Watch Dogs. A revolutionary next-generation game that would allow converts to smugly stand above their cynical partners, showing off a new era of open world gaming and visual fidelity. This is the game that was going to change the industry and we should still be fawning over it, shouldn’t we?
If any game could qualify as “Most Overrated” this year, it’d be Watch Dogs. Some people may love it, and to its credit, Watch Dogs is (usually) a passable time full of things to do. A serviceable shooter wrapped in a bland plot and iffy controls, Watch Dogs’ unambitious world of last generation visuals and uninspired gameplay can’t help but produce a sigh all too alien to the applause it garnered two years past.
In the harsher reality of the game’s release, it’s clear to see that Watch Dogs fails to live up to the hype, not by a hair, but an all-consuming chasm. Instead, gamers were given a sub-standard open world game that hardly pushes the envelope forward. Watch Dogs stuffs our hopes and dreams into a duffle bag, stuffing it in a closet for the sequel that’ll simply “get it right next time.”
The main reason why Watch Dogs feels like a shackled Playstation 4 and Xbox One game is the fact that it is cross-gen, straddling the gap between old and new and as a result, giving gamers a glimpse at the dark side of gaming’s undercarriage. It is obvious that the limitations of the older hardware massively hinders Watch Dogs’ attempt at creating a revolutionary experience.
Less power means that, on consoles, Watch Dogs is miles away from the visual fidelity seen at E3 a couple of years back. Ubisoft surely knew the limitations of how far they could cram the game onto two generations of hardware, and the game looks stale, simple, and severely underwhelming for it.
The city of Chicago looks slightly shinier and sharper on PS4, likewise with character models, resulting in a breath of self-delusion as you try and persuade yourself that it’s a worthy visual upgrade. People still suffer from jerky animations and Muppet-like facial animations. The immersive particles and minute detail seen at the game’s debut trailer are nonexistent, making the world fall short of the price point of buying a new gaming console.
Compared to the wider array of graphical fidelity on PCs, consoles are more streamlined with little room for visual tinkering, and it shows. The PS4 version of Watch Dogs hardly looks like a PS4 game, made even worse by the beautifully rendered Seattle of Infamous: Second Son which only rubs salt in Ubisoft’s visual wound with arguably the most beautiful graphics ever seen on a Playstation console since Ratchet & Clank‘s last-gen adventures.
When people expect a next generation AAA title, they expect mind blowing eye porn. That Watch Dogs feels like a visual failure by contrast is only the beginning of its problems.
Watch Dogs promised to open up the open world through it’s hacking feature, giving players a deity level control over the puny city. In reality though, the overwhelming power enabled by the game’s main USP is once again muzzled by Ubisoft’s cross-gen insistence.
After the ten hour mark and once you have upgraded all of the hacking abilities, you see everything Watch Dogs has to offer in terms of gameplay. You know how to explode steam pipes, disable helicopters and intrude into peoples apartments; all gameplay mechanics that never result into anything above a pretty quick time event. Hacking’s presented through such a channeled means that it can only give off a shallow sense of freedom.
Every explosion and every hack from Aiden’s phone is carefully steered by the game into a set gameplay route in what seems like an endless slew of the same scripted car chases and shootouts. That’s sure a big letdown from the feeling of being a god among smartphones.
You can’t help but think that the limitations and carefully controlled ‘freedom’ of Watch Dogs has had to be introduced due to power limitations of the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, holding the game back from true next-gen quality. Watch Dogs’ need to stay on old hardware has majorly damaged its quality, reigning in its USP as a disappointing gimmick rather than revolutionary change.
Watch Dogs is full of seventh generation tropes and frankly, it’s maddening. Beyond the hacking, Watch Dogs is a rather average open world game, lacking the engaging, multi-stranded gameplay from GTA V or Arkham Asylum-inspired combat of Sleeping Dogs.
The shooting may do its job and exploring the world is enjoyable, but fridge-on-ice driving and an infuriating lack of shooting-whilst-driving never elevates Watch Dogs beyond what we’ve already seen. Even the side missions are run of the mill; and when they are slightly original, they become tedious and exhausting.
Aiden Pearce embodies all of last-gen’s clichés in one – your average white, gruff voiced American with family problems. Sounds exciting. The serious lack of imagination on the narrative side is probably the worst example of how Watch Dogs fails to move AAA gaming forward.
Storytelling’s improved massively over the past decade, from The Walking Dead to The Last Of Us, and even GTA V‘s trio provides entertaining interplay between its three, distinct personalities. And Aiden doesn’t seem to have any personality in particular. He’s simply trying to save his family despite running over and shooting hundreds of other families along the way.
By contrast, Watch Dogs milks only the most basic of “gritty” stories and it’s infuriating. We deserve a new generation of hardware that pushes the industry forwards, not back. The thought of more troubled, macho men in search of redemption is a dull one, to be honest. Neither Watch Dogs nor its characters ever seem to earn a place in your heart by its conclusion. And this was the game that was meant to connect us to people, not caricatures.
Throughout all these failures and lazy choices though, Watch Dogs does have glimpses of success, most notably it’s online modes. The online tailing and hacking modes, akin to Dark Souls’ infamous invasions, are surprisingly original. Sadly though, Watch Dogs’ multiplayer is well integrated and enjoyable, yet lacking the risks and changes we expect to see from a game pioneering the next decade in gaming, nevertheless.
Graphics never extend beyond the occasional “wow, that looks pretty” and missions never seem to break away from a shinier True Crime. It’s sad to say that the bizarre amusements of spying on Chicago’s citizenry or killing time via digital trips may count for more than Watch Dogs‘ uninvolved storytelling, starring Aiden Pearce’s cardboard cutout.
Downgrading to old hardware and refusing to break out of AAA expectations means that Watch Dogs fails at what it originally set out to do. The limitations of the PS3 and 360 means Ubisoft’s first foray into the next generation is heavily hindered. Watch Dogs is content to stay in its doghouse of sorts. Trouble is, it’s more fun playing with friends are already playing outside.
As a game that was meant to elevate Ubisoft into the pantheons of revolutionaries, alongside Steve Jobs and Shakespeare, Watch Dogs is a gigantic disappointment, wallowing in it’s own safe insular world of last generation gameplay and tropes.
In truth, Watch Dogs may have come at a time overshadowed by new consoles and the open-world king that is GTA V, but neither of these change the game that it is. As an IP meant to elevate Ubisoft into the halls of revolutionaries, alongside Steve Jobs and Shakespeare, its lethargy shows just how archaic and limited Watch Dogs really is. All the hype and all the trailers couldn’t keep Watch Dogs‘ release from boiling down to the biggest shrug of the year.
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Tell us: Did you play Watch Dogs this year? What did you get out of it, or what didn’t you? Share your thoughts with us down below about just whether or not you’re done logging into the world of Watch Dogs.