them long enough to hide. Chase sequences got less annoying when I figured that out. 

Another cool feature of the hacking is hacking phones. Normally, you use this to steal money from people, but since the game's missions gives you all the guns and cars for free, I use it to listen in on people's conversations. These conversations can range from funny (a man describes accidentally joining a technology-free cult) to crass and misogynistic (a guy justifies hitting his girlfriend, while another describes cheating on her with her sister) to downright sad (a man dying of cancer receives a phone call from his son). The conversations breath a surprisingly large amount of life into the city of Chicago, and can actually make you pause before you pull the trigger on an enemy. 

Overall, Watch_Doge gameplay is solid, with the hacking adding a neat twist, despite disappointing mission structure. 

Overall Gameplay Score: 4 out of 5

Graphics

I suppose I should get this out of the way. Watch_Doge's graphics are nowhere near the quality of the original demo shown at E3 2012, which is disappointing because Ubisoft's exact explanation for this is "Well, tough cookies." All in all, the graphics are pretty good, though nowhere near Skyrim or Assassins Creed levels of quality. 

Overall Graphics Score: 3 out of 5

Music

The licensed music tracks are rather hit-and-miss, as for every Break It Down or I Shall Not Be Moved, there is a Dangerous Tonight to drag it down. The game's background music is, however, fantastic, giving the game an excellent technoire feel. 

Overall Music Score: 4 out of 5

Final Grades

All in all, it's rather tragic that Watch_Doge never turned out the way it should have been. It could have been a masterpiece, but delays set it back. I almost don't want to give it a rating, because Ubisoft tried so hard and I can see the obvious effort here and there. But rate it, I shall. Ultimately, Watch_Doge is an ambitious game that simply couldn't live up to its own hype, but managed to be an enjoyable game nonetheless. 

Overall: 15 out of 20

Score: 75%

Notes

>Turns out there's actually a trope for the whole "enforcer is much more dangerous than the big bad" cliche: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DragonInChief 

>A lot of the music I liked was hardcore rap, strangely. *insert Pretty Fly for a White Guy joke*

>I really hope that they make a Jordi DLC, seeing as how T-Bone got one.