Ubisoft is a class act as a whole, with a portfolio full of blockbusters, fan-favorites, and a decided lack of shovel-ware. Ubisoft Montreal has a similarly positive reputation, responsible for many of its parent companies greatest triumphs – Splinter Cell (and it’s superlative sequel, Chaos Theory), Rainbow Six: Vegas I & II, the Prince of Persia franchise, the Assassin’s Creed franchise, and just a ton of others. Ubisoft Montreal is one of the most prolific and development houses in the industry – almost to the point of absurdity.
(In fact, there is almost no way Ubisoft Montreal is just one team, but that is beyond the scope of this article. )Ubisoft has one of the very best reputations as both a development and publishing house, and as such any of their products, especially a new IP, will be judged by critics and the public alike accordingly.
It should come as no surprise that many of Ubisoft Montreal‘s share more than just a higher than average overall quality. Many of the their products share a hyper-clean, near-future aesthetic, similarly clean but markedly utilitarian user-interfaces that are refreshingly explained/excused within the game world, and a broad range of game-play in both the macro-meta design sense as well as moment-to-moment, tactically within the experience.
I mention this for a reason Watch_Dogs may well be a brand new IP, and the intended launching point for a new blockbuster franchise, but it is in almost every pertinent way very much a Ubisoft Montreal game for both ill and good. It is a compelling experience, and far more mature and intelligent than virtually all of its competitors, but flawless it is not.
Game-Play
Watch_Dogs is a lot of different things at a lot of different times. It’s either the latest in the long string of psuedo-stealth titles, or the latest in a string of open-world/fill-in-the-blank titles – or possibly something else entirely. This lack of easy classification is a great, great thing – it makes for a remarkably varied game-play experience, which has not heretofore been a strength in Ubisoft Montreal‘s previous work.
The sacrifice made by adding slash-after-slash to your game-play mechanics is that it takes a great deal of time and work to fold all of the experiences into a cohesive experience, and for the most part – and likely thanks to several polish delays – Watch_Dogs delivers.
Watch_Dogs is an open-world title, similar in many design aspects to the genre-defining Grand Theft Auto franchise – it provides a satisfyingly large and relatively-detailed world to explore, albeit with less in the way of interior environments than I would have hoped for, but about as many as I expected. The addition of a Bullet-Time mechanic – somewhat lazily termed ‘Focus’ – provides the player more time to react in combat or while driving (though this somewhat jarringly forces the player into the close-3rd-person perspective).
Movement, cover, and shooting mechanics certainly work better than the average genre-title, but the driving is somewhat hit-or-miss. There is too little variety in the handling and speed characteristics of the vehicles, and it seems virtually impossible to roll (or force another vehicle to do so).
Watch_Dogs does introduce several really interesting mechanics to the formula. Protagonist Aiden Pierce possesses a device referred to as a Profiler, a smart-phone to end all smart phones, that allows Aiden access to the ctOS (the universal network installed across Watch_Dogs Chicago by the Blume Corporation) and grants him a great deal of control over most electronic aspects of the city itself. Aiden can access virtually any networked device in the city: security cameras, traffic lights, home networks, phones, tablets, computers and more. He can, at a glance, get a socio-economic snapshot and history of any person in the city through their devices or facial recognition software.
He is, in short, a representation of the emergent American surveillance state. It is by exploiting these game-play mechanics, and examining the implications they make about our world, that Watch_Dogs succeeds.
This control allows you to stalk the streets of Chicago without leaving a trace, infiltrate Police, Security, or gang hideouts, if you so choose. Or if you prefer a more hands-on approach, you can use it to lure enemies towards explosive transformers, hack the security system of your opponents, or even remotely detonate explosives still on their person. Or anything in between.
And when things go south, as they are wont to do, the Profiler will allow you to detonate pipes beneath the streets of Chicago, delay your pursuers via manipulation of traffic lights, barriers, tire strips, jamming their communications systems, and even disabling their vehicles. If this sounds like something akin to being an overpowered digital monstrosity. then it sounds about right. But Watch_Dogs combats this with some of the most tenacious enemy AI in any game of it’s type, and on the punishing Realistic difficulty, you’ll dearly wish for just a little bit more in the way of that nigh-unlimited power.
The multi-player was a prime point of both concern and confusion before Watch_Dogs released, having been detailed only briefly, and also being something of a new animal in the genre. There is a rather typical oddball-style team-based mode that’s great fun, if you can get a match and have a decent set of team-mates, and an online free-roam mode not unlike the posse game-play from Red Dead Redemption. These are both pretty much what you’d expect but satisfying for all that – provided match-making is working properly.But the new, more original modes are a good deal more interesting.
Online Tailing involves invading another player’s world and following them around in the world within a specific radius, to gather information on their activities. This is relatively simple, but you cannot be profiled by the other player, turning it into a very high-stress game of cat and mouse. If you’re detected, you must escape the other player, who must profile and then eliminate you.
A more aggressive form of this same concept is the Online Hacking mode, in which the invaded player is notified of the invader’s presence, who’s objective is to get within range of the invaded player and hack his device, and then escape. The principle tactic in both of these game modes (which are similar enough to call into question the necessity of adding both) is, as the invader, to behave as much as possible like the AI of the game, and as the invaded to pay particular attention to their surroundings, making for a very interesting and tactical multi-player, if thematically similar to that of the Assassin’s Creed games. In any case, it’s a refreshing change from standard fare.
9 out of 10
Presentation
The variety of the Watch_Dogs game-play does not, unfortunately, translate into its narrative or character design. It’s a standard counter-culture, us-against-them tale of bad-boy ‘Grey-Hat’ hacker Aiden Pierce who, through bad-boy ‘Grey-Hat’ hacker antics catches the worse kind of attention from even badder-boy presumably ‘Black-Hat’ hackers who teach him a lesson by coercing some other bad-boy “Grey-Hat’ hacker into causing a wreck that kills his niece.
If that sounds weak, and formulaic, that’s because it is. Aiden Pierce is one of the least interesting protagonists in recent history, featuring an impressive combination of altogether unlikely and thoroughly impractical character design. It doesn’t even posses the virtue of looking cool enough to mitigate its absurdity. Aiden’s motivation is similarly irritating: he seems to view himself as a victim of circumstance, conveniently forgetting or ignoring the fact that his family was targeted because of his actions, and frequently presuming the moral high ground despite the trail of bodies in his wake and string of crimes in his past. I don’t mind a good anti-hero, and I certainly understand that no one is the villain of their own story, but that sort of narrative requires, at the least, several interesting or charismatic characters.
Watch_Dogs features perhaps one and it is certainly not the major player.
If you’re somewhat more forgiving of genre formula, you might perhaps find or two other characters that aren’t completely worthless, but even at a stretch, the narrative and the characters are a weak point – virtually everyone is a blatant archetype or rip-off (the most obvious being Clara Lille – Lisbeth Salander) and virtually every major plot development is artlessly telegraphed.
But that’s really all the bad news. The world is pretty darned big, and pretty darned detailed. The art design, with the notable but sole exception of Aiden “Really-Sticks-Out-In-A-Crowd” Pierce is universally good otherwise. The user interface, which was one of my biggest concerns, is quite attractive, as unobtrusive as it possibly can be given the sheer amount of interaction, and after a bit of practice, quite easily mastered. The menus, maps, and so forth are all quite easily navigable.
7 out of 10
Visuals
Technically, Watch_Dogs is really quite impressive. The close-set city sections don’t really allow for the draw-distance to be admired, but on the outskirts of the map, or on the water it becomes obvious that it’s quite good. The city features a realistically wide range of environments, character models, and almost nothing feels like a repeated asset. Major NPC’s boast a good amount of detail, and there’s a decided absence of muddy textures.
But the real star of the show are the lighting engine and the water simulation. On occasion, the around dawn or just before dusk, the sun will catch low-hanging branches and its a beautiful enough effect to genuinely distract even the most technically jaded gamer. Likewise the water, which is just beautiful under any circumstances, is elevated to just past stunningly gorgeous when you get one of the faster boats up on to speed. This title would be good-looking if it weren’t open-world, but for it to all look this way, and run this well is one heck of an achievement.
(A special note: there is a hefty amount of criticism about the end product not living up the expectations of the E3 2013 stage demo. It’s always important to remember that stage demos are rarely ever actual product. Additionally, they’re usually created to run one limited sequence of game-play on just one platform, and are optimized to the point of minutiae.)
9 out of 10
Sound
The voice-over work is largely quite good, if characteristically European in flavor – not a criticism, just an odd point of note in what is supposed to be a very Chicago-flavored title. The major NPC’s are mostly quite good, with the obvious standout being Battlestar Galactica’s Aaron Douglas as the demoniacally charismatic Jordi Chen.
The score is completely workmanlike, if largely unnoticeable. The soundtrack, on the other hand, is a mixed bag. Firstly, it’s awfully small in comparison to other genre titles, and while it seems to valiantly pursue the goal of setting a Chicago tone, it’s just not terribly compelling. The hip-hop tracks feel oddly out of place, and the woefully limited Jazz and Blues playlists miss a great opportunity to ground the city. The lack of a custom, user station is always disappointing.
7 out of 10
Tech
The title seems to run both well and relatively attractively on most platforms, but the Uplay integration is somewhat problematic, surprising no one. With the exception of some match-making issues, Watch_Dogs seems to be a very stable platform, which is an impressive achievement when one considers that it was developed for last-gen, next-gen (including the tardy Wii U), and PC. There don’t seem to be any over-arching crash issues, and an impressively low number of bugs/glitches/exploits. Watch_Dogs is a one-game argument for a long-development cycle and long polish period.
9 out of 10
Intangibles
Watch_Dogs is a timely title. While it’s narrative doesn’t necessarily hit all the notes it could or should, the ability to walk down the street and through technology, digital footprints, meta-data and facial recognition completely invade the privacy of another human being should be sobering. That the title gives you that ability, and then turns it into a game-play mechanic – makes you into the kind of creature that prowls within the private lives of others, taking advantage of the constantly connected world and the predominant ignorance those that use it – is a strong choice, and full of impact. W
atch_Dogs makes a stronger point with its design than most games do with their full effect, and does so in a way that appeals to an incredibly broad range of gamer. It’s a smarter game than most people that play it will realize, but designed cleverly enough that it can be taken even at less-than-face-value and still be thoroughly enjoyed.
Alternatively, if I’m disappointed by one thing about Watch_Dogs, it’s the setting. Chicago was a perfect choice, given the cities recent investment in over 15,000 security cameras networked to allow automatic tracking. It’s also a great town with a tremendous amount of culture and history. And if there’s one thing it really feels like Watch_Dogs got wrong, it’s how the city feels. It’s a remarkably generic-feeling city to be as detailed, well-designed, and well-populated as it is. It’s just not Chicago. The dialects, the music, the relatively small number of landmarks, it just doesn’t feel quite right.
8 out of 10
Overall
On the whole, Watch_Dogs is a legitimately great experience. It’s fun, it’s innovative, it’s polished, it’s engaging, it’s long, it’s packed to the gills with content, and it has a really fascinating and innovative multi-player. It’s not perfect, but it’s the most interesting open-world title in a long, long time.
8.2 out of 10