Ubisoft presenting cool concept with mixed execution!
The Story is a missed opportunity as it takes the generic revenge story and follows it heavily even thought Ctos and the underground gangs were so much more interesting than Aiden's own agenda. Even the idea of Aiden being a vigilante is just shoehorned in as its never really discussed until the end of the game which is only mention in small detail. The Characters were nothing special to talk about and while the conflict with Aiden and his morality was a neat idea, it was not conveyed all that well.
The Setting and Level Design are nothing to write home about as they pretty much follow the Ubisoft formula that we all either love or hate (I really don't like it). The only area that had any interest was Pawnee as it felt distinct from the other locations in the open world, however the rest of the open world just feels copied and pasted from others in the genre and by the studio.
Visually, its starting to show its age. Performance was interesting as while there was only one crash through my entire playthrough, the visual bugs such as lighting and the physics of NPC's and Aiden's coat really made the experience less immersive. While the game tries to go for a dark and grimey aesthetic, there really isn't that much of an art direction as many locations and designs are just bland and quite forgettable.
Sound and Audio are probably the most frustrating parts of the game as the entire experience sounded like it was on 5% volume and I tried fixing this but to no avail. From what I could barely hear, the soundtrack was decent and the audio design was typical.
In terms of Gameplay, I like some of the ideas that are on display, however the whole experience was just mediocre. I think the hacking that the game offers was a really cool idea and aids in many senarios, but the other stuff such as combat, driving, enemies, missions, etc are all repetitive and don't really offer any variation to what other open world games have shown.
Overall, Watch_Dogs is inoffensive at best and even though I can respect Ubisoft trying something new, they just can't seem to let go of the tropes that have held them back even to this day!
