Watch Dogs Review

Watch Dogs Community Page

Watch Dogs is a present-day-take on the power and abilities that one man can gain to rule the city that we merely fear to see in the future. With its violent and action aspects, Watch Dogs is genre-defining game targeted at a more mature audience who are likely to understand the constant threat that the civilians, especially those that are that are close to you, are consistently under.

You will play as the highly skilled hacker, Aiden Pearce, who can hack into the “ctOS”, a centralized operating system which manages the hyper-connected city of Chicago – which was formed after a Northeast blackout in 2003 that was caused by a hacker but at the same time you will also be taking on life-threatening missions just to discover the truth about the accidental death of his niece.

Story / Creativity

As you explore the city of Chicago you are given opportunities to view Aiden’s flashbacks by going into specific areas of the city.

The immerse storyline to Watch Dogs pulls you into a world that is oh so common to you already; exploring the city of Chicago is just like going out of your front door and into the dangerous realms of every-day life except with Watch Dogs it is more than danger that is after you as you play as the lead protagonist Aiden Pearce. Aiden was once your average Joe who would go about his day-to-day life as any other citizen but things changed and they changed on a huge scale.

Throughout the story of Watch Dogs you are exposed to flashbacks of Aiden’s more “previous life”, he was once a loving uncle to his niece but after a treacherous car accident Aiden became “The Vigilante”. As you explore the city of Chicago you are given opportunities to view Aiden’s flashbacks by going into specific areas of the city. Whilst finding these flashbacks across the city will take up some of your time in the game, there’s plenty more to do. Obviously, there’s the main storyline where you play as Aiden gaining access to ctOS Towers to find out information about your surrounding area but you also spend time infiltrating gangs and partaking in side-missions to discover more about your past whilst meeting trustworthy companions like Clara, Jordi and T-Bone as well as running into old friend’s like Damien Brenks but who can you trust?

Gameplay

… but the skills sure do help when you are part of a large-scale cop chase where the often challenging but exhilarating car mechanics are brought into the game.

During your time of playing Watch Dogs, you will be shown to the truly astounding gameplay that this thriller of a game has to offer; from using skill points, to improve Aiden’s skills, all the way up to climbing ctOS Towers to discover information about your surrounding area is all breath taking thanks to the high-quality graphics that have been worked into the game.

As Watch Dogs is an action-adventure-stealth game, there is always plenty to do and you are given different ways to go about your tasks with the main two options being: stealth or going in all guns blazing – the choice is yours.

The gameplay itself is absolutely phenomenal as it makes you feel like you are actually Aiden and how concious decisions will affect the rest of your time in Chicago. To help you make these concious decisions easier, you are given access to a “skills tree” which allows you to improve Aiden’s skills and abilities; by improving his skills and abilities he will be more powerful than that of his opponents. The skills tree definitely aids you whilst you are playing; granted that the changes you make in the skills tree may not be all that noticeable in the game itself but the skills sure do help when you are part of a large-scale cop chase where the often challenging but exhilarating car mechanics are brought into the game.

Presentation

Watch Dogs is set in the American city of Chicago which looks very realistic with an in-game weathering system – to give a life-like effect of weather to the game – as well as using bright and vibrant lighting to keep you immersed in the environment. With the weather system, the weather can change at any moment from disastrous storms to bright sunshine – both of which can affect the game by either making the roads extremely slippy or by blinding your vision with the scorching sun.

Even after comments on how the resolution of the graphics had been lowered to work across multiple platforms, the graphics do not fall short and always look astounding as attention to detail has been used throughout the entire city to give it almost 100% transparency with the real-world Chicago.

Lifespan

The lifespan of Watch Dogs is very extensive with 35-40 hours of singleplayer gameplay to endure as well as plenty of online game modes to enjoy. There are plenty of side-missions in the game as well as the the main directive missions and other activities to enjoy such as money runs (where you race against the clock to collect as many coins as possible) in addition to finding briefcases around the city of Chicago to unlock special rewards; there is plenty to keep you entertained!

Overall

Watch Dogs is definitely worth buying as there will always be plenty for you to do in the immersive singleplayer and when that isn’t enough, you can take yourself online to challenge friends and other players at races, missions and hacking challenges.