Watch Dogs -Thoughts cont.

Hey! 

So as you all know I've been playing through Watch Dogs recently. If you follow my Twitter account (link in the side) you will have seen me venting my frustration last night. I wanted to LOVE this game and in all honesty at the minute all I feel like I do is tolerate it. It's not that bad really. But it's not the great game we were promised either. Which I just find so disappointing. 

My progression stands at just over 50% at the minute so expect more thoughts in the coming weeks. I'm in Act II right now and I have to say that even the story is starting to grate a little (never mind the utterly tiresome Fixer Contracts!). The story is just so-so, which again isn't what I expect from a powerhouse such as Ubisoft. 

I think what the now current-gen of gaming is teaching me is that the little guys should not be overlooked in favour of the big guys. Watch Dogs has been hugely hyped for a couple of years now and so for it just to be ok is extra disappointing. If I'd gone into it with no expectations it might not have been that bad. But due to the enormous ad campaign behind it it was kinda hard to not expect more from it. 

I have played the online a little now, and have to say that I find this the most enjoyable part of the game so far. The 1v1 hacking is my favourite at this point. I love watching them getting more and more panicked as the percentage creeps up. The frantic running is pretty funny!

Anyway, as I said you can probably expect more thoughts on this game as I continue. This is by no means a proper review so don't expect a blow by blow account of what works and what doesn't. I guess this is just my way of venting frustration at a game I really wanted to love. These are my honest opinions, so if they don't change or I have nothing more to add really then I won't be posting again. For now, of I had to sun up my Watch Dogs experience in one word it would be disappointment. Bitter disappointment. 

Keep gaming people!

xXx

Watch Dogs - Xbox One

It's been a busy few weeks here, but I have actually managed to fit in some game time! And for the past couple of weeks I've mostly been playing Watch Dogs, so I thought I'd pop by and give you my thoughts...

Watch Dogs was incredibly hyped last year, you couldn't hear mention of the next generation of consoles without someone citing Watch Dogs. It was earmarked from the beginning as the game to have on the next gen. It seems to have taken an age for it to be released, but when it came around we bought it, an early Fathers Day present for the other half (although I have actually played more of it!).

So firstly lets discuss the graphics. The intro video looks amazing, but I feel like after that some of it looks pretty shoddy. Aiden looks good, but the rest of the character models look pretty tired really, and don't really look like I thought the 'next-gen' would. Cars look good, buildings look good and the environment as a whole looks alright. But nothing special. Graphically it definitely doesn't blow me away.

A LOT of people have likened this game to Grand Theft Auto, something I find quite annoying. Why is it that when a game features an open world it is inevitably compared to either GTA or Skyrim? I don't see any similarity past the fact that they both occur in an open world city and feature cars and guns. Oh and a male protagonist, maybe I don't read enough into these things but for me this doesn't mean anything - MOST games feature a male protagonist yet we're not constantly comparing them. And lets be honest, the shooting in Watch Dogs is not so good. But thankfully we can be sneaky, which I believe is the way in which this game is supposed to be played. I'm not too far into the story yet, but I have been running around unlocking all of the ctOS towers and am yet to fire my gun.

The sneaking system in this game is fantastic. I love being able to press A on the next cover and Aiden will automatically dart there. It feels good, unlike the driving which I find incredibly arcade-y. There seems to be no logic to it, with the heavy vehicles being able to make corners neatly at speed, but the motorbikes mostly missing the corner and diving into a nearby wall instead. Which doesn't knock you off the bike, or even noticeably damage it.

The Fixer Contracts are a massive bone of contention for me. It feels like they cheapen the game a little, if only for just how many there are! Don't get me wrong I don't hate them quite as much as i first did, when on the first one I'd randomly chosen it turned out to be the hardest I have done so far and sits still unfinished.

This is far from an in-depth review, more just a little post collecting my initial thoughts. I'll probably post back with a proper one at some point in the future. But for now I'd say it's definitely worth getting. There still aren't enough games on the One in my opinion for you to be able to overlook this. The hacking is good and some of the phone calls you can hack into are hilarious, as well as some of the intrusion scenes. Don't take in all the hype, don't expect too much from it and above all just play it for a laugh and I believe you'll have a great experience with this game.

Next Gen

So what did you all plump for? I waited and waited and waited and never really knew which one to get. My heart for this gen was totally with Xbox 360 I adored my machine and spent many hours with it. PS3 never really floated my boat, some of the games were AMAZING - Heavy Rain and The Last of Us I'm looking at you - but I felt like I was constantly battling with the interface and controller.

As any of you that read my musings on the Xbox One at the time will know I wasn't particularly impressed with either at the time. But as I researched them more I started to lean more towards the PS4, much to my partner's disgust - he is and always will be a Microsoft fanboy and literally recoils at the sight of me on my Macbook - but that system just seemed to be aimed more towards the gamers.

We left it for awhile and for a good while it was easy to ignore the next gen. The friends we had who had preordered the Xbox One (interestingly we had none that had preordered the PS4) liked it enough but didn't really rave about it. They had all kept their 360, a console we still have plenty of games left to play, for instance I STILL have not completed Skyrim, despite being 150 hours in...I just love exploring a little too much. We didn't feel like we were missing out at all really.

Christmas came and went, we got our children's birthdays out of the way and then it was getting closer and closer to the release date of Watch Dogs. Yes it was coming out on the last gen too, but who really wants to buy a new game on an old console?

So we finally plumped for...

The Xbox One. I know, I know. I HATED it at last years E3, but after waiting awhile it became more and more apparent that, for us, for our gaming preferences it HAD to be the One. The exclusives, the promise of future releases and above all the games currently available on it swung it for us. So now we have a One proudly sat underneath the TV next to its older (and more loved) brother.

It is good. Not mind-blowing, and certainly not game-changing yet. Maybe it will be in the future, but for now, for me at least it's a means to an end. I needed it to play Watch Dogs, Plants vs Zombies split screen and RYSE. But it's not earned my heart yet.

I'll be posting some opinions on the games I've been playing recently in due course.

Keep Gaming!
xXx