Watch Dogs - the most hyped game of 2014? I would say so, at least from what I've seen and heard around the globe. I have been very keen to try it out as well, as I was completely blown away when I saw it presented at E3 back in 2012 (who weren't?). So now the game is finally out, after quite a delay and yada yada. I was not a first-day-buyer this time around since I was short on cash and there was some other stuff I wanted more at the time. Now I have tried it out, however, since the local library is awesome and has got lots of games for a very cheap rent price, so I booked it about a month back.
Yesterday it was finally my turn to get my hands on it, and I sure did. I went home straight away to try it out, installed it and launched it. My personal anticipation had pretty much died during the month I had to wait, and the lukewarm reception from fans I've heard and seen during that time didn't help me either. But finally, I was playing Watch Dogs for the first time ever.
The intro is immediately very 50/50. It's kind of interesting, but mostly I wasn't very impressed ... at all. To be honest, what was I going to expect from it? I don't know, I just love free-roam and open-world games. I pretty much try everything that is one, and I'm horny as hell about the GTA-series, have always been. With that said, I didn't even know what I expected, but it sure was something more unique (the hype has been big, especially from Ubisoft themselves) than this.
After the very mediocre introduction, I'm launched into some action gameplay. Now this is looking more promising, thank Satan, and I play on. Since I'm a constant GTA-player I'm used to these kind of controls, so I pretty much get a hold of it quickly. That's probably the first thing I notice - the controls - and I don't like them. Overall they do feel clumpsy, yet still somewhat dynamic. It's so 50/50. Later on I also notice, probably the biggest question, the graphics and their overall feel and looks. What can I say? This is so goddamn totally disappointing! When we saw this game being presented at E3 back in 2012, everyone was blown away! But now, this just looks like and old and ugly piece of shit game made in like 2007.
Now I'm pretty disappointed. Sure, even I get that an Xbox 360 would never be able to recreate those graphics we were presented with at E3, but this is silly, really. There are so many more games, which are several years old now, that look so much better than Watch Dogs. I wasn't expecting those E3 graphics, but I did fucking expect more than this. Now it's up to everything else to surprise me, but that pretty much doesn't happen either.
I play on and I'm not really getting curious about the story. It feels unoriginal and is just told in a boring way that it has been told too many times before. I also heard quite many people state that while the graphics were not up to expectations, the combat should be good, as some people called it, "a good shooter". Well, I cannot really agree there neither. This was like the last drop for me - the shooting and combat system just fucking sucks, and it's boring. The hacking was also highly spoken of by Ubisoft as something "fresh and unique". Yeah, right. You press and hold the X-button everytime. Once in a while you get like a small mini-game where you must hack. But I have seen and done this all before. Particularly in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which is a very good game by the way, you get to do a lot of hacking, which is much more developed and fun than in Watch Dogs.
Really, what can I say? I'm so goddamn disappointed with this game. I was very hyped about it before it's release, and while it calmed down after its release, I still was looking forward to play it. Now the only consolation I've got after two years wait is that I did not buy it. I rented it for 15 Swedish kronor (about 2 bucks). I'm happy that I did not buy it for like 70-80 bucks. That is a consolation that I'm very happy out, and sadly enough, it's the only thing I am happy about with this game.
I give Watch Dogs a greatly disappointing 3/10.
