Watch_Dogs reviews

Gen X said:
Where are the PS3 reviews? Can't decide if I'm going to bite the bullet or just wait till the PS4 price drop.
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DO NOT GET THE PS3 VERSION!

I rented it from Redbox and suffered a few game breaking bugs/glitches. It's a rather fun game but having to restart when you can't vault over anything is a pain in the ass.

I envy those with a PS4. I wanna play the game proper.

I feel I am being a BIT too harsh here. It isn't unplayable on PS3 but it is the most rough experience I've had in a video game in quite some time. If you can look past the frequent freezing - it unfreezes a few seconds later and I didn't have to hard reboot my system - and various other bugs, then by all means, give it a whirl. It's fun nonetheless.
 
SirCrush said:
DO NOT GET THE PS3 VERSION!

I rented it from Redbox and suffered a few game breaking bugs/glitches. It's a rather fun game but having to restart when you can't vault over anything is a pain in the ass.

I envy those with a PS4. I wanna play the game proper.

I feel I am being a BIT too harsh here. It isn't unplayable on PS3 but it is the most rough experience I've had in a video game in quite some time. If you can look past the frequent freezing - it unfreezes a few seconds later and I didn't have to hard reboot my system - and various other bugs, then by all means, give it a whirl. It's fun nonetheless.
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I have been playing the ps3 version for 20 hours and have had none of these problems.

If this is the roughest you have had in awhile then you must not play many games.

Its perfectly playable. Of course its a step down from the ps4, the textures can look pretty bland. I think the main offender I have had is that sometimes when I look forward, and pass a cool car or motorcycle, I'll turn around only to have the game load a different set of vehicles in that short distance. Annoying, but not unplayable or even near it.
 
This game really is pretty generic in spots. I feel like I'm playing any other open world game but with a hint of stealth.

I am having fun though.
 
I didn't really care for the social justice bit (though I do think it's important, just.. it's been done to death and WD doesn't seem that egregious), but I thought the rest was pretty level headed. Some constructive criticism.
 
ComputerMKII said:
Kotaku - Should You Play This Game? - NO
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It's great to know that I can completely ignore Kotaku's reviews from here on out. I completely disagree with what was said in that review. I've been playing video games all my life, and therefore trust my own instincts and impressions of video games in general. That said, I really, really like Watch Dogs. So much so that I even bought the Season's Pass after about 20 hours of gameplay. The game is littered with detail, things to hack, missions to play, things to discover, etc. I really like Ubi's execution of the open world in this game, and it sets the bar high for the inevitable sequel.
 
ComputerMKII said:
Kotaku - Should You Play This Game? - NO
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I don't know what's worse Kirk's "review" or the fact that the first comment is Jason trying to validate it. Even if Jason actually "really enjoyed" reading that review, the fact that after reading it, he is so grateful that he didn't waste his time or money pretty much means that he takes Kirk's words to be the one true gospel, as if it were delivered by God himself. Have things become so bad at Kotaku that they have to resort to tooting their own horn since apparently no one else will?
 
I played a few hours of Watch Dogs through a friend's shared Steam acct, it didn't keep my attention and based on the little experience I do have with the game I find myself totally agreeing with the review. Some bits I can't comment on (like complaints about the ending and certain plot twists) but in many respects I 100% agree with the Kotaku review and was pretty impressed with how well written it was.

That being said, games are art and art is always subjective, which means so are reviews. But I think Kirk makes *tons* of great points and find it disappointing to see people just responding to it with 'lol kotaku so bad'.
 
Boss★Moogle;114619162 said:
I don't know what's worse Kirk's "review" or the fact that the first comment is Jason trying to validate it. Even if Jason actually "really enjoyed" reading that review, the fact that after reading it, he is so grateful that he didn't waste his time or money pretty much means that he takes Kirk's words to be the one true gospel, as if it were delivered by God himself. Have things become so bad at Kotaku that they have to resort to tooting their own horn since apparently no one else will?
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After reading the "review" a second time, I can answer my own question and say that the "review" is worse.
 
nah, after playing this for some days, in my opinion on average they (the reviews) take this game and themself to seriously in this matter and simultaneously I'm surprised that I'm saying this about an AAA Ubisoft title
 
FairXchange said:
It's great to know that I can completely ignore Kotaku's reviews from here on out. I completely disagree with what was said in that review. I've been playing video games all my life, and therefore trust my own instincts and impressions of video games in general. That said, I really, really like Watch Dogs. So much so that I even bought the Season's Pass after about 20 hours of gameplay. The game is littered with detail, things to hack, missions to play, things to discover, etc. I really like Ubi's execution of the open world in this game, and it sets the bar high for the inevitable sequel.
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On the other hand, that review echoed similar feelings I've had playing lots of similar open world games, and let me know that the things that bothered me in those other games would bother me in Watch Dogs too! Plus, it let me know that shooting people is a big part of the game, which was disappointing as everything besides the shooting was what attracted me to the initial trailer.

So it looks like this review did its job! It had enough information to let me know I could skip it, and it had enough information to let you know you would disagree with the conclusion! Yay.
 
Reese-015 said:
I played a few hours of Watch Dogs through a friend's shared Steam acct, it didn't keep my attention and based on the little experience I do have with the game I find myself totally agreeing with the review. Some bits I can't comment on (like complaints about the ending and certain plot twists) but in many respects I 100% agree with the Kotaku review and was pretty impressed with how well written it was.

That being said, games are art and art is always subjective, which means so are reviews. But I think Kirk makes *tons* of great points and find it disappointing to see people just responding to it with 'lol kotaku so bad'.
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The problem isn't the critiques, the game isn't perfect. The problem is the antagonistic superior tone.

TheBryanJZX90 said:
On the other hand, that review echoed similar feelings I've had playing lots of similar open world games, and let me know that the things that bothered me in those other games would bother me in Watch Dogs too! Plus, it let me know that shooting people is a big part of the game, which was disappointing as everything besides the shooting was what attracted me to the initial trailer.

So it looks like this review did its job! It had enough information to let me know I could skip it, and it had enough information to let you know you would disagree with the conclusion! Yay.
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I don't like open world games.

I was extremely put off by the changes and downgrades.

I dislike Ubisoft collect-a-thons.

I agree with some of the points the Kotaku review makes...

Yet I still really enjoy playing Watchdogs.

It feels like a broken promise at times. Some parts feel undercooked. The story is hardly riveting.

Yet something about the sum of all of it is incredibly compelling. Jumping between main story, side missions, seamless online, and mini-games, the way everything fits just makes it flow really well,

So yeh, if I hadn't bought a cheap cd key for curiosity's sake I would probably think the Kotaku review was speaking to me too.

And I would have been wrong.
 
I think Kirk's review was an excellent piece of writing and a valid perspective on the game. You're allowed to disagree with him, but I don't think it's a dishonest or pandering review at all. He perfectly summed up so many of the things that have begun to wear me down about the way that Ubisoft makes games these days.
 
TheBryanJZX90 said:
it let me know that shooting people is a big part of the game.
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Only it's not. I'm pretty far in and I was only ever forced to shoot somebody once so far, in a predetermined slow motion scene where a guy is about to shoot one of your friends. In all the other stuff killing is completely optional. I'm not saying it's not easier sometimes, because it is, but if you want to play the game without killing you can. I was able to hack all the ctOS hubs (the ones that unlock the ctOS towers) without even setting foot in the restricted area. Compared to a game like GTA V , this game gives you way more freedom in how you want to tackle objectives. It's much more in line with Deus Ex in that regard.
 
MuseManMike said:
Black gangsters in Chicago? Stop being racist, you racist.
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Funny how nobody ever says shit to Rockstar about that stuff. Apparently black gangbangers in Watch_Dogs is racist but in GTA it's "authentic".

I wonder what a review of The Wire from Kirk would look like...
 
Zakalwe said:
The problem isn't the critiques, the game isn't perfect. The problem is the antagonistic superior tone.
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Exactly. From the very first sentence you can tell how the review was going to go down:

My first question for Watch Dogs was, "Well, what if I don't want to shoot Maurice?"
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I could make that kind of antagonistic/douchey statement about any game: What if i don't want to follow the CO in Call of Duty, What if I don't want want to go down corridors in FFXIII, What if I don't want to be Tom Nook's bitch in every Animal Crossing game? What if I don't want to go live for a year with my uncle in Inaba in Persona 4? The answer is if you want to play the game you don't have a choice so if you're gonna be like that, then don't bother playing and writing "reviews" about it.
 
Joeki11a said:
Giant Bomb went nuts for Sleeping Dogs...why
not for Watchdogs?
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Probably cause they're completely different games with different qualities and an utterly different set of strengths and weaknesses.

Boss★Moogle;114633478 said:
I could make that kind of antagonistic/douchey statement about any game: What if i don't want to follow the CO in Call of Duty, What if I don't want want to go down corridors in FFXIII, What if I don't want to be Tom Nook's bitch in every Animal Crossing game? What if I don't want to go live for a year with my uncle in Inaba in Persona 4? The answer is if you want to play the game you don't have a choice so if you're gonna be like that, then don't bother playing and writing "reviews" about it.
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To be honest, I disagree. I experienced the exact same thing. I read interviews with the devs about the freedom of choice in your playstyles and your ability to do a nearly no-kill run and such... To then be handed a "press button to shoot dude" moment as the very first bit of gameplay in the game is not a good start and it really doesn't fit the identity that the game wants to have.
 
Reese-015 said:
To be honest, I disagree. I experienced the exact same thing. I read interviews with the devs about the freedom of choice in your playstyles and your ability to do a nearly no-kill run and such... To then be handed a "press button to shoot dude" moment as the very first bit of gameplay in the game is not a good start and it really doesn't fit the identity that the game wants to have.
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Yes, except you don't actually shoot him.

It was a fun way to introduce players to the shooting controls. It is literally nothing to do with player choice, but a part of the integrated tutorial.

It's such a mindless critique. You don't get choice when the game is teaching you, this is true for almost every single tutorial and it's a GOOD thing because it gives consistency for players who would benefit. You get choice the moment you step outside the room.

Oh, and you don't actually shoot him.

That last part is super important.
 
Erevador said:
I think this sentence from Kirk's review was right on the money...
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It comes at a time when we have heard this criticism about many AAA games.

But I'm not in agreement with the blanked critique that big teams can't still have a focussed vision; if the producer is well respected then they can.
 
Zakalwe said:
Yes, except you don't actually shoot him.

It was a fun way to introduce players to the shooting controls. It is literally nothing to do with player choice, but a part of the integrated tutorial.

It's such a mindless critique. You don't get choice when the game is teaching you, this is true for almost every single tutorial and it's a GOOD thing because it gives consistency for players who would benefit. You get choice the moment you step outside the room.

Oh, and you don't actually shoot him.

That last part is super important.
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Well yeah the fact that you don't actually shoot him definitely redeems it a bit but it still felt like a really off way to start to me. Simply giving a binary choice at that point would have made all the difference.

The most important part about this critique is to realize that it's not about that one moment, it's about taking that moment as one of the many examples of how the game feels like it just doesn't live up to the identity of what it wants to be. Or that's what it feels like to me anyway and seemingly what it felt like to Kirk as well.

As someone stated a few posts above, I think it's totally valid critique. It's subjective of course, but valid nonetheless. That review is something I highly identify with and don't interpret as some maliciously or ignorantly written trash piece at all and to say it is is even more shallow and ignorant than some of you are accusing the actual review to be. It's a legitimate opinion that many people share. A minority perhaps, but a significant amount of people. Just as many also didn't like Bioshock Infinite's combat at all. I for one would have been much happier if there were a few more reviews that reflected that just as I'm happy that Kotaku's review takes the angle it does.
 
Feels to me like people misunderstood the tutorial maurice scene.It was a nice play on cliché,Ubisoft was making fun here of other shooters by subverting expectations.I groaned too when they gave me the gun and told me to shoot him, and then I chuckled how it actually went down.
 
Denton said:
Feels to me like people misunderstood the tutorial maurice scene.It was a nice play on cliché,Ubisoft was making fun here of other shooters by subverting expectations.I groaned too when they gave me the gun and told me to shoot him, and then I chuckled how it actually went down.
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Thankfully how it goes down was spoiled in the Kotaku review for me :P Then called both fresh and rote.

Edit: my bad double post.
 
Reese-015 said:
Well yeah the fact that you don't actually shoot him definitely redeems it a bit but it still felt like a really off way to start to me. Simply giving a binary choice at that point would have made all the difference.
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What? This part of the game is setting up a part of the narrative. There shouldn't be a choice here. It's just a tutorial room; this part introduces the aiming and shooing mechanic in a clever way that actually makes fun of the idea of player choice.

A binary choice can't work because we NEED Maurice alive.

Reese-015 said:
The most important part about this critique is to realize that it's not about that one moment, it's about taking that moment as one of the many examples of how the game feels like it just doesn't live up to the identity of what it wants to be.
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This has nothing to do with it because the tutorial moment has nothing to do with not living up to what the game wants to be.

In fact, it actively SUPPORTS the idea of a choice driven game by messing with expectation in the moment, thereby surprising the player. It's a neat little trick.

What comes after is absolutely open to critique, the game itself and it's many failings, but it's not the critiques in the review that are an issue, it's the over the top superior and antagonistic tone, the ridiculous racism claims, and the fact he completely missed the point of the tutorial.

If he'd not tried so hard to trash it and discussed the valid critiques with a level head, it could have been a good bit of writing.
 
Reese-015 said:
To be honest, I disagree. I experienced the exact same thing. I read interviews with the devs about the freedom of choice in your playstyles and your ability to do a nearly no-kill run and such... To then be handed a "press button to shoot dude" moment as the very first bit of gameplay in the game is not a good start and it really doesn't fit the identity that the game wants to have.
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It's just a fucking tutorial of how to use weapons. People read too much into it.
 
Joeki11a said:
Giant Bomb went nuts for Sleeping Dogs...why
not for Watchdogs?
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As someone who enjoyed Sleeping Dogs, the melee centric combat is pretty much the reason why anyone went nuts for Sleeping Dogs. If it wasn't for that it would have been added to the long list of terrible GTA clones and no one would have given it a second look.

Which is why i don't understand why people seem so dead set on comparing Watchdogs pound for pound with GTA when it's much more on the level of Sleeping Dogs in that it's an open world game and it has all the trappings of an open world game that GTA has familiarized us with but it provides a unique hook with the hacking the same way Sleeping Dogs' hook was melee.

Which further confuses me when a lot of the negative reviews/opinions suggest that the hacking is insignificant. There are a ton of missions and side activities you can complete without even having to engage in direct combat due to the hacking. Hell, one of the earliest missions in the game you can complete WITHOUT EVEN HAVING TO LEAVE THE CONFINES OF YOUR CAR. How is that insignificant? On the other hand, you can do that same mission with hand to hand stealth or run in guns blazing. It's as if people just create this idea that open world game + guns = massacre every living thing on screen which is certainly a byproduct of all the GTAs and it's subpar imitations. So just because people are playing the game as a by the numbers "shoot em up bang bang" game doesn't mean the hacking is insignificant. I personally find chases enjoyable, something that's always been terrible in other open world games, because the environmental hacking lets me control the ebb and flow of the chase. Im sure most would agree that trying to simply outrun the cops with no hacking especially at higher wanted levels is just god awful so much that i don't look forward to go back to other open world games where your only recourse to get away from chases is to basically go as fast as you can in oncoming traffic and hope the AI can't navigate it as well as you can.

I'm not trying to suggest that people that don't like the game don't have merit for doing so. It's not a perfect game, it has flaws just like all games but ever since the whole downgradeaton people seem intent on taking the game down as many pegs as possible while completely undermining the things that it does well or applying the most audacious double standards i've ever witnessed.
 
Turin Turambar said:
It's just a fucking tutorial of how to use weapons. People read too much into it.
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Exactly. In fact they seem to read entirely too much into the whole game. I never expected the game to be anything more than a third person open world shooter with a few hacking mechanisms tacked on. And in that regard the game is really solid and even surprised me with the freedom given to tackle most of the objectives.

But apparently a few people like Kirk built this game up way too much in their head and wanted it to be something it never was going to be. And so they decide to punish it by nitpicking every little detail like Aiden's clothes. Seriously, I never gave one afterthought to Aiden's outfit and I don't understand how somebody could do a whole rant on it in a review including a diagram that critiques every piece individually. It's pathetic. When you combine that with his truly embarrassing "racism" rant and the fact that he referenced another game just so he could link to it in a sad effort to get additional clicks for the site (almost every article on Kotaku does this now, it will have links to other Kotaku articles in the text just to try to get extra hits), it adds up to one pitiful review.

Thankfully Kirk is very much in the minority here and I think the game has the metacritic score it deserves. Far from perfect but really solid and somewhat innovative game. There's a lot for Ubisoft to build on. It reminds me a lot of the first Assassin's Creed where I saw a lot of potential but it wasn't really realized until Assassin's Creed II.
 
Boss★Moogle;114746167 said:
Exactly. In fact they seem to read entirely too much into the whole game. I never expected the game to be anything more than a third person open world shooter with a few hacking mechanisms tacked on. And in that regard the game is really solid and even surprised me with the freedom given to tackle most of the objectives.

But apparently a few people like Kirk built this game up way too much in their head and wanted it to be something it never was going to be. And so they decide to punish it by nitpicking every little detail like Aiden's clothes. Seriously, I never gave one afterthought to Aiden's outfit and I don't understand how somebody could do a whole rant on it in a review including a diagram that critiques every piece individually. It's pathetic. When you combine that with his truly embarrassing "racism" rant and the fact that he referenced another game just so he could link to it in a sad effort to get additional clicks for the site (almost every article on Kotaku does this now, it will have links to other Kotaku articles in the text just to try to get extra hits), it adds up to one pitiful review.

Thankfully Kirk is very much in the minority here and I think the game has the metacritic score it deserves. Far from perfect but really solid and somewhat innovative game. There's a lot for Ubisoft to build on. It reminds me a lot of the first Assassin's Creed where I saw a lot of potential but it wasn't really realized until Assassin's Creed II.
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I did a whole podcast last week with another gaffer on this very subject. I don't know what people were really expecting from Watch_Dogs, and I especially don't get how anyone was fooled by what they saw at E3 in 2012. I literally shake my head when I see or hear someone thinking this game was going to be some kind of paradigm shift in game design or something. It's fucking ridiculous.
 
scitek said:
I did a whole podcast last week with another gaffer on this very subject. I don't know what people were really expecting from Watch_Dogs, and I especially don't get how anyone was fooled by what they saw at E3 in 2012. I literally shake my head when I see or hear someone thinking this game was going to be some kind of paradigm shift in game design or something. It's fucking ridiculous.
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Yeah some people were clearly delusional.
 
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