The threat of Watch Dogs

[sclpls]

It still looks to me like they did a terrific job of creating a virtual Chicago, so I'm looking forward to this. I think Chicago's architecture in the Loop looks a lot better than Manhattan's skyscrapers personally.

[Stuart]

Man, I really hope they modeled my house in Chicago! That'd be nuts to visit in a game!

 

But yeah, the only that bugs me is the bog standard premise. I'd be fine if they just made the protag just some guy angry at the injustices of the world and using his hacking skills to seek justice. Cliche, but simple and not using women as plot device. That's what I assumed the story would be, but then I saw the whole "my wife died, I am angry man, want revenge thing". C'mon AAA devs, don't hinge on tropes like that.

 

I'm also bugged by the fact that I know they're not going to say anything on modern day government surveillance and media saturation, which is a shame because you can say a lot on that right now. But yeah, it still looks neat, and the extra systems they are promising to build out from the delay sound pretty cool. Can't wait to explore Navy Pier in a video game! God, I hope you can eat in the game, I'd totally eat at the Bubba Gump restaurant at Navy Pier. Oh, and the Ferris Wheel. Oh and, the fucking Bean! Aaaaaah.

 

Also:

It still looks to me like they did a terrific job of creating a virtual Chicago, so I'm looking forward to this. I think Chicago's architecture in the Loop looks a lot better than Manhattan's skyscrapers personally.

 

Truth!

[melmer]

AAA Spy party

[Architecture]

The Giant Bomb video that went up today did little to raise my anticipation for the game. A prettier GTA with press-X-to-hack mechanics does not entice me. I can wait for the year-end Steam sale when it's $25.

[Thrik]

It doesn't even look prettier than GTA. That video above is almost like watching GTA5 but with some of the detail and depth to everything sapped out, and I don't just mean the graphics. The bits that are different such as throwing cameras around and looking through them don't look cool or fun.

[Frenetic Pony]

"Get you next time" aka in a real game "Fuck you jew cunt! I fucked your mother."

 

So that'll be nice. Regardless, it looks a lot more directed and just easy than GTA Online. You just go and play, instead of all the wanton setup and blah blah blah you have to go through you just press a button and go. I've a feeling a less set up game may not be as fun though. I can imagine good players being able to just do the 'hack" thing and get away without you ever finding them. Or on the other hand if it's too easy then it'll just be the same chase over and over, probably with the chasing player losing as they're at the disadvantage.

 

I'll wait for reviews, but I'm not just throwing in the towel on it. They seemed to have shoved enough stuff at it that something could turn out well.

[toblix]

So WATCH_DOGS. I watched the Giant Bomb quick look of this, and I was like "well, this looks pretty boring" when suddenly, the cool protagonist dude hacks someone's phone and a big MUSLIM label pops up, which struck me as weird, and then I started wondering if I was weird for thinking it was weird. Apparently one of the other labels is ADDICTED TO TORTURE PORN, which is cool. Then, later, OF ROMANI DESCENT popped up, and now I want to see the list of stuff they have in the game.

 

Disregarding all of that, though, this game really seems like what I imagine all Ubisoft games to be right now. After burning out on Assassin's Creed III, everything they do just seems super bland (and potentially offensive!)

[Architecture]

I watched about 15 minutes of a Twitch stream last night, during which time one of the Profiler tags was HOMOSEXUAL. It pretty much killed any interest I had.

[Gormongous]

So WATCH_DOGS. I watched the Giant Bomb quick look of this, and I was like "well, this looks pretty boring" when suddenly, the cool protagonist dude hacks someone's phone and a big MUSLIM label pops up, which struck me as weird, and then I started wondering if I was weird for thinking it was weird. Apparently one of the other labels is ADDICTED TO TORTURE PORN, which is cool. Then, later, OF ROMANI DESCENT popped up, and now I want to see the list of stuff they have in the game.

 

Disregarding all of that, though, this game really seems like what I imagine all Ubisoft games to be right now. After burning out on Assassin's Creed III, everything they do just seems super bland (and potentially offensive!)

I watched about 15 minutes of a Twitch stream last night, during which time one of the Profiler tags was HOMOSEXUAL. It pretty much killed any interest I had.

 

For me, the determining factor would be if the majority of those descriptors are dark and dirty secrets or just random factoids. Most of the non-ethnic, non-religious, non-sexual ones that I've seen talked about are the former, like "writes vampire fanfiction", so I'd also like to see a list. Having "homosexual" in the same bucket as "addicted to torture porn" does put my spine up, too.

[Twig]

According to the Polygon article Architecture linked in the FC4 thread... http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/23/5745986/watch-dogs-gameplay-video-walkthrough

 

In this mode, called Profiler, we've seen a number of interesting labels: smoker, pole-dancing student, religious conservative, person undergoing hormone therapy, recent carjacking victim, anger management attendee, person who tithes 10 percent of his salary, homosexual.

 

Also, my own thoughts:

I actually sort of like the idea of it as a criticism of our invasion of privacy from the government, etc. But it's probably an entirely surface level thing that serves no purpose. I wonder if it even needs to be more than a surface level thing, assuming they address the privacy issues appropriately elsewhere. Hmm.

 

Hmmm.

[melmer]

I guess the labels are supposed to be the data collected by the big bad surveillance company you're fighting against. So that's ubisofts get out if free card, it's not us, it's "the man", man

I wonder what my labels would be? Probably "rad dude" "delusional"

[Architecture]

I realize it smacks of hypocrisy to come down on this but not the Far Cry 4 box art, but there's something about seeing it actually implemented as an in-game system that magnifies this sort of ignorant approach to tackling the "big issues." I guess it's because I haven't seen Far Cry 4 in motion yet.

[feelthedarkness]

I can fully imagine how in the context of shooty fun game, that stuff is totally gross, but I am pretty interested by the specific gut response of "gross" to that expression of data collection (i had it too) when it is the most base statement of our reality. 

[Roderick]

The impression I get from most of the reviews so far is that it's a serviceable game but brought down by poor story and characterization, and a bland environment. That effectively kills off my interest. Those are precisely the things that do the most for me to make a game memorable and worthwhile.

 

It seems they're pulling another Assassin's Creed 1: having lot of interesting ideas, but being at a loss for what to do with them for the moment. I expect the second game to be the genuine expression of the WatchUnderscoreDogs concept. (Except that I love AC1, because it got exactly right the stuff I mentioned above - killer environments and interesting story.)

[brkl]

I can't bear looking at the guy hacking a forklift or a grenade. It's like hacking a boulder.

[prettyunsmart]

AV Club's review seems to match up with what I saw in the Quick Look. Also, it has some pretty damning quotes, like this one:

 

If the major game studios aspire to become the cutting-edge thought leaders that they claim to be in their marketing materials, they need to stop treating nuanced issues as mere flavors to be applied to an assembly-line product. The encroachment of information technology into our private lives is a rich topic that couldn’t be a better fit for this art form—or a worse fit for today’s studio system. Content to be normal, Watch Dogs speaks more potently to the intellectual chill within its industry than it does to any oppression without.

 

I know a general sense of discontent toward the state of large-scale games isn't exactly an original idea on places like this, but Watch_Dogs really is kind of bumming me out. It just seems like such an egregious case of lots of money, labor, time, and ideas beings squandered on an attempt to make a game that is like so many other games that came out before.

 

EDIT: Just to flesh out what I meant to say more. It just seems really clear where they are taking their inspiration/structure from, like all of the pieces of the Assassin's Creed formula that are just copied and pasted into this new setting. It wrecks any sense of wonder the game might have and just makes the distributed mass production process that more apparent. 

[brkl]

Holy shit, I'm one smart dude.

[Roderick]

Lordy, brkl, methinks your identity just got hacked by a man with an iconic cap!

[tegan]

Ubisoft anonymously sends beeping black box to Australian news site's office and for some reason a bomb disposal squad gets called to defuse what turned out to be the threat of Watch_Dogs.

[RubixsQube]

From the above-linked AVclub review:

 

At the beginning of one mission to find and rough up a gang leader, Pearce sneers the standard line, “I think I’ll pay this guy a little visit.” Then he adds, in case you didn’t catch his drift, “I don’t think he’ll like my visit, but it’ll give him something to think about in the hospital.” Later, in the midst of a shootout, a thug cries, “This can only end one way, shitface!” Then he helpfully explains: “And it’s not a happy ending for ya! Okay?!”

 

[toblix]

Beyond Good & Evil 2 is going to be fucking excellent.

[Korax]

Ubisoft anonymously sends beeping black box to Australian news site's office and for some reason a bomb disposal squad gets called to defuse what turned out to be the threat of Watch_Dogs.

 

I would like to point out that the Polygon write-up of that event specifically referred to the baseball cap found inside as "iconic," and now I hate everything.

[Bjorn]

They only said iconic to be ironic.

 

 

 

[Stuart]

They only said iconic to be ironic.

 

 

 

 

[melmer]

So is anyone actually playing this?

It had the largest amount of GameStop preorders of any game EVER and it has just sold more day one copies of any previous Ubisoft game. So someone's gotta have it? (I have actually got it, but I must first rid the world of nazis before I can don that iconic cap)