Watch_Dogs Preview

After nearly two years of hype, can Watch_Dogs (Ubisoft's latest open-world outing) hack it?

 

Watch_Dogs, published by Ubisoft, releases on May 27th

     
      I've been keenly interested in Watch Dogs for some time now. The game made its debut at E3 2012 to a floored crowd, anticipation has surged since. What the heck is Watch Dogs? An open-world action-adventure starring Aiden Pearce, a hacker extraordinaire. Yes. It is also touted to be a "true next-gen experience." From what has been shown thus far, I can say that things look assuredly bright for Ubisoft Montreal's latest brain child-- In development since 2009 and hotly anticipated.

HACK IN

       Hack anything, play any way, do anything--well, not exactly a tag, but you get the idea. Grand claims and grander visions align. The preview images and videos for the game show off the many ways that Watch Dogs will attempt to deepen the level of player interaction and choice within the gaming realm. We see the protagonist, Aiden, speeding across the cityscape of Watch Dogs' virtual Chicago. In escape of the authorities, he (the player) slows time and pinpoints from an array of options, which include ground spikes to steam pipes, the ability to hack an oncoming draw bridge. With his pursuers in tail, Aiden initiates the hack and darts across the raising bridge just in time to cutoff the cops. 

         How? The city--Chicago--is connected. CtOS, a city wide operating system, functions to monitor and control wireless, interconnected facets--both seemingly public and private. And as such, Aiden Pearce can hack the CtOS systems and gain control over many of the cities networked components. These include the ability to raise guard rails—for cover in combat, short circuit breaker boxes, activate searing steam pipes and, as has been seen innumerable times, hack NPC's cellphones and private networks. Though a morality system is nowhere to be found in the upcoming title, Ubisoft's creative minds want players to be wholly aware of their actions, choosing to forgo the stale and limited reaches of a binary morality bar, instead opting to reflect the consequences of player action within the dynamics of the city itself. 

      Do you choose to be a vigilante, aiding victims and potential victims alike? Or would you rather rampage and pillage? Whatever you do, and how you go about it, the NPCs will react. Pull out a gun in public, and along with the shrieking and scattering of virtual persons, don't be surprised to hear CPU pedestrians also calling the police on their cellphones. The city isn't just reactive, but it is interactive. Chase down the dialing pedestrian and you can smack (or shoot, I suppose--hmm) the phone from their polygonal hands. This is all rounded out by what seems to be, as far as I have gathered from gameplay and Ubisoft's mentioning, a global state system. What I mean, to be clear, is a state of response that adapts to your actions. Even though peering into an NPC apartment--as was shown in a few gameplay videos--or hacking a person's bank account right from their cells might just go unnoticed (and technically not responded to overtly), Ubisoft has tailored a procedurally generated profiling system that generates distinct NPC character profiles —all of which are claimed to be unique in some fashion, and as a result, this can be--in its own right--another way of the city eliciting and reverberating some nuanced level of reflection and thought about ones actions, however indirect and player determined this echoed response may be.    

Roam Free

          I'm very excited about the potential of Watch Dogs. I hope that it can truly live up to its potential. The game will release on May 27th, 2014--next week!--on PS4, XBOX ONE, PS3, XBOX 360 AND PC. There has been a huge debate over the graphical resolution of the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game. Ubisoft has cleared this up however, and the announced resolutions are 900p on the PS4 and 792p on Xbox One, both running at 30fps. To some, like me, this is not a big issue. I see Watch Dogs potentially--with a claimed 100-plus hacks--which includes the aforementioned abilities, and the ability to black-out a section of the city, text enemies (yes--texting enemies during combat as a distraction, awesome) and even monitor the phone calls of, what seemingly will be, some of the most interestingly fabricated, three-dimensional--in more ways than one-- NPCs in a long time.  Sporting a story length that is estimated to run the gambit of 30-40 hours long, touching on topical subject matters that are grave, immediate and substantial--however distant or unseen-- human trafficking/sex trade. Watch Dogs also packs a can of mood lightening refreshers, in the form of mini games and side-activities. From augmented reality to Giant mechanical spider rampages or turn the city into a chaos zone and rampage through the streets of the apocalypse in a tripped out fashion, there seems to be an awareness that some players would rather let loose ,and/or some need breathers from the astoundingly crafted realism in game, with which they interface with on a daily basis. Your choice: poker or chess? Just name it, along with your standard fare of side-missions abound. 

*There is even a skill tree that modifies the player's abilities-both for online play and offline--RPG elements are always welcome*

        Free roam and asynchronous multiplayer are in, at least on the PS4 and Xbox One--PS3 and Xbox 360 will have multiplayer but they lack the ability to free-roam with other player, though aside from this difference, it seems only NPC density differs across the generations of consoles. The ability for a friend or stranger to hack into your game is an ever present reminder of the pitfalls of all consuming interconnection--though, as has been stated, the multiplayer can be turned off. This asynchronous approach allows players skip menu navigation in favor of being constantly immersed and engaged in the Watch Dogs experience, though it remains to be seen how smoothly this will be in practice.


        As you can see, there is a lot to be excited about and as a result a greater potential for disappointment, but if Ubisoft's past achievements have said anything, I think it's safe to say that they go all-in and, at the very least,craft an experience worth seeing. Do you have any thoughts on Watch Dogs?  Let me know, comment below or hit me up on twitter: @thevauntedgamer or by email: meech268@gmail.com. 

cite: http://blog.ubi.com/watch-dogs-next-gen-game-resolution-dynamism/