Watch Dogs - Windows

While Watch_Dogs is a game many sandbox lovers will enjoy, it didn't live up to the hype and promise that many players like myself were given. Toted as a visually next-gen title at E3 2012, Watch_Dogs had its graphics downgraded for currently unknown reasons, and this has led to a lot of drama when a player found inside the PC files the graphical options originally shown at E3 2012. The main draw to Watch_Dogs is the sandbox gameplay many players enjoy from games like Grand Theft Auto, mixed with Hacking mechanics to add fun and interesting ways to interact with the environment and enemies. The story follows Aiden Pearce, a protagonist that's dry personality and tunnel-visioned view of vengeance has led many players to dislike the character. Aiden ultimately doesn't care about anyone else and despite the game giving you the moral opportunity to play as a "Vigilante" you'll feel like anything but thug wearing a mask. The basic gameplay elements like shooting, driving, missions, and challenges are all pretty polished and well done. The main element of hacking; however, feels like a gimmick more than anything else. Originally the game was advertised as giving you the "power" to hack into people's lives and their privacy, when in fact you can't interact with any civilian besides stealing their bank info or similar products. The only things you can hack are Bridges, Street Lights, Man Holes, Electrical Outlets, and a few other objects that all do the same thing; explode. I didn't get too much into the multiplayer aspect of the game, mostly because I wasn't personally interested; however, from what I did play and other players experiences it is a great feature /when it works/. The game's matchmaking was buggy to say the least and sometimes would crash your game or take 10 minutes to find players. The multiplayer has quite a few gamemodes to choose from, mostly generic shootouts but the most interesting mode is one in which you invade another player's singleplayer game (or they join yours) and try to hack that player for some bonus cash (which ultimately is useless, cash doesn't really do much but buy you different colored jackets and cars.) The player your invading has to find you before your download is complete and stop or kill you. If someone has invaded your game you have to find them before they finish their download. It can be a really fun and intense experience. Watch_Dogs is a game I regret buying at $60. It's pretty fun but the lack of hacking options let me down and the graphics aren't what was promised which is a huge slap in the face to gamers who were initially interested like I was. I'd recommend the game to someone when it drops between $20-$30. My final score for the game is 6/10.

Playing this game quickly reveals how much fun it can be to create absolute chaos in an open world environment. It's easy to spend a lot of time away from the revenge oriented story line and eavesdrop into the often jarring secret lives of the people on the street. Mini games and side quests vary from repetitive to those with a high level of difficulty. The hacking abilities are a boatload of fun and can be challenging to figure out . I played the game on pc and there are technical issues, many of which have been addressed by the community. Driving with keyboard and mouse can be difficult at best. A controller helps. Graphics set to a high (ultra) level can bring a powerful gaming system to its' knees. Worth buying.

The game was supposedly to be released about six or five months early ago, but it was delayed to May 27, 2014. Now, was the delay worth picking up this game now? I would say yes. I will state this right away that I'm basing this review based on the standard edition I have including the season pass. Everything about this game is amazing. The city sounds very much alive. Graphics and the rain effects look outstanding. When the weather starts to rain in the game, you can see your main character's outfit will be soaking wet as well as the roads. The sounds in this game will captivate you. When cops or bad guy are pursuing you, you'll hear radio chats from them like "I'm going to try to ram this guy!" Sounds of gunfire and explosion are satisfying when you hear them. Storyline wise, I haven't complete the whole game yet, but I will tell you without spoiling the whole thing. You play as Aiden Pierce who is a hacker and a vigilante. He's on the hunt to find someone who was responsible for the death of one of Pierce's family members. The story and the setting of this game takes place in Chicago which is obviously plagued by violence, gang wars, etc. The story is divided into 5 acts in total. It may seem sound short to others at first, but you will get the most long hours out of this game. Gameplay wise, hacking is the main focus of this game. You will use your little smartphone to hack cameras, profile people, create traffic accidents, steal people's money, temporary disable police chopper during pursuit, create distractions or accidents, and several other things. There are also side missions, collectibles and unlockables that will keep you distracted from doing the campaign story. Also, there is a reputation system in this game. The environment and the people around will react positively or negatively depending on the reputation of your main character. For example, if Aiden's reputation is in good standing such as Protector, Vigilante or Sentinel, people will less likely to call the cops on Aiden, and he will also not be shown on the news frequently. For multiplayer, I haven't touched this part yet, but there is fun stuff to do. There is online contracts, online underground race, ctOS mobile challenge, online decryption, and other stuff I don't recall. When you complete one of those activities, you will gain points called notoriety. These points will unlock a gun, a car and some other perks you can't usually acquired by solo playing. However, good news for people who want to just to solo singleplayer uninterrupted by other players is that you can turn off "Online invasion" in the main menu. You just go to main menu, and then search through the settings to turn off online invasion. There is a catch. If you do turn off online invasion, any online unlocks you gain will be lost, and any notoriety points you gained will also be reset to 0. Overall, this game is worth picking up. However, this game is not meant for little kids due to excessive violence, and there are some scenes that can be disturbing to little kids. The only downside for this game is the PC requirements. If you got a decent computer that passes the minimum or the recommended requirements altogether for this game, then pick it up. If you don't have a decent computer, then don't pick it up because it is not worth the trouble if you know you can't run this game well.

Watch Dogs is a very in depth complete open world game. Lots to do with story and is also a play as you want style of game. Wanna be bad and go around on a killing spree go for it, or you wanna be the hero and stop crime where it starts go for that as well. Its all up to you on how you want to play the game. The online game play takes some time to get used to as far as the hacking and stopping the hacking from happening to you but once you figure it out its a blast. The real only drawback to the game is the poor execution of Ubisofts Uplay client in a nutshell it is horrible and makes for aggravating logins from time to time. This was a brief review of the PC version of the game. The only reason this doesnt get a 5 is the Uplay client aggravation.

Overall I think Watch Dogs is a fun game. I do think Ubisoft could of put more work in certain areas but no game is perfect. There are a lot of trolls out there that might bash this game as a GTA knock off but this game is far from that. Take it for what it's worth, this game won't please everyone. I think it's a nice change of pace from the other games I was playing.

It's a reasonably generic Ubisoft third-person open world action-adventure game with uninspiring writing and an unsympathetic protagonist. None of that makes the game bad though - it's actually quite competent and fun to play, and the multiplayer is worth experiencing. Mind that the game requires Uplay and does not activate on Steam.

I am happy with this purchase even after reading so many horrible reviews. I heard a lot of people complaining about the graphics and this game does require high graphics hardware to run at high and ultra. I have 2 GTX 560 Ti Classified 448 Cores cards and a i2700K OC to 4.7 and the cards are OC as well. The game sets my graphics to high and it plays pretty good. Some cuts here and there but I can always lower some stuff. The game looks great and I also set it at ultra and it looks amazing. Not smooth but amazing. So go with your gut and what you have in your case, because unless you don't mind playing at anything less than the ultra setting, you will need a good system for this to run. Im sure they are still going to work out any glitches the game still has so well see.

I find myself having difficulty getting into the story. The game is centered around Aiden Pearce (who's so forgettable that I had to look up his name) and his mission to seek revenge for the death of his niece. The gameplay mechanic wherein a player may 'hack' into another player's game is pretty novel, however it is a little cumbersome and there appears to be very little reason to actually utilize it as it adds nothing to the plot or experience of the game overall. This game is very similar to another Ubisoft game series, Assassin's Creed, and has very much the same feel, only without all the climbing, stabby bits (of which there is a little). One of my biggest complaints is that when you are traveling from one mission marker to the next you are barraged with notifications of online opportunities and 'criminal activity' events which can be a bit annoying if you're not interested. Several times I've been just about to reach a mission start point only to be interrupted by a hack; while, some may see this as a boon to the experience of the gameplay and overall immersion, I found it to be an annoyance. I have not used the separate mobile app that you can apparently associate with your game account, but I hear it adds a new level of gameplay if you have friends who also own the game. As I don't know anyone else with this game, I haven't seen the point in it. If you're looking for an easy to play game with lots of collectables and grindy side missions then this is probably a good game for you. If you're looking for interesting characters with a storyline that you can care about, look elsewhere.