Watch Dogs

[J4MES OX4D 10,023]

New trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9BzsMkOrwM#t=334

[J4MES OX4D 10,023]

Watch Dogs real life prank http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5kn-7zNLQY#t=240

[J4MES OX4D 10,023]

Watch Dogs mini games revealed:

 

CHESS

Chess in Watch Dogs comes in two different forms. There is normal chess, and there are puzzles that give Aiden a half-played game to finish. These puzzles restrict the number of moves Aiden can make, and what pieces he can use.

 

NVZN

NVZN is an Alternate Reality phone game. When activated, NVZN makes it appear that aliens are attacking Chicago. Use Aiden's "blaster" to blow the aliens to pieces. Race against time to get the highest score. 

 

CASH RUN

Cash Run makes coins and ghosts appear in front of Aiden. Race as fast as you can to collect all of the coins while avoiding the ghosts. Keep your time low for a higher score and compete against your friends.

 

POKER

Play a game of Texas Hold'em with some "friends." Use any cameras to your advantage by sneaking peeks at opponents' cards, use your phone to monitor heart beats, or just use plain old luck to get the best odds and win some cash.

 

SHELL GAME

The Shell Game is the classic three-cups-and-a-ball hustle. Keep your eyes sharp and pick the right cup after the dealer shuffles them up. If you guessed correctly, Aiden gets a sweet payout.

 

SLOT MACHINE

Slot Machines work exactly like you would expect. Put cash in, pull the lever, and hope for a payout.

 

DRINKING GAME

Bottom's up! Challenge others to drinking contests, with the last person still upright stumbling away with the prize money. Each drinking challenge has a different quick-time event. Try them all.

 

DIGITAL TRIPS

Digital trips allow Aiden to escape the reality of Chicago and enter a digital world where there are no rules. There are 5 different Digital Trip offerings.

 

MADNESS

Madness puts you behind the wheel of a crazy car while all hell is breaking loose - literally. Use the car to smash into the demons and zombies that now roam the streets. Complete objectives to get the highest score.

ALONE

Make your way through a desolate downtown, where the only other people are ctOS robots. Hack into nodes to restore power to the whole city. Watch out and don't get caught by the robots!

PSYCHEDLIC

Everything's a little bit groovier on this digital trip. Bounce from one flower to the next while passing through rings in the air. The closer Aiden is to the center of the flowers, the better score you get.

CONSPIRACY

Cyborgs have attacked Chicago! Find and stop the invaders before time runs out. Use your phone to profile people and figure out which ones are cyborgs, then shoot at their newly discovered weak points. Destroy all of the cyborgs in an area before time runs out to move on.

SPIDER TANK

Spider-Tank is fairly self-expalnitory. You are in control of a spider-like tank. Cause as much destruction and mayhem as possible. The more you play, the more skills you unlock, so keep at it for the best score.

[J4MES OX4D 10,023]

A few leaked videos appearing online. This is a small but good one taken from the PS4 version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHBDUkCyGhU

[J4MES OX4D 10,023]

Boat driving looks decent

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiPpRmguxY8

[J4MES OX4D 10,023]

Looks like they've clamped down on the leaked footage.

 

Who's getting Watch Dogs next week?

 

I'm pretty pumped again but still in two minds as to whether this will be epic or mediocre. 900p at 30fps on PS4 is a bit disappointing and the driving elements still look a bit ping pong. Don't think the multiplayer will have much longevity either but it's summat completely new and unique and I think I'll have a good time on the game either way. 

 

Vids re-upped 

[Sennex 1,903]

I am reserving judgment till the UPS man delivers it

[J4MES OX4D 10,023]

25 minutes of multiplayer gameplay courtesy of JackFrags

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33muCkef288#t=1410

[J4MES OX4D 10,023]

34mins of single player action 

[burnfitbillyboy 505]

My mate has the game and is really unimpressed thus far, he says the driving is absolutely horrendous but hoping some other features that come into play will save the game for him.

[J4MES OX4D 10,023]

My mate has the game and is really unimpressed thus far, he says the driving is absolutely horrendous but hoping some other features that come into play will save the game for him.

That's been my biggest concern. The driving mechanics look very ropey indeed. The foot movement looks pretty damn decent but it will be a choker if this game lets itself down in driving which is quite a prominent part of the game. Any word on the overall performance at 30fps?

[Sennex 1,903]

fuck

 

was afraid they would cock up the driving. 

 

Honestly, every game out there needs to go to Square and ask for the driving engine behind Sleeping Dogs.

[burnfitbillyboy 505]

That's been my biggest concern. The driving mechanics look very ropey indeed. The foot movement looks pretty damn decent but it will be a choker if this game lets itself down in driving which is quite a prominent part of the game. Any word on the overall performance at 30fps?

He said it looks absolutely fantastic, no issues on that part. Just the driving has been a massive let down.

[J4MES OX4D 10,023]

If the postman delivers this today; I'll hop on later and hopefully give my thoughts on the game. The reviews have been a bit of a mixed bag with anything between 6.5 and 9. 

 

Either way, it seems this game is a bit of a letdown. I desperately need this game to be good for me because the next gen so far has been a whopping disappointment. 

[TigerBurge 2,375]

I'm still on the fence about this one,I just want something to play.

[NCA-Paendrag 2,758]

Just bought it at half price

[tronic44 3,642]

How and where? 

[tronic44 3,642]

A pretty honest review about the game so far, a mixture of pros and cons. Sounds like you get your moneys worth.

 

Already embroiled in controversy over its graphics, does Ubisoft’s open world game make the most of the next gen consoles?

It’s an unfortunate fact that almost all the discussion surrounding Watch Dogs is currently centring on its graphics. Since it was the first next gen game ever to be announced that was bound to happen no matter what; but the six month delay and growing controversy over what was shown at E3 2012, and what the game looks like now, fuels all kinds of concerns about the new generation of consoles. What we hope doesn’t get overlooked though is that despite some issues this is still a really good game, and one of the best Grand Theft Auto clones around.

Given all the talk about the graphics it’s been easy to forget exactly what kind of game Watch Dogs is, but as demeaning as it may seem to describe any game as a clone of another, no other term exists for an open world action adventure with a heavy focus on driving and third person shooting. Which is the polite way of saying that the second you start playing Watch Dogs all you can think of is GTA, and that’s a feeling that never really goes away, even dozens of hours later.

The set-up is of course different, but the story is not quite what we expected – although we admit we’ve paid little attention to the tsunami of trailers and pre-release marketing that’s been clogging the Internet for the last several months. You play as Aiden Pearce, an expert hacker who has turned vigilante after accidentally causing the death of his niece.

The background to the story is that Chicago is being run by an interconnected supercomputer called CtOS, and hacking into CtOS allows Aiden to control every piece of electronics in the city and snoop on anyone he passes. CtOS is also, for reasons never really explained, monitoring and recording every element of every person’s daily life. But the company responsible for all this is barely ever mentioned and the actual plot revolves around various other factions vying for control of the data and Aiden trying to rescue his kidnapped sister.

The story is clearly touching on current concerns about online privacy (there’s more than one jibe aimed at Kinect) and data security but these are used merely as a background to a surprisingly low stakes thriller plot. That’s not a criticism per se but it means that an undue amount of emphasis is then put on the characters, who are all pretty flatly written and almost entirely unmemorable.

In terms of script then Watch Dogs doesn’t hold a candle to GTA, whether you like the Rockstar style or not. But when it comes to gameplay mechanics Watch Dogs holds its own and at times even exceeds its obvious inspiration. The driving and shooting though is perhaps more comparable to Sleeping Dogs, with the cars sporting a very simplistic handling model but still prove good fun to throw around the tarmac, even when you’re lumbered with a bog-standard hatchback.

The combat puts a strong emphasis on using cover and indeed many of the missions revolve around sneaking in and out completely unobserved. The stealth mechanics are entirely competent and, much like the recent Wolfenstein: The New Order, you’re able to employ them even when a mission is clearly intended to be action-orientated. This is one of Watch Dogs’ great strengths, as most situations can be tackled from multiple angles, literally in terms of the map layout but also in terms of whether you rely on stealth, gunplay, or gadgets like remote-controlled bombs.

The game’s most unique feature though is Aiden’s magic smartphone, which allows him to do everything from raise lifts and forklift trucks to cause power transformers to suddenly explode. (Why any of these are connected to CtOS we don’t know, but we couldn’t help thinking of that Simpsons Y2K episode where even the carton of milk starts attacking them, because it’s got a microchip in it.)

In order to use a piece of machinery Aiden needs to be within line-of-sight and at a certain range. But he can also take control of any CCTV camera and set things off remotely from there. In fact the game has lots of puzzle-orientated missions and sub quests where you’re trying to work out the right chain of CCTVs to get you a look at a control system, as if you were an electric poltergeist zipping from possessed camera to possessed camera.

Some of these puzzles are relatively complicated, but they’re perfectly logical and give the game a nice variety in pacing even when you’re just trying to burn through all the campaign missions. The designers also mix things up with instances where you’re guiding allies past oblivious guards simply by looking through the cameras.

It’s a neat trick and complemented by the ability to set off traps when driving around, such as suddenly raising bridges or bollards, or exploding an underground steam pipe in the face of pursuing enemies. Many of these abilities have to be unlocked from a many-branched skill tree, while at any time you can turn on a slow motion bullet time effect to make sure you get the timing right.

All the component parts of the gameplay are perfectly solid, even if they never come close to matching a dedicated shooter, driving game, or stealth title. But where the game again pales next to GTA is the lack of inspiration with which everything is combined together. Perhaps it’s a reflection of the uninspired story and characters but, particularly by the end, the missions all begin to blend into each other – as the designers run out of ideas for the set pieces and you as a player begin to go on autopilot.

In typical Ubisoft fashion the solution to this is a bewildering array of side quests and optional activities. Value for money is certainly not an issue here and even after over 40 hours playing the game, and what we thought quite a bit of time messing around outside of the story, we were still at barely more than 33 per cent overall completion.

Some of this is mundane item collection and relatively tedious mini-games, like solving chess puzzles and collecting hidden audio logs, but there are a number of more involved distractions as well. These include two different AR games where you run around the game world shooting virtual aliens or collecting coins.

A set of even more involved mini-games, which even have their own separate skill trees, are classified as ‘digital trips’. These include a very credible Carmageddon clone, where you run over demons, and the fantastic Spider-Tank where you get to drive the titular death machine in what could almost be a game all on its own.

On top of this Watch Dogs makes a laudable stab at adding in multiplayer features while still being essentially a single-player experience. Being invaded by another player trying to hack your phone is obviously inspired by Dark Souls but it works very well, while a series of invites constantly pop-up on screen from other players – tempting you into a range of more traditional multiplayer modes such as racing and a team game where you’re fighting over control of a downloadable package.

Watch Dogs is a huge game and most of the content is very enjoyable. However, it is hard to understand why so much effort was put into the surrounding features when the priority should’ve been making the campaign missions more memorable. The missions are rarely bad but they lack the verve and invention of GTA at its best, with Watch Dogs having little sense of humour and Chicago making for a fairly generic backdrop for an already underwhelming story.

And then of course there’s the graphics. We’re not going to get bogged down on this issue but the simplest thing to do is to take a look at this footage from the game’s E3 2012 unveiling and then compare it to the final product. On the next gen consoles there’s a world of difference (we haven’t seen the game on a high end PC) and that’s going to upset a lot of people, especially as fellow open world game inFamous: Second Son on PlayStation 4 looks a lot better.

And yet none of this affects the gameplay at all, and Watch Dogs is certainly a much more enjoyable and varied game than Second Son. The visuals can actually be very good at times and apart from the odd hiccup the frame rate is a lot smoother than Grand Theft Auto V.

Of course you’d expect nothing less of a key next gen release, but really the problems here aren’t the graphics. Instead it’s the fact that the game comes so close to being something great and yet the final product stands just short of that. We had a great deal of fun playing Watch Dogs but despite all the focus on technology, both within and without the game, it’s the human factor that is most lacking.

In Short: A highly enjoyable GTA clone but one that doesn’t quite have the panache of Rockstar’s best or the inspiration to make the most of its otherwise enjoyable gameplay concepts.

Pros: Key gameplay mechanics are solid, including the shooting, driving and stealth. Smartphone abilities work well and enable some fairly open-ended missions. A near endless array of side content.

Cons: The story and characters are not very interesting. The game as a whole lacks personality and mission design often lacks inspiration. Graphics are not as good as originally implied.

Score: 7/10

 

http://metro.co.uk/2014/05/27/watch-dogs-ps4-review-gta-hacker-city-4740568/

[J4MES OX4D 10,023]

Just bought it at half price

Damn you!

[L_C_Scipio 395]

I think I'm gonna try to Redbox it this weekend since I'm not sold on it quite yet.

[J4MES OX4D 10,023]

I've finally got my hands on Watch Dogs and have just played a couple of missions whilst exploring and getting to grips with the game; so here's my initial thoughts:

 

So far, pretty good but nothing incredible. The game settles in with a nice stealth mission at the Chicago stadium after the introduction. This gets you familiar with the foot controls and overall payer interface. You can hack cameras, people, look out for threats, gather info on them and also craft items to cause distractions to pave the way clear past guards. On this mission, you also have access to the Blackout feature which we saw at E3 last year. Plunging the stadium into darkness is very satisfying and stylish although the mission whilst seeming spectacular, is just a bit basic and bland although I hope the ante is upped as the game progresses. Graphically the game looks decent and performs well at 900p and 30fps although some textures and characters look a bit basic and last gen in all honesty. 

 

The RPG elements regarding the skills tree is vast and interesting. Earning skill points and doing things the right way seems rewarding instead of going in all guns blazing so there is good reason to take car and plan your moves instead of going GTA gun-ho.

 

The driving mechanics for such a well-presented and seemingly serious game are borderline terrible. Cars handle reasonably well to some extent but the ping-pong collisions and poor visual demonstrations of accelerating and breaking drive the presentation and general feel down considerably. It doesn't even feel arcade-based; it's just feels very lousy at times which doesn't mirror the fine foot mechanics. You also cannot shoot from your car so chases combined with the horrendous collisions just makes it dissatisfying and at times laughable. You can hack bridges and traffic lights along with roadblocks but most of the chases involve wildly bumping into the person you are chasing and off other cars and scenery. Even Saints Row had more enjoyable and 'realistic' collisions and that game was a piss take. Not a good reflection on Watch Dogs then.

 

Overall, I can see many people enjoying this game but you have to be very forgiving to live with the driving and accepting that as part of the game. The driving is a big aspect of the product so this is a massive letdown for me. I can live with it but it just leaves the game tarnished. The story is intriguing, the overall XP, unlock and missions seem very polished and fun and I can't wait to try out other things and go exploring. It's early days and this game does shine in many ways but the driving isn't going to improve and that could be fatal in the long run.  

[tronic44 3,642]

oh noes

 

My missus is gona be pissed! She was well looking forward to this.

[NCA-Paendrag 2,758]

How and where? 

At a local Playcom store. They have 50% off everything in the store all May except consoles

Cost me 28 squids

[tronic44 3,642]

omg i need one of them right next to where i live!

[NCA-Paendrag 2,758]

They have crappy service so I only went because it was half price and I had some store credit after they wouldnt give me a refund for a game I bought and returned unopened 20 mins later.