Watch_Dogs is quite simply AMAZING!!!

[ShinyCharizard]

Has anyone got it on PC? How does it run?

If the Steam reviews are to be believed then it's not working for ANYONE. EVER. ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.

It runs rather poorly. It seems that no matter what kind of set up you have, the game constantly stutters while you are driving, it makes a lot of missions a complete pain in the ass. Myself and two friends of mine have this same stutter problem, and so do a large amount of people on the internet it seems.

OT:

Watch Dogs is a haphazard mishmash of various gameplay systems, some work well, some don't.

The gunplay is satisfying, it packs a nice punch, and the cover system works well. Stealth sections are enjoyable, if a little frustrating due to the fact that you can't hide bodies. Meaning you pretty much just have to quickly kill everyone before a body is spotted.

The driving is atrocious, cars handle like shit. They accelerate too quickly and steer like a brick. You can't shoot from within a vehicle. Making certain missions where you have to kill a target within a vehicle more frustrating than it needs to be.

The hacking is cool at times, I like being able to switch through security cameras and marking enemies. Outside of that it just there to distract enemies, cause explosions, hack bank accounts and phone conversations etc. It's fun but nothing game changing.

Now the hacking while driving is severely ruined by the aforementioned fact that cars handle terribly, and the game has this awful mechanic whereby if you hack a set of traffic lights to cause an accident, it likes to shift the camera to show you the spectacle. Which invariably leads you to crashing at high speed because you can't see where you are going.

The story is decent at best. But Aiden as a character is thoroughly annoying and unlikeable. It isn't compelling enough to make me want to finish it.

 

[Drunken_step_dad]

WATCH_DOGS, to me, is quite simply the biggest disappointment I ever seen. Not just due to what they promised us originally but even just as a open world game. It's missing things like being able to blind fire or fire from cover without having to aim in case an enemy flanks you. And the hacking is pretty lame, barley a step up from the hacking in Deus Ex Revolution, adding only a handful of new ideas. The controls feel just awful, especially while driving, with the controller layouts feeling a bit weird at times. And if you want to make the comparison to GTA V then your going to be kidding yourself by saying this game has better graphics or is more detailed, it can hardly even compare to GTA 4.

As much as I have played so far, being about 15%, I feel like I've been only having fun maybe 20% of all that time I played. I can see playing thru once but after that it's in the dust. They better come back with what we we're promised in 2, which with Ubisoft's record we can expect in about 1 year.

 

[PlayerDos]

I reckon the gameplay shits all over GTA5, but Aiden Pierce is just such a shit character lol. The story of Watchdogs is undeniably garbage but I went in expecting that. More fun to play, less fun to listen to.

 

[Princessbabe]

I was a bit bothered by certain things when I started, but the game really picks up and certain initially jarring elements can be acclimatized to. I hated the way vehicles handle at first, and while it isn't up to GTA levels, once you get used to just lightly tapping the accelerator to coast, tapping to turn and then tapping the other way to not oversteer and using the brakes it is certainly manageable, and I'm using a keyboard. Not being able to shoot while driving bothered me, but now that I can hack traffic lights, steam pipes, explosives, spike strips, etc. there are lots of fun opportunities to bait pursuers into destruction. The first mission with vehicle stealth was a pain and required a lot of retries but now that the world has opened up it is an amazing addition and has great utility in a lot of mission types, for example being chased by gangsters or the police on foot, jumping off an overpass or through an alley, hacking a car in a parking lot open and using it like an AC haystack.

The game isn't a GTA competitor because it excels at different things. I turned the difficulty up to hard so that straight up fights are punishing and it opened up the game's excellent open world stealth and fun puzzles. It is a bit like AC in that you have more fun and challenge if you impose your own restrictions like stealth, non-lethality, pure hacking etc. I like the profiler because it helps me get immersed in my own moral choices and prejudices and the amount of content they put into that thing is staggering, with so many text chains and phone conversations and things to overhear that I've played for hours without repetition.

The clothing options mostly look like some-one hit "random" in the sims character creator, but the "Steelworks" and "Malcontent" outfits are great. I like that they went a bit further with the "punk chic" stereotype than a nose-ring.

I went in with low expectations and I'm having an incredible amount of fun with it. On higher difficulties, when things go according to plan you feel like a pro and when things go wrong they go horribly, horribly wrong.

There are still some things that I don't like, such as the freerunning being so simplified that you can't jump an easy gap and how the crime prevention system will sometimes fail you for running at a guy who literally just said "give me all your money" and reached for the victim. But all things considered the game has a lot to offer and is a step in the right direction for Ubisoft. I can understand why people don't like it, it isn't as good as GTA for wacky hijinks and destruction, but as some-one who has always wanted a big budget open world cyberpunk stealth game this is as good as I'll get for a while.

Has anyone got it on PC? How does it run?

If the Steam reviews are to be believed then it's not working for ANYONE. EVER. ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.

It runs rather poorly. It seems that no matter what kind of set up you have, the game constantly stutters while you are driving, it makes a lot of missions a complete pain in the ass. Myself and two friends of mine have this same stutter problem, and so do a large amount of people on the internet it seems.

I'm not denying you may have a problem, but this isn't an issue for all. I'm running a GTX 570, a Core i5-2500k @ 3.30GHz and 8 gigs of RAM and have the game at high settings for everything except for bumping AA to FXAA and the lowest anisotropy setting and it looks great and only stutters during some cutscenes where they crank the shaders a little.

 

[frobalt]

-snip-

The core thing about GTA games is that you play as a criminal, This means the focus is on committing crimes. If it was just focused on stealing cars, as the name would suggest, it would get boring very quickly. Of course, it's only natural that other things would get thrown in there as the series expanded, but it doesn't mean the game is too broad - Let's face it, there's probably no-one out there that does nothing but play tennis in this game.

The missions in GTA reflect this perfectly, as pretty much all of them have you commit some sort of crime in them.

As for Watch_Dogs, you play the role of a vigilante, so why are you able to hack people's bank accounts to steal money off them? Bit of a hypocritical vigilante, don't you think?

I'll have to try the whole hiding in the car things to lose the cops if I play again. If that seriously works it shows how bad the AI actually is in this game - In GTA games, the cops supposedly keep track of what vehicle you're in and can sometimes be confused if you dump the vehicle out of sight of them and switch to another one, but they will quickly be on alert once they have found the dumped car. Being able to hide in your car in Watch_Dogs to lose them just shows how they don't even do something as basic as monitoring your car.

I say 'If I play it again' because I'm seriously thinking about trading it in - The only reason I'd play it at the moment is because I've spent money on it and don't want to feel like I've wasted it.

I know I said I was enjoying it in my first post, but it hasn't taken me long to get completely bored of it.

 

[Princessbabe]

...The missions in GTA reflect this perfectly, as pretty much all of them have you commit some sort of crime in them.

As for Watch_Dogs, you play the role of a vigilante, so why are you able to hack people's bank accounts to steal money off them? Bit of a hypocritical vigilante, don't you think?

Yes, it is hypocritical. That is one of the strongest parts of the game for me. The things the profiler tell you about people make you think about your own digital footprint and how totally terrifying it would be if a hypocritical maniac with a gun (and a corporation) had access to that information.

Also, it is worth noting that Aiden Pierce doesn't really consider himself a vigilante, that is the name the public gives to him from what they see him doing. They don't know that he is hacking accounts. In most cases you only suffer reputation loss for crimes people witness. Pierce is a criminal. He is an enforcer, con man and social engineer. At the start of the game you see him doing legwork for a hacker, and the audio logs tell you that he learned how to "hack" through that partnership.

I'll have to try the whole hiding in the car things to lose the cops if I play again. If that seriously works it shows how bad the AI actually is in this game - In GTA games, the cops supposedly keep track of what vehicle you're in and can sometimes be confused if you dump the vehicle out of sight of them and switch to another one, but they will quickly be on alert once they have found the dumped car. Being able to hide in your car in Watch_Dogs to lose them just shows how they don't even do something as basic as monitoring your car.

It doesn't work at close range. They will often try to investigate the car. The idea is to use it in a parking lot or an alley or off road to appear like an abandoned/empty car. If they see it they investigate. Also, you can use it to escape on foot too. Sometimes I'll be running away, I'll break line of sight and hack my way into a parked car and hide in it.

Also, have you not seen the opening scene of Drive? That's what they were going for. http://vimeo.com/51833852

It is fine if you don't like the game or have gotten bored, but I think you're being a little pedantic.

 

[asdfen]

watch dogs is by far the most boring open world game I've played

any of the following are much more fun
GTA 3-5
Prototype 1,2
infamous 2
Red Dead Redemption
State of Decay

there are more that I cannot recall

The graphics is decent but nothing mind blowing imo

 

[sagitel]

snip

It really really is amazing. I get bored within the first hour of any Rockstar game. I'm talking how much better the world is and how much better missions are structured, not that it has 3rd-person shooting or a cliche main character. Vanquish and RDR both have 3rd-person shooting, one of them is great.

Did you want hacking to be a mini-game every single fucking time? Because that's just so much fun! in Deus Ex HR, Mass Effect 2, Bioshock, etc. And hacking isn't really hacking when you do most things; you hack in to get access, then you have access and you can just "use" whatever like a authorized user of said system could.

now now! something being better than something else doesnt mean its good. getting hit in the balls is bad and its worse than getting hit in your stomache. but getting hit in your stomach is still bad.

OT: i have not played much of watch dogs but the much played hinted that it is a good game. it was fun. not AMAZING! but good. oh and i didnt get to any of the cutscenes so no comment on that. but the driving is a steaming pile of dog shit

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I'm pretty good at driving games, but after playing a bit I have to agree the driving does kinda suck compared to GTA.

In GTAV the cars feel different. Driving the Infernus is different than then the Cheetah which feels wwwaaayyyy different then riding in my Ruiner. The bikes feel unique too.

the driving in Watch Dogs feels so... generic. It's kinda Saints Row like, the cars all feel the same just with some a little faster and some and unrealistically turn on a dime.

It doesn't help that the cars on demand feature pretty much kills any feelings of "ownership" over the vehicles, or that every mission that I start it eats my car forcing me to jack one because we can't spawn a vehicle during a mission for some reason.

The driving is "fine," I didn't expect it to be anything special, it gets the job done. The cars feel pretty different on turns for me. And, you have to break before a turn, nothing turns on a dime for me. Watch Dogs is not a racing game, all driving has to do is work and it does.

i drive a car alright, that doesn't make the ingame driving feel anymore fun. its such a chore im gonna go ahead and run everywhere fuck this shit.

Driving is driving, it's never really "fun" unless it's a great arcade racer for me. I never played any open world game and thought the driving was fun. I fast-travel in games whenever possible so I don't have to drive, Far Cry 3 was awesome in that regard. RDR was the most atrocious traveling ever as the horses were awful and everything was so far away.

Now the hacking while driving is severely ruined by the aforementioned fact that cars handle terribly, and the game has this awful mechanic whereby if you hack a set of traffic lights to cause an accident, it likes to shift the camera to show you the spectacle. Which invariably leads you to crashing at high speed because you can't see where you are going.

I've never once crashed after a camera cut-away. You can use focus while driving...

I reckon the gameplay shits all over GTA5, but Aiden Pierce is just such a shit character lol. The story of Watchdogs is undeniably garbage but I went in expecting that. More fun to play, less fun to listen to.

That's pretty much every game. Whatever entertainment I get out of a game's story is just a bonus. The game industry has so very few actual good writers to buy games for story. If you want a good story and characters, you need to go to any other medium.

-snip-

The core thing about GTA games is that you play as a criminal, This means the focus is on committing crimes. If it was just focused on stealing cars, as the name would suggest, it would get boring very quickly. Of course, it's only natural that other things would get thrown in there as the series expanded, but it doesn't mean the game is too broad - Let's face it, there's probably no-one out there that does nothing but play tennis in this game.

The missions in GTA reflect this perfectly, as pretty much all of them have you commit some sort of crime in them.

As for Watch_Dogs, you play the role of a vigilante, so why are you able to hack people's bank accounts to steal money off them? Bit of a hypocritical vigilante, don't you think?

I'll have to try the whole hiding in the car things to lose the cops if I play again. If that seriously works it shows how bad the AI actually is in this game - In GTA games, the cops supposedly keep track of what vehicle you're in and can sometimes be confused if you dump the vehicle out of sight of them and switch to another one, but they will quickly be on alert once they have found the dumped car. Being able to hide in your car in Watch_Dogs to lose them just shows how they don't even do something as basic as monitoring your car.

I say 'If I play it again' because I'm seriously thinking about trading it in - The only reason I'd play it at the moment is because I've spent money on it and don't want to feel like I've wasted it.

I know I said I was enjoying it in my first post, but it hasn't taken me long to get completely bored of it.

I wasn't saying GTA has no "core" but that it has no core gameplay or the core gameplay is so subpar (the shooting). It's not that the missions have you committing crimes but that they are so same-y gameplay-wise or they are some simplistic mini-game. It's just like Assassin's Creed. Assassin's Creed has stealth (but it's not a stealth game), it has platforming (but it's hardly a platformer + no jump button), and it has combat (but it's not a beat'em up game and the combat system itself is so simplistic). AC isn't really any type of game, I quit the series because the most fun I had in AC2 were the puzzles, I enjoyed AC1 for the assassinations (kinda like Hitman-lite) but AC2's assassinations were so lame.

With Watch Dogs the shooting, cover system, stealth, hacking, enemy AI, level design, etc. all work together to give you that core gameplay much like Far Cry 3 (how you could approach taking down Outposts differently, using different tactics and skills). And the way the AI responds made a 2nd or 3rd attempt taking an Outpost play out differently. Whereas when I play RDR, it was nothing but me crossing the imaginary line (where all the enemies started shooting at me) and then me just cover shooting them and essentially playing whack-a-mole.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

I'm pretty good at driving games, but after playing a bit I have to agree the driving does kinda suck compared to GTA.

In GTAV the cars feel different. Driving the Infernus is different than then the Cheetah which feels wwwaaayyyy different then riding in my Ruiner. The bikes feel unique too.

the driving in Watch Dogs feels so... generic. It's kinda Saints Row like, the cars all feel the same just with some a little faster and some and unrealistically turn on a dime.

It doesn't help that the cars on demand feature pretty much kills any feelings of "ownership" over the vehicles, or that every mission that I start it eats my car forcing me to jack one because we can't spawn a vehicle during a mission for some reason.

The driving is "fine," I didn't expect it to be anything special, it gets the job done. The cars feel pretty different on turns for me. And, you have to break before a turn, nothing turns on a dime for me. Watch Dogs is not a racing game, all driving has to do is work and it does.

i drive a car alright, that doesn't make the ingame driving feel anymore fun. its such a chore im gonna go ahead and run everywhere fuck this shit.

Driving is driving, it's never really "fun" unless it's a great arcade racer for me. I never played any open world game and thought the driving was fun. I fast-travel in games whenever possible so I don't have to drive, Far Cry 3 was awesome in that regard. RDR was the most atrocious traveling ever as the horses were awful and everything was so far away.

Now the hacking while driving is severely ruined by the aforementioned fact that cars handle terribly, and the game has this awful mechanic whereby if you hack a set of traffic lights to cause an accident, it likes to shift the camera to show you the spectacle. Which invariably leads you to crashing at high speed because you can't see where you are going.

I've never once crashed after a camera cut-away. You can use focus while driving...

I reckon the gameplay shits all over GTA5, but Aiden Pierce is just such a shit character lol. The story of Watchdogs is undeniably garbage but I went in expecting that. More fun to play, less fun to listen to.

That's pretty much every game. Whatever entertainment I get out of a game's story is just a bonus. The game industry has so very few actual good writers to buy games for story. If you want a good story and characters, you need to go to any other medium.

-snip-

The core thing about GTA games is that you play as a criminal, This means the focus is on committing crimes. If it was just focused on stealing cars, as the name would suggest, it would get boring very quickly. Of course, it's only natural that other things would get thrown in there as the series expanded, but it doesn't mean the game is too broad - Let's face it, there's probably no-one out there that does nothing but play tennis in this game.

The missions in GTA reflect this perfectly, as pretty much all of them have you commit some sort of crime in them.

As for Watch_Dogs, you play the role of a vigilante, so why are you able to hack people's bank accounts to steal money off them? Bit of a hypocritical vigilante, don't you think?

I'll have to try the whole hiding in the car things to lose the cops if I play again. If that seriously works it shows how bad the AI actually is in this game - In GTA games, the cops supposedly keep track of what vehicle you're in and can sometimes be confused if you dump the vehicle out of sight of them and switch to another one, but they will quickly be on alert once they have found the dumped car. Being able to hide in your car in Watch_Dogs to lose them just shows how they don't even do something as basic as monitoring your car.

I say 'If I play it again' because I'm seriously thinking about trading it in - The only reason I'd play it at the moment is because I've spent money on it and don't want to feel like I've wasted it.

I know I said I was enjoying it in my first post, but it hasn't taken me long to get completely bored of it.

I wasn't saying GTA has no "core" but that it has no core gameplay or the core gameplay is so subpar (the shooting). It's not that the missions have you committing crimes but that they are so same-y gameplay-wise or they are some simplistic mini-game. It's just like Assassin's Creed. Assassin's Creed has stealth (but it's not a stealth game), it has platforming (but it's hardly a platformer + no jump button), and it has combat (but it's not a beat'em up game and the combat system itself is so simplistic). AC isn't really any type of game, I quit the series because the most fun I had in AC2 were the puzzles, I enjoyed AC1 for the assassinations (kinda like Hitman-lite) but AC2's assassinations were so lame.

With Watch Dogs the shooting, cover system, stealth, hacking, enemy AI, level design, etc. all work together to give you that core gameplay much like Far Cry 3 (how you could approach taking down Outposts differently, using different tactics and skills). And the way the AI responds made a 2nd or 3rd attempt taking an Outpost play out differently. Whereas when I play RDR, it was nothing but me crossing the imaginary line (where all the enemies started shooting at me) and then me just cover shooting them and essentially playing whack-a-mole.

GTAV is primarily a racing game either, but most of the time I spend playing it is doing races.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Having been playing it a bit, the game is certainly worth the full price. and there is a shit ton of content I haven't even touched yet...

the game could of used some more polish and toys though. I just unlocked that "Stealth" car from the Uplay thing. Despite it touting it's "Stealth" capabilities it's just a normal car. Not that you would know if it was stealthy since the fucking game keeps eating my vehicles mid-mission.

I'm going to screw around with the side-missions for a while. I found a digital drug dealer who gave me this thing that allowed me to have a psychadellic trip jumping on flower petals.

 

[freaper]

If only the FPS didn't go to shit at random during chases, it would make the driving missions bearable. At least I'm having fun with the Spider Tank, and Alone was, albeit repetitive, very atmospheric.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Ubisoft fails to deliver once again imo, they shafted AMD users. For a 'next-gen' game it looks 'eh' at best with piss poor performance. There's so much wrong with this game but I won't go over it since other forum members already stated them.

Was to be expected, last thing they did ok was Driver San Fransisco and as a Driver fan even that one was forgettable.

 

[LeQuack_Is_Back]

All I hear while listening to the OP is the barking of a lapdog. Sorry, but after all the highlighted glitches and mistakes, the main character being a ponce with no real redeeming qualities outside "PROTECT MAH FAMILY!", and terrible business practices, I'm not touching this game with a ten foot pole.

 

[SlothDeVidya]

I disagree.

I think it's a very good game and I'm having a lot of fun with it, but it falls into the "Figure out what the developers intended instead of doing what makes sense" trap FAR too often.

I swear I've lost count of the amount of puzzles that could be solved in 2 second by one of the following.

1. Moving a wooden crate or plastic bin 5 feet to get over something
2. Being able to jump more than ½ foot horizontally
3. Not having the fucking chain-link fence doors be immune to explosives.

Instead the game usually hamstrings you into finding some hidden doodad in the environment.

The second time I had to run in circles around a building for 20 minutes to find the single way the developer intended for me to get onto the roof when there were about 5 different extremely easy ways that I, as in myself, could get onto that roof was the point where I downgraded my score of this game from "Great" to merely "very good"

 

[stroopwafel]

I freakin love this game as well! I wanted to give it a decent amount of playtime before I made up my mind, but it's sooooo good. I played a lot of open-world games but rarely have I felt this 'immersed'(yeah there's the word again) as in Watch Dogs. The shooting is excellent, the driving is fun, the city looks gorgeous(finally a game I think is worthy of being called 'next-gen') and it's so full of detail and random little things it makes my head spin. On top of that the game is thematically relevant to todays society as well.

Personally I think the game delivered on its promise. The dizzying amount of work they must have put into creating this game shines in almost any facet of its design. I sometimes think people and press hate on the game b/c its the 'cool' thing to do. One of the few reviews that did the game some justice was by Jim Sterling.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

WATCH_DOGS, to me, is quite simply the biggest disappointment I ever seen. Not just due to what they promised us originally but even just as a open world game. It's missing things like being able to blind fire or fire from cover without having to aim in case an enemy flanks you. And the hacking is pretty lame, barley a step up from the hacking in Deus Ex Revolution, adding only a handful of new ideas. The controls feel just awful, especially while driving, with the controller layouts feeling a bit weird at times. And if you want to make the comparison to GTA V then your going to be kidding yourself by saying this game has better graphics or is more detailed, it can hardly even compare to GTA 4.

As much as I have played so far, being about 15%, I feel like I've been only having fun maybe 20% of all that time I played. I can see playing thru once but after that it's in the dust. They better come back with what we we're promised in 2, which with Ubisoft's record we can expect in about 1 year.

Are you talking about the PS4 version of Watch Dogs or the PS3/360 version? Because graphically, Watch Dogs on PS4 looks way better than GTAV, the NPCs look better than GTAV's main characters.

Why the hell do you want blindfire? It's useless 99.9% of the time due to all the accuracy penalties (besides for that bullshit auto-aim blindfire in Uncharted). Even if an enemy is super close, you still ADS fire for better aim as you still need to center the camera on the enemy regardless if you're using blindfire or not so I never got the point of using blindfire in TPSs. In the following video, you see how I always ADS fire even when the enemy is really close to me like at 3:50 and 6:30 (even with a sniper rifle):

Spoiler

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I freakin love this game as well! I wanted to give it a decent amount of playtime before I made up my mind, but it's sooooo good. I played a lot of open-world games but rarely have I felt this 'immersed'(yeah there's the word again) as in Watch Dogs. The shooting is excellent, the driving is fun, the city looks gorgeous(finally a game I think is worthy of being called 'next-gen') and it's so full of detail and random little things it makes my head spin. On top of that the game is thematically relevant to todays society as well.

Personally I think the game delivered on its promise. The dizzying amount of work they must have put into creating this game shines in almost any facet of its design. I sometimes think people and press hate on the game b/c its the 'cool' thing to do. One of the few reviews that did the game some justice was by Jim Sterling.

I guess I made a 2nd account lol. I couldn't agree more obviously, I actually bought a PS4 and a HDTV for Watch Dogs, and I'm not disappointed at all. If I didn't like the game, no big deal, I bought Ground Zeroes as well, and MGS is my favorite game series, and I would just sell Watch Dogs on eBay for like $50 or so. Jim Sterling is one of the very few game critics that actually reviews games properly, whether I agree (Watch Dogs, Assassin's Creed 2) or disagree (Vanquish). Most reviewers try to "objectively" review a game instead of just saying how much they like it or not. Game reviews shouldn't be nearly as consistent across the board like they are (I don't think any work in any other medium has gotten an average review score of 97 besides for video games), there's nothing wrong with hating a perfectly functional game like hating Resident Evil 4 and scoring it low just because you hated the game like this Escapist article [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/experienced-points/11339-Why-I-Hated-Resident-Evil-4] but game critics don't review like that (you know, just like movie, book, music, etc. critics).

 

[zxvcasdfqwerzxcv]

Watch_Dogs might just be the most boring game I have ever played. Frustratingly dull gameplay, rubbish plot, rubbish characters, rubbish minigames; everything about it is just so dull. I'm only just into Act II, somebody please tell me it gets better, or I might not bother with finishing it.