[PC Version] Watch_Dogs review by Thalandros

[Thalandros]

Watch Dogs review
by Thalandros


Topics that shall be discussed:
- Graphics
- Controls and Functioning
- Gameplay
- Sound and Story
- Conclusion.


Graphics:

Watch Dogs was released only yesterday with big expectations, despite the graphics just not being quite the same as revealed in E3 ’12. Despite that, I was not disappointed. Before we go on, my specs:

Intel Core i5 4670 @ 3.4Mhz, 3,8Mhz turbo.
Ice X HD Radeon 6950 2GB
8GB RAM @ 1333Mhz
120GB Kingston SSD. (I know!)

I was genuinely amazed with what my specs were able to pull off. I am able to run at medium with high textures and high shadows (because of my CPU), and the game looked quite spectacular at a solid 50-60FPS throughout, at 1920x1080p. Especially the sunsets and nighttimes were beautiful, but the game did have a bit of a slow render rate, as in the vehicles and pedestrians loaded quite close by. This couldn’t be changed in the settings and was quite annoying. Apart from that they did a good job around midtier GPU’s at least, but I’ve heard MANY complains from higher end GPU’s (GTX 780, Radeon R9 280/290x etc.) running on higher settings with severe FPS drops. Let’s hope these issues are fixed in coming patches. The textures genuinely looked quite awesome and I felt really good driving in the city, looking around.



Physics I’ll include with Graphics. It’s a bit wonky, this one. From one side I really like the physics and it might be a little over the top, and from the other it’s not that great and a bit underwhelming (when smashing against a small wall for example.) It’s personal but I don’t care too much about it, it’s ‘’passable’’ for me. Don’t expect huge explosions, but do expect enemies falling on the ground from 50M up on a building.


- Controls and Functioning

This is the biggest problem for me. At the start the game felt VERY weird, especially the menu with a crapton of acceleration which I had to turn off in the variables file. Kind of put me off. Apart from that controlling felt a bit unnatural but I got used to that very quickly and it was quite comfortable since then. The controls are easy but dear lord, the game is a pain in ass to control with the mouse. I thought this game was natively built on PC? That didn’t show. The vast majority of menus didn’t have mouse cursors and you had to ‘’guess’’ where your mouse pointer’d be. Also shooting felt a bit off at first, but I got used to it.

Driving a car is my biggest complaint however. Cars feel very stiff and not very responsive. Outside of a few that feel ‘’okay-ish’’, the vast majority of cars actually feel like I don’t want to drive them. Over time you kind of get used to it, but it never is and will be the driving other open world games have, it’s just a bit less mobile and more stiff. Motor cycles on the other hand I like quite a bit and I’ve enjoyed driving on them, especially with that awesome jacket Aiden Pearce has.

Things like looking around take a while of getting used to as well, but once you do feels natural and alright.

- Gameplay
The world feels quite alive. I really like little features they added in, or the THOUSANDS of possible conditions the people are in. ‘’Frequent watcher of police reality TV-series’’, or ‘’Remarried’’ for example. Funny little things. What saddens me is that none of their conditions really have an impact at that point in the game. They don’t react more angry because they were ‘’recently dumped’’, or an ‘’ex-police officer’’. I understand that’d be a LOT of coding to do however, so maybe next time! The world outside of that also feels quite alive. Always there are atleast some cars and pedestrians around, and you can actually go into a LOT of buildings, however irrelevant they may be. You can order a coke at a cafeteria, get new clothes (obviously), buy a gun and then threaten the shopkeeper, take his money and run..!
So yeah, a lot of things to do in the city.

People compare this game to GTA V, and they do so falsely. The game is an open world, bit of a ‘’mayhem’’ game like GTA and Saints Row, but not precisely. It’s got a lot of interesting mechanics that make me interested. The hacking (usually most hacks are done by holding Q), are very quickly intuitive and can be used for strategy very efficiently. Exploding the explosives on a guard for example, or lifting a bridge right before police rides over it is and feels SO rewarding and adds a whole new level of enjoyment to the game. The overall mechanics feel well implemented into the core gameplay; a GTA-style open world RPG.
 Stealth & Hacking:
The game allows you to be very stealthy (although doesn’t always prefer if you do, which is kind of a letdown)
especially in Gang Hideout sidemissions. More on this later. You can be so creative going stealth, and no mission is ever the same. If you pick a lot of skills in the ‘’hacking’’ tree, you’re in for a treat. You can disable comms, distract people (For example, they just killed a dolphin it says on their condition, and you ‘’distract’’ them by playing a dolphin sound. Very limited and only on gang members, understandably!). Also you can explode explosives on top of someone who’s wearing grenades.
A fun example: In the beginning of the game, you get ambushed. There were snipers with grenades on the rooftops. Behind them there was an electrical device you can blow up. I did that, the sniper fell off the roof, I exploded his grenade while nearly on the ground, he blew up the car and his other three gang members.
That just feels great and is so much fun, it just never gets old.

Sidemissions and things to do:

 

Along with Stealth, this is where the game TRULY shines. There is just so much to do in Chicago. You can do Gang hideouts (invade a hideout, knock down a certain individual and get out) Fixer contracts (Catch someone, distract the police etc.) Criminal Convoy (Disrupt and kill someone and his ride, then get away or kill his entire escort.)
and numerous other things like playing a game of poker or chess. The game is almost too distracting from the main missions sometimes! You frequently get called that a new Criminal Convoy has been found for you to mess up, for example.
There’s also crimes you can solve if you want to. This’ll bring your reputation bar up if you solve them while killing or bringing the criminal down. (You can become an ‘’anarchist’’ or a ‘’vigilante’’. These things will have minor impact on the game except some cute noticing by pedestrians etc. You get it up by solving crimes and missions, and down by killing people or police!)
Gunplay
Gunplay is kind of a minus about this game for me. As stated I have minor mouse issues with the game but the shooting feels a bit shaky sometimes. Outside of that, gunfights are pretty fun once you get the hang of it and you’re easily killed if you put your difficulty high enough! It's an okay part of the game, just like most open world games. Don't expect Battlefield/Planetside 2 level shooter here!

Police: A minor point, but the police in this game is kind of weird. You pretty much only get police on you when a pedestrian calls the police, and you’ll have a chance to interfere (this happens when you pull your gun out in public, or steal a car VERY frequently and is very annoying.).
If you fail to interfere, a scan goes down at your location and once it reaches a 100%, (aka you stay within the scan range) police comes after you. The police catch-n-run is very fun though, especially playing with bridges and using traffic to blow up their cars!

Multiplayer:
 
This is an interesting part of the game, because if it works well, it’s awesome. Problem is, it doesn’t work well. Right now the Ubisoft servers are often down and don’t work properly, or there are some other errors. A lot of hackers have also been spotted already.
I haven't dug into multiplayer too much because the game itself is just so much fun, but..!
Personally, the mode that stands out and is my absolute favorite is the ‘’Intrusion’’ mode, where you hack another player (and seamlessly join his game!) and hope he doesn’t spot and kill you before you do. Of course, you can get this done to you too! Very awesome, especially when it’s a tough match. After your game you’re back in your world, like nothing happened, It’s really good fun.


Story & Sound
The game features music from pretty known bands (Rise Against) and other artists. They seem to have had a lot of budget go into copyrighted material to use for their game. A lot of music I’ve never heard of before too though, so that’s good!
The sound of the overall game is rich and well, except gunshots. They sound fairly bad and aren’t very exciting. The ambient sounds or the street performers though, are top notch and a pleasure to listen to.
 

Story I won’t go to much into because I’m afraid I might spoil stuff, but the story up to this point has got me gripped pretty good, and I want to know what happens next! The dialogue is always very good and very strong characters come up. A lot of messed up ones aswell, obviously. It's pretty deep so far and I'm liking the character progression (or regression at start of the game) we're getting. It's by no means a Call of Duty campaign!
From the getgo you do realize this is a story about revenge however. So if you’re not into that, then you won’t care too much. Still really good however! I’m in the middle of act II for people who want to know. 


Conclusion & Verdict:

I was REALLY anticipating this game considering I’ve been waiting for it for two years now. I didn’t expect it to be perfect, I don’t really do that with Ubisoft games anyway, but I expected a lot. And expectations were met. I really like the game so far and I will for quite some time. To give some sort of indication: Tuesday it came out for me at 9am. I started playing at 1PM and played (with a 2hr break) until 3AM. I felt really emerged and the game looked good too. I had quite a bit of fun with a friend on Free roam mode and can’t wait to try that out with more than 2 people.

I hope you liked and gained knowledge from this review!
Leave any constructive feedback below!
Thanks!


PS: Pictures are a bit low res, Imgur didn't work with me and I messed up a bit. Sorry!

 

@martsc2


The website I just opened where I post my future reviews as well as here: http://techandgamequickies.webs.com/apps/blog/

[ColourShift]

I hate it when companies display their games it's like "omg that game IS SO GRAPHICALLY AMAZING!!!!!"

 

Then when it comes out and you play it, it's like "is this the same game that was presented at E3?"

[LorelynF]

I hate it when companies display their games it's like "omg that game IS SO GRAPHICALLY AMAZING!!!!!"

 

Then when it comes out and you play it, it's like "is this the same game that was presented at E3?"

My thoughts exactly. I'm very disappointed after I saw the comparison of retail version and 2012 E3, but other than the graphics issue the game is good and interesting. :lol:

 

I just don't trust Ubisoft E3 anymore. First Assassin's Creed 2, then Far Cry 3, now Watchdogs. :angry:

 

/Topic : Good and informative review.

[PhantomChevron]

Great review, sad that even on Ultra, didn't look as good as what they showed at E3'12, but I do wonder what was there system specs they used for the E3 representation, must be a beast

[darth_bubbles]

Why do they make games look worse when it's released? why can't they just keep the same look as E3?

[Mkfish]

After playing the game for some considerable number of hours now I am rather pleased with how the game is playing out. Most of the issues you raise with the game play, such as getting cops after you every time you steal a car can be rectified with the skills tree. For instance there is a skill that mutes the car alarm as you get into the vehicle. The gun fighting gets significantly more fun with the focus skill also. I found that I was neglecting to craft items like com-jams and CToS blackouts. Once I started using these to my advantage more I was having a lot more fun. With the more skills you unlock you can interact with the city in far more exciting ways. I thought I would rarely need to utilise the ability to stop and start the L-Trains but after I had unlocked the skill it had become vital in the next sticky situation I found myself in. Along with steam pipe bursts and spike strips cops and convoy missions become really fun.

I have been playing on ultra, with HBAO+low and MSAAx2 and have very steady FPS throughout. The game looks stunning at night and when it rains my jaw is usually wide open.I think a lot of the graphics reviews have really lived down how great the game actually looks. Granted daytime is probably the least visually striking but it still looks fantastic regardless. I find myself looking at all the small details in the game like how you can see rows upon rows of brake and headlights in the distance that have a depth of field effect on them, it's these little effects that give the game it's "next-gen" feel, and this is just one of many.

 

I also notice that you fail to mention anything about the digital trips, they are SERIOUS fun. And can best be compared to GTA's "kill-frenzies". The spider tank trip is just absolutely fantastic, without saying too much. You should check it out immediately.

[Altecice]

worth to note that the way Ubisoft implemented the FOV that when you try to play at larger than 1080p (5760x1080p) the FOV gets all messed up and zooms in to far. The UI does not fit at all. There are temporary fixes we can do but seriously..... why was this not checked.