1/5 ★ – FireFoxie's review of Watch_Dogs™.

Platforms played on: PS4 I’m not sure what I expected from playing Watch Dogs, but I wasn’t expecting it to be one of the worst games I’ve ever played. I knew about its infamous reputation for being a game that underdelivered on Ubisoft’s promises, but I just thought this game was going to have mediocre gameplay, with a decent story. However, I wasn’t prepared for how bad this game truly is. The story for Watch Dogs sounded so interesting, and at the start it made me keep playing through the miserable gameplay. I wanted to know this secret that Aiden had discovered that ended up getting his niece killed. As the story went on the plot twists were either super predictable or a gigantic let down, or in some cases were both. The cut scenes went from engaging to melodramatic. I just couldn’t believe how stupid this story got! As far as the main character is concerned, Ubisoft wrote Aiden to be this brooding vigilante that wants to clean up the streets of Chicago, but he just comes off as a self-righteous douchebag. He talks about mob/gang violence and stopping crime, but then turns around and blows up an entire city block. It’s so hard to root for him when he chases down these muggers/criminals and beats them with a night stick to the point of brain damage, pockets the money, but never calls the police. It’s like if Batman kicked the shit out of Joker, stole Joker’s wallet, and then went back to the bat cave and pat himself on the back afterwards about what a great job he did. That reminds me: let’s talk about the tone and atmosphere of this game. This story brings up some uncomfortable topics and that’s okay. I think we need to be reminded from time to time that the world isn’t a safe place and that some seriously messed up stuff happens behind closed doors, or even on the streets. However, I don’t feel like these topics were brought up for any real thought or meaningful discussions. These scenes and topics are treated purely as a way to shock the gamer and nothing more. I feel like this lessens the impact of the actual victims who suffer from these crimes. If you’re going to bring up these topics, then it needs to be treated seriously and with some matter of respect, not like some edge lord who thrives on shock value. If the story wasn’t bad enough, the gameplay sure is! I can’t begin to describe how much I hate the gameplay in Watch Dogs. It’s so incredibly frustrating, boring, and repetitive. When I thought I was going to play a game about hacking I thought it was going to involve a lot more stealth. You know, stay in the shadows and avoid detection. Not car chases with the cops, blowing shit up, and violent shoot outs with mafia/gang members. It feels like GTA and Fast & Furious had a mentally challenged nerd baby and named it Watch Dogs. Everything in this game feels awful to play. The driving feels clunky and hard to control and because of this it makes the chase/trailing segments an absolute nightmare to deal with! What’s even worse is having to drive around the other AI vehicles in the game while being chased down and getting rammed into by the other cars. This segments just felt like tag with bumper cars and it felt as if the developers just didn’t want to add in any real creative gameplay for the car chases, just the bare minimum. The combat felt slight less frustrating, but was still pretty awful. While some of the guns were better than others, all the enemies felt like bullet sponges! I would put in a bunch of shot gun bullets into an enemy at close range and they wouldn’t die! Yet, I got gunned down and died so fast, and I was on easy mode! It felt so imbalanced. They do give you a skill in the skill tree to let you aim in slow motion, but I felt like it actively hindered my gameplay more than enhanced it. The actual hacking portion was kinda meh, and not really super fleshed out. There some cool things you can do like stopping traffic lights, unlocking doors, and looking through cameras, but I really wished they spent more time being creative with it. It just feels so unimaginative especially around a game whose whole gimmick WAS the hacking. The only part I like about this game was exploring the city. I thought they did a good job on the design of Chicago. I liked walking around learning about the history of the city even though Ubisoft chose to focus on the Chicago’s darkest crimes more than anything else. Despite this though, Watch Dogs is still an ugly game to look at and I don’t say that often. The resolution is so poor, and the whole things looks like a low quality hd remaster of a ps3 game. Even at the time, even by Ubisoft themselves, they were publishing better looking open world games. I hope Watch Dogs 2 is a little easier on the eyes. Overall: I honestly really tried to give Watch Dogs a chance, but it’s a miserable game to play. The story is so shallow, lifeless, and above all stupid beyond belief. No wonder this game has gotten so shit on as much as it has and quite honestly I don’t think it’s been shit on enough. Pros: + The layout of Chicago + good voice acting from most of the cast Cons: -poor controls -repetitive and frustrating gameplay -awful story with predictable twists -poorly written characters -ugly graphics and character designs -bland and unlikable protagonist