Review of Watch Dogs

The hype of Ubisoft's sandbox game called Watch Dogs was tremendous! The idea of a game that allows you to hack an entire city and its citizens sounds great! And the trailers seemed seamless and beautiful! What could be better than a digitally hackable Grand Theft Auto?

You play as Aiden Pierce, a freelance contract hacker in Chicago. He and his partner hacked the wrong person. In retaliation, they attacked Pierce, which lead to the death of his niece. Now, he is a normal man turned vigilante, trying to clean up the city he loves from the growing population of criminals, and trying to find those responsible for the death of his beloved niece. Meanwhile, an IT company named Blume Corporations has developed a 'Big Brother' surveillance protocol ( ctOS ) to help the city with its growing criminal situation, and a hacker group Pierce associates with want him to attack the ctOS and discover the secrets behind Blume's true intentions.

Now, this is great, right?! Family issues and government conspiracies sounds freaking awesome, right?!

Well, from a personal point of view, I was slightly let down that it was Pierce's niece and not a wife or daughter that was killed. Granted, family is family, but to have the drive to tear the city apart digitally requires more of a personal connection to the main player in my opinion. Who knows, though? Maybe the game produces flashbacks and backstories of why she was so important to him... But if it did, I never got there. More on that later.

The game allows you to stop crime throughout the city of Chicago by different means. One option is by clearing out Gang Hangouts, where you must take down (but not kill) the gang leader in a given area, but you can kill the legion of thugs it takes to get to him. The cool thing is that you can sneak undetected by these ass-hats by hacking equipment and electronics that are hooked up to the ctOS, or you can pull out your biggest and loudest gun and shoot everyone who stands between you and the gang leader! But if he gets spooked, then he may try to run. This is where things get interesting! If he runs then you will have to chase him down! Which is cool... until he gets into a vehicle. You can ram into him, but the game doesn't allow you to shoot from inside the car! So shooting the tires (or him) from inside the car isn't possible. You have to use your phone to hack into the ctOS to mess with traffic lights, steam pipes, street barriers, ramps and bridges to stop the bad guys in their tracks. When his car is wrecked, he'll get out and then you have to run up to him (yes, while he is trying to decorate your chest cavity with bullets) and do a brutal, yet non-lethal, take down on him to teach him and any surviving gang member that they are not untouchable.

And there are other things such as contracts that range from being a distraction for cops to aid someone else's escape or transporting vehicles from one corner of the map to the other... like 3 times back to back! And much more!

The most predominant thing is that when you are hacked into the area ctOS, the system predicts criminal activities in the area before they occur based on personal profiling! So, you can bring justice swift and quick like. Except you have to time it right. If you try to come to the rescue before an actual crime gets committed, everyone involved looks at you like you are some weirdo that runs up to people with weapons drawn expecting them to continue to do criminal activities. I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to run to the rescue to find out I was a few seconds too soon and I look like a dickhead, gun wielding psycho.

And that isn't it. There is a drug that allows you to go on a "Digital Trip," where the game changes and allows you to do weirder than normal stuff. These games range from controlling a gigantic mechanical spider that causes chaos throughout the city to another mode where you are hiding from alien abductors! Sounds simple but it is extremely fun.

A few of the other Digital Trips require DLCs but there are other games. Around the city there are digital mini-games. One of which you have to run around digital Pac-Man like ghosts to collects coins and another one where you have to shoot invading aliens! There are also a few urban style mini-games like 'find the 1 ball under the 3 cups', or drinking games or even some casino slot games to play to get some extra green.

Seriously, this game has so much to do! And that tends to be the problem.

Remember when I said I never got around to learning more about Aiden's relationship with his niece and other family members ... or much of the story at all? That is because trying to get from Point A and Point B to continue the story, so many things are available in-between these two points that it literally takes forever to get from one point to another! Because there is so many things to do in the game that it is hard to want to or find time to actually progress in the game.

Another thing that the game tries to do is make you think about the people you hack. Thanks to hacking the ctOS, you can take money from the bank accounts from certain people in the world! Which is great! More money in your bank, right? However, I saw that one of the people I took money from was a single parent of 6! How can you take money from a single mother who tries to raise six children by herself? And there are other people with problems and situations like they just got evicted from their household while others had a relative die or have a terminal disease or they work for charity. Now, I know that most gamers go "F*** Em" but I started to overlook certain people who were having difficulties in life ( because I can relate to their day to day struggles ) and let them keep their hard earned money. The game doesn't give or take away points, per se, but I think it comes to a gamer's moral compass in this case.

But I am sure that goes over a lot of gamer's head but for me ( or people like me ) my moral compass weighs a lot on me.

Watch Dogs also has a multiplayer mode. In the multiplayer mood, you can hack other actual players IN THEIR OWN GAME! If they are running around in Free Roam, then you can hack into their phone. But once you hack into their phone, they'll know and they'll have to hunt you down by using their phone to profile you as the hacker. You can hide in a car or in a crowd. They can cause chaos to decipher a computerized response or a player's delay response in the world. Their are also street races you are participate in. However that is virtually it.

However, if you are one the Xbox One or PS4, you have PvP modes like ( Team ) DeathMatch and Retaliation which is triggered after someone hacks you!

However, I do not have the newer consoles so I'm stuck with the limited version.

All in all, the game is entertaining, even though it is little lacking for the hype it received. I wished there were more hacking options ( granted there are a lot you could hack into to mess with ) but the game allows the player a lot of fun. 60$ fun? Oh hell no! But if you could get the game for less than 15$ then pick this up, definitely. Not a GTA or anything but definitely a fun and interesting and enjoyable attempt.

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