‘Watch Dogs’ Review Roundup: Is It Worth Hacking Into This Story Of Antihero Justice?
The Watch Dogs reviews are flooding in, and opinions seem to be split. While some are considering this to be the best new open world experience available, others are calling it little more than what we’ve seen before with a gimmick thrown in to make it stand out.
From the day it was announced, Watch Dogs gameplay promised something we hadn’t seen before. The game is said to have you running around a futuristic Chicago with a mobile device capable of putting your Android or iOS device to shame. The city is connected by a central operating system known as ctOS, and your portable device gives you the ability to use that wireless network to turn the city itself into a weapon. It won’t be easy, because you don’t know who might be working for the enemy, and you still have to hack into central hubs to gain access to different areas of the city.
US Gamer tells us in their Watch Dogs review that as fun as the game is, the map size may be comparable to Grand Theft Auto IV (as previously reported by The Inquisitr), but it still doesn’t match the immensity of GTA 5. That doesn’t mean it isn’t fun, though. The reviewer confesses that they literally had to tear themselves away from the game just to write their review, with so much to do that it’s addicting.
Ubisoft has a tendency to do that with some of their bigger games, giving you enough to do on the side that you’re never quite done until you’ve obsessed over it for months.
This time around, Ubisoft’s latest flagship series seems to suffer from being another cross-generation title. Game Informer‘s Watch Dogs review states that even though the graphics are certainly impressive, it’s not an indication of the prowess we’ve been expecting on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Critics were given copies of Watch Dogs‘ PS4 port, and it didn’t really give them the visuals they expected from a 1080p experience. Occasionally bland textures, object pop-in, and otherwise sub-par performance don’t even compare with what Rockstar Games gave us last year on the PS3.
I liked a @YouTube video from @ilewisgta http://t.co/fCOBRubxdH Watch Dogs – First Impressions [Xbox One Gameplay]
— Lewis The Majestic (@iLewisGTA) May 28, 2014
GameSpot‘s Watch Dogs review says that the variety of ways you can play each scenario is definitely a Ubisoft trademark. You can use the environment to distract enemies, use a silencer to deliver a series of discrete head shots, or simply sneak up and take them out from behind. Of course there is also the option of running in, guns blazing, but you’ll draw a lot of attention and make the mission more difficult that way.
Of course every Assassin’s Creed game has been the same way, and it’s worked every time.
The story, however, isn’t as thought out as you might expect. It seems Aiden Pearce is more focused on revenge than he is the safety of his family, which contradicts the reason he started this mission. In order to avenge the death of his niece, he puts his sister and nephew in danger.
The critics all seem to agree in their Watch Dogs reviews that this game doesn’t quite live up to the hype, but it’s still fun and there is a lot to do.
Do you agree with what the critics have to say about Watch Dogs?
[image via edge-online]
