Watch Dogs
What is it? Watchdogs is an open-world sandbox game where you take on the role of Aiden Pierce, a badass hacker with a shady past and some really deep seated issues. You roam the streets of Chicago, take down baddies, learn about the mob and control the city infrastructure itself.
While the Watchdogs E3 2012 trailer made bold promises of a visual feast, Ubisoft didn’t hold up their end of the bargain at release, as its not quite the visual feast we were waiting for.
Watchdogs is Ubisoft’s take on a modern day open world, with elements of hacking, driving and shooting. Chicago is almost modelled to a tee which gives a more authentic feel than what we’d find in say, the Rockstar universe. One can spend hours just driving and looking at the sites, with little bites of history worked into the game as a nice touch, but you may find yourself spending just as much time hacking your way into other people’s lives, stealing their money or learning their secrets.
Combat works similar to GTA, increased with some fun use of the environment courtesy of Aiden’s abilities to hack technology. Driving was a bit tricky to get the hang of, but once you get it down, an okay experience. The storyline and interesting characters make up for driving flaws and gives it a fresh edge and unique dark feeling.
Overall a good buy, plenty of story hours and lots of fun stuff on the side to keep you busy.
Guest Reviewer: Danny Badenhorst
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal | PC, PS3/4, Xbox 360/One | Metacritic: 80%
Nick de Bruyne August 21, 2014
I’ve personally been struggling a lot to get into the game, I’ve had more than one night now where I actually just stop playing, not because it’s late or because I’m stuck, but just because it feels like it runs out of steam and I’d rather be doing something else instead. As such a hyped up next-gen title, I’m rather disappointed I must say.
Michelle September 1, 2014
There was too much hype and not enough to keep me into the game.
The story was just not that gripping and neither were the characters.
I enjoyed blowing stuff up around people and stealing cars,but I’m kinda glad to be done with it but feel disappointed in the game.
Nick de Bruyne September 15, 2014
Yeah I must agree. I loaned it from a friend, and found myself uninterested in continuing after a couple of nights of play. I don’t know if it’s GTA that set the bar for open worlds too high or what, but it all just felt empty. I also wasn’t a fan of the contextual controls.