Watch Dogs (PS4)

Story

In the 1990s, as more and more people had access to the Internet, some predicted that it wouldn’t be long before we’d living much of our lives online. Back then it all seemed such a long way off, a dream of a distant science-fiction future. But now it’s almost impossible to think of life without the Internet; social networking, online banking, or just looking up what year that movie your friends are taking about came out – these are all things we simply take for granted in the year 2014. And since smart phones have become so ubiquitous in the past few years, we can get online from just about anywhere.

Data protection specialists often warn that abuse of personal data can have serious consequences for those affected. Identity theft is becoming more and more common, passwords are routinely stolen, and accounts hacked into and their contents made public. But despite their concerns, the market continues to grow unabated, and technology advances in leaps and bounds.

What would happen if …

… we allowed things to just keep going like this? What if in just a few years, the world becomes just the kind of surveillance state we were warned about? In a time when personal data is a person’s most valuable possession, you can bet there will be abuses. This is the dismal future Ubisoft imagines in their latest title Watch Dogs. In the cities of tomorrow, absolute surveillance is so thoroughly integrated into everyday life that it’s something most people take for granted. The ctOS network in Chicago not only stores residents’ Facebook pages and home addresses, but information like how much money they have in their bank accounts, whether they have any overdue bills, and their medical records are stored in the supercomputer and updated around the clock. ctOS even controls the city’s basic infrastructure, like the power grid and traffic lights. The purpose of this powerful security apparatus is ostensibly to keep people safe, but it also poses several dangers of its own.

Gameplay

In Watch Dogs, you take on the role of Aiden Pierce, a hacker who makes a living mostly by stealing data. He takes jobs from whoever will pay him the most to hack into the databases of large corporations or to procure information on certain persons of interest. His latest mission falls through, however, and what was supposed to be a simple heist ends up spinning completely out of control. When the alarm goes off, the police arrive on the scene almost immediately, blocking the streets and storming the building. Aiden flees, and the police give chase, but he’s able to elude them and barely avoid getting arrested. Who or what is responsible for the mission going south is a question that remains to be answered.

The next 40 hours or so of gameplay in the main storyline are all about finding out why the mission fell through, and more importantly, who killed Aiden’s daughter. While these two plotlines seem unrelated at first, within just a few hours of gameplay it becomes apparent that they’ve got everything to do with one another, and this mysterious link between the two events is what makes the storyline so appealing. As Aiden hunts for answers, you’re confronted on an almost regular basis with unpredictable plot twists and memorable characters. In order to reach his goal, he does what he does best – hacking security systems, locating target persons, tracing phone calls and money transfers, all of which gets him deeper and deeper into the criminal underworld of Chicago. Prostitution, human trafficking, drugs, and illegal arms dealing are all just business as usual on this side of the law. This world is no place for the squeamish, and if he want to get the answers he needs, he’d better damn well be ready to do what it takes.

Long before it even came out, they were comparing Watch Dogs with the superstar of the genre, Grand Theft Auto. At first glance, this is perfectly understandable. Both titles take place in fictional versions of well-known American cities, or at least that’s the idea. The game’s open world opens up piece by piece as we progress through the main storyline, so players won’t be overwhelmed with its sheer size at the very beginning. This is a really good thing, too, since after just a few yards, you’ll find yourself overcome with the urge to go and explore every little side alley and every last building you can get into. And there’s a whole lot to explore in Watch Dogs. Gun shops, fast food restaurants, and clothing stores are just some of the kinds of places you’ll find yourself looking for in the course of the game, especially before a big mission.

In a game of this magnitude, it’s pretty easy to lose track of where everything is, but luckily there’s a world map, which can be accessed at the push of a button. Marked down on the map are all places of interest, whether it’s a shop, a safe house, or one of the ctOS towers spread throughout the area. The towers bear a striking similarity to the viewpoints in Assassin’s Creed or the radio towers in Far Cry 3, except that you don’t have to scale them in order to “capture” them. Upon spotting one of these towers, Aiden gains access using surveillance cameras to open the security gates. His cell phone allows you to manipulate the network that connects everyone and everything in the city.

Once you’ve gotten all the barriers out of the way, you can begin hacking the tower. Aiden shuts down the tower’s security system using an app on his smart phone, and the result is that all nearby places of interest are now marked on the map, saving you hours of searching the area. And if you’re not interested in exploring the city on foot, there’s a fast-travel system, but also a wide variety of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and boats to choose from, all of which can be “borrowed” from their owners.

Let me give you a little illustration of what separates Ubisoft’s latest title from other games in its genre. Hacking is an integral component of the gameplay in Watch Dogs, and Aiden’s smart phone allows you to interact with our surroundings anytime and anywhere. All you have to do is turn it on to see which things you can manipulate nearby, starting with passers-by. A pop-up display shows you their name, their job, how much money they make, and even their medical records, among other personal information. On top of that, you can tap into their cellphones and siphon money from their bank accounts, eavesdrop on their conversations, or read their text messages. Most of this information is useless, of course, but it really helps to convey the impression that you’re in a living, breathing city. Every single resident seems to have their own problems to deal with as they go about their daily lives.

As for how well this gameplay mechanic actually works in the game, and what kind of effect it has on your freedom of action within the game world, take an example from the beginning of the story. In order to track down someone who’s threatening Aiden’s family, you have to hack into the ctOS system and trace a call. This can only be done at a certain terminal, and a private security company guards the premises against any intruders. At this point you’re given a choice between jumping the fence and activating a loading platform to use as cover, or opening up an alternative route by unblocking doors or remotely operating lifts to get around our enemies. Or we can jump over the fence, grab the biggest gun we can get our hands on, and do it the hard way. The arsenal of weapons available to you is what you’d expect from the genre: several different varieties of pistols, assault rifles, shotguns, and grenades to help you make an impression. You can also rig electrical boxes to explode, and even blow up explosive charges while security personnel are still carrying them.

Another alternative is to step back a little and use Aiden’s phone to hack into the surveillance system and “jump” from camera to camera. When the terminal comes into view, you can get into it using the camera’s video stream. And it goes without saying that all of these methods can be combined in any way you like. But while such a wide range of possibilities is every gamer’s dream, not every mission does such a great job with it. This doesn’t happen so much in the main storyline, but the lack of variety is hard to miss in a lot of the side missions.

For example, you might be tasked with taking out a certain individual, and take your time as you carefully close in your mark. As usual, you scout out the area, use cameras to mark all hostiles, then creep past them. You sneak up and snatch your target from behind, silencing him in the process. A job well done, and just as you’re trying to get out of there undetected, all hell breaks loose and all of a sudden you’ve got every single enemy in the area hot on your heels. There’s no telling why this keeps happening, even after you restart the mission for the third time.

It almost seems like they didn’t want to give us the possibility to decide for ourselves how to get out of certain situations, or like they didn’t even consider that we might want to do things differently. You might as well just burst through the front door firing the heavy machine gun – it’s not like it’s going to end any differently.

Think your way in, drive your way out.

The chase scenes in Watch Dogs could hold their own with the best that Hollywood has to offer. Trying to escape death or capture using a motorboat to cut through the city’s canals, pedal to the metal in a high-speed car chase on the highway, or barely scraping through alleyways on a motorbike – fleeing from Chicago’s finest is definitely one of the highlights of Watch Dogs.

You might not always be able to get away as quickly and easily as you’d like, however, especially when you’ve already attracted a lot of police attention. And when the helicopters and snipers come out, the winding alleyways aren’t going to keep you safe anymore – your airborne pursuers are watching every step you take. With bold, unpredictable moves meant to deprive the snipers of a clear shot, you frantically search for a parking garage or a bridge to hide from the choppers.

Only when you’ve shaken off all your pursuers can you even think about lying low and waiting it out. While you’re fleeing, you can also use Aiden’s phone to deactivate traffic lights and cause a pile-up to keep the police busy, manipulate a helicopter’s controls for a few seconds, or (as you might have seen in the trailer) raise up barriers in pedestrians zones to stop any cars dead in their tracks. For most of these tricks, there’s only a few seconds to act, otherwise you’ll race right past your opportunity.

In order to allow you to do things like interact with the environment while you’re involved in a high-speed chase, the game has a feature that lets you briefly slow down time so you can concentrate as you wreak havoc for everyone else. Last but not least, you can take the vehicle as far as possible from any major roadways and turn off the engine and headlights. If the cops don’t see you with their searchlights, you made it, and you can breathe for the first time in minutes.

Now, these scenes can be really frustrating, and seem to go on forever, especially if you haven’t had much practice driving in video games lately. And it’s also not uncommon to have to change vehicles during the chase so you don’t end up in yet another firefight with law enforcement.

Being the good guy for once

There are lots of things to do in Watch Dogs besides the main storyline, though. One thing that the title really emphasizes are the side missions, which allow for various creative approaches. The ctOS network informs Aiden of nearby crimes taking place or likely to take place, and you can choose to go all vigilante and take care of things yourself. You might even find yourself taking out mob bosses and their hideouts. For completing missions and side-missions, you’re rewarded with skill points, which you can use to develop your character like in an RPG. The extensive skill tree includes several main branches, such as hacking, combat, and driving. You can also get more batteries for your smart phone, allowing you to use it more often, hone your skills with various weapons, or learn new abilities like hacking helicopters.

Like other games in the genre, Watch Dogs features all kinds of leisure activities that let you forget about the harsh reality of life as an outlaw hacker for a little while. You can challenge other characters to card games and drinking games, intercept convoys belonging to bad guys, parkour your way down the street to collect coins, or play augmented reality games on Aiden’s smart phone. Just trying it all would take hours.

Multiplayer

Watch Dogs does have a multiplayer mode, but if you’re looking for classic multiplayer modes like Deathmatch or Capture the Flag, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed, because things are a bit different here. The ctOS app is available for both iOS and Android, and it allows you to jump into other human players’ live games and mess with them. The interface for this is the city map, which you can use to carry out all your mischief against a randomly-selected rival. For instance, you can control the police during a car chase and set up a roadblock, among other things. The idea isn’t exactly new, and many people might recognize it from the Battlefield Commander app. But it definitely provides an interesting change of pace in the game itself, as all of you own adventures can be manipulated from “outside”, should you choose to allow it. But it also would have been nice to see something like co-op car chases or something like that here.

Graphics and Sound

Most of the soundtrack in Watch Dogs is heard on radio stations while you’re driving. There’s a wide selection of music in several different genres to choose from, and you can change the station any time you want. Also, the sound environment is excellent – conversations between passers-by are realistic and entertaining, and other sound effects range from good to awesome. But you really need a surround-sound system to fully appreciate it all.

There was a lot of speculation about the graphics in Watch Dogs long before it even came out, and after Ubisoft released some trailers at E3 2012, people started saying that the title wouldn’t be able to live up to the hype made at the convention. This is actually true, but that’s hardly any grounds for criticism. The depth and variety of details in the game is simply amazing, and whether we’re talking about reflections in car bodies or water surfaces, effects like explosions, or bullet-holes, everything shows up beautifully. The dynamic change between night and day and even the weather have effects on the environment and on Aiden himself.

The one fly in the ointment here is that Watch Dogs is not available in Full HD or with a frame rate of 60 fps. PS4 players will just have to be happy with 900p resolution and a frame rate of 30 fps, and Xbox One players with 792p and 30 fps. That said, I never noticed any problems with the frame rate during the test.