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I thought I would change it up a bit this month and instead of doing a card review I will be taking a look at Watchdogs. Watchdogs was tremendously hyped before release, advertisements were plastered on bus stops, billboards and were spammed on twitch.tv/YouTube. Since this game came bundled with the NVIDIA GTX 700 line of graphics cards I decided to give this game a look and review it.

Initial thoughts

The graphics are impressive. The game looks really detailed on my GTX 780. But in all honesty it should. Having a look at the system requirements is a little daunting, thankfully I just got a new PC otherwise I wouldn’t have stood a chance. The game itself feels a lot like the Grand Theft Auto series, apart from you can hack things like traffic lights and see what “occupation” everyone has. Also on the topic of graphics they seem to change a lot for me. For instance during the spider tank audio trip (the video down a bit further) the graphics are stunning. The water is stunning. The trees however can be random. Sometimes they look great, other times they look like something out of Minecraft.


This video by Paul Vlasie, the lead PC engineer on Watchdogs, gives a more indepth look at some of the specialist technology such as HBAO+ and TXAA by NVIDIA. Paul goes through and explains quite nicely how these technologies helped create some of the stunning visual effects ingame.


Gameplay

The gameplay was really fun. I intially enjoyed using the cameras to find different angles and hack my way through missions. This non-lethal approach to completing missions was pretty challenging at times as you had to come up with a way of getting past guards with only what was available to you. Then I discovered guns. And how I can simply finish said missions in roughly ¼ of the time if I just went in blazing. I think you have to be really patient to play the game in the non-lethal approach, I just got bored of it. I also struggled playing out the storyline as Aiden is completely unrelateable to me. His ideals and notions are incredibly naïve and the fact that he places no value on individual life is psychotic. In my mind the whole “the end justifies the means” is complete garbage. This may have been part of the game design as towards the end if you collect enough of the side material you do see a change in Aiden. But for the most part he just comes off as some hell-bent psycho, obsessed with revenge and no grip on reality. Also it’s a bit strange when you go walking down the street and everyone goes “Oh that’s the vigilante”. Well damn if the everyday person knows who I am then why haven’t the feds busted down my door yet.


Hacking the bridge to go up as I escape from the cops works a treat! The game reminds me a lot of Need for Speed: Most Wanted in that regard. You can blow things up, make the traffic lights go so all the cars get in the way of the cops along with other things to help you escape.



The most interesting part of the game for me is hacking into random conversations or just looking at peoples data. You get your classic “Sends strongly worded letters” and sometimes completely contradictory occupations to their data. Such as “Works in an abortion clinic” with “Pro Life”. However this can get a little frustrating, especially on missions when the guard who is “newly married” is standing right next to the guard who is an ex-convict. Do I kill both or just one? Hmmm. It’s not like Grand Theft Auto where you can drive over a hooker not knowing a thing about them. In Watchdogs they try and make these characters a little more real. This was kinda interesting in my mind, but I did struggle with it a bit.




While you can’t see it in the screenshot, his friend right next to him is a several times convicted felon. The game now gives me the decision do I kill the “criminal” and let the newlywed live? Or do I kill the newlywed? Well unfortunately for both of them I was in a rush, since this is one of the earliest missions that I redid for the sake of showing my point. They both died.



The side missions/extra content are what really make this game worthwhile for me. The “digital trips” although described poorly are completely awesome. Controlling a huge mechanical spider that has inbuilt machine guns and rocket launchers was definitely one of my highlights! The Texas hold’em poker is also a bit of fun, but you can use the cameras to see your opponents cards and also use your phone to check their stress levels to see if they are bluffing. A little too convenient if you ask me. There is a reason to complete these side missions as well, as they reward items and can also train several of your skills on completion. Thankfully they don’t just give you pure cash as cash isn’t really all that helpful in Watchdogs. By the end of the game you don’t really have any use for it and if you need some you can just hack some poor sod walking down the street.





Watchdogs also has a multi-player function or "Online Contracts" which constantly pings you asking to play with people. I finally gave in to its demands after a few hours and decided to try it. It was actually quite fun. There are separate missions available which either pit you against, or make you co-ordinate with other players. In one contract you have to hack another player and install a backdoor into their network, their job is to find and kill you. So basically hide and go seek with a twist. These modes also reward you with "progression" which basically means if you do well in multi-player, you get bonus stuff. This was a little frustrating when I tried the racing and people had nitrous tanks and I didn't, it seemed a little unfair! The multi-player is basically fun for your first couple of attempts, but pretty tame after that. I generally didn't play a mode again after I won it, which sometimes took longer than I care to admit.

Overall

I’m not really a fan of rating a game /10 based on my own subjective opinion, so I will make it simple. If you currently have a system capable of running Watchdogs, then grab it when it eventually goes on sale. If you need to replace parts of your system to play Watchdogs, then don’t bother. It is simply not worth it. Overall I enjoyed multiple elements of this game, however much like games such as Far Cry 3 it had no re-play value for me. But if you enjoy the Grand Theft Auto genre, then this game is probably worthwhile. It just doesn't really live up to all the hype that it generated through its advertising.