The threat of Watch Dogs

[Architecture]

Lost me at "Can't jump at all" already.

That's the one you singled out? Really?

[Nappi]

Yes, that was the first complaint in the video.

[Architecture]

Can't wait for Nintendo to put out a Mario game in which he cannot jump.

[Nachimir]

It's a better video with annotations turned off. I didn't realise there were any until I came back to this thread.

[Dewar]

A lot of those problems are also present in GTA, but it's still a bit silly. The train thing and the way the fences and crakes explode into fragments were particularly entertaining.

[melmer]

I started this earlier today. Proper dog shit. I hate video games

[Bjorn]

Watch_Dog_Shit: The next hit augmented reality game for your iPhone!  Also coming soon for the 3DS, fully 3D compatible!  The poop practically jumps off the screen at you!

[Korax]

Can't wait for Nintendo to put out a Mario game in which he cannot jump.

 

As iconic as his cap may be, Aiden himself isn't. He hasn't been in over 200 games since the early 80's, a majority of which are mechanically based around the act of jumping. It's not like the dev team somehow forgot to put in jumping and are nervously pulling at their collars hoping nobody will notice. They didn't think jumping was a necessary addition, and more than likely built the game world and systems while fully aware of it.

 

I checked out at "same running animation as Assassin's Creed." WHAT? THOSE GOOD-FOR-NOTHING LAYABOUTS JUST REUSED A PERFECTLY SERVICEABLE ASSET THEY ALREADY HAD RATHER THAN SPEND THE TIME, MONEY, AND MANPOWER TO RECREATE IT? HARRUMPH!

[SuperBiasedMan]

As iconic as his cap may be, Aiden himself isn't. He hasn't been in over 200 games since the early 80's, a majority of which are mechanically based around the act of jumping. It's not like the dev team somehow forgot to put in jumping and are nervously pulling at their collars hoping nobody will notice. They didn't think jumping was a necessary addition, and more than likely built the game world and systems while fully aware of it.

 

I checked out at "same running animation as Assassin's Creed." WHAT? THOSE GOOD-FOR-NOTHING LAYABOUTS JUST REUSED A PERFECTLY SERVICEABLE ASSET THEY ALREADY HAD RATHER THAN SPEND THE TIME, MONEY, AND MANPOWER TO RECREATE IT? HARRUMPH!

 

Well when it's a huge budget AAA game you would think that they want to make a new run animation cycle that is more fitting of Aiden's character.

 

...well unless he's the exact same character as those assassin guys I guess.

 

 

EDIT:

 

Steam just informed me that Watch_Dogs^TM - Conspiracy exists.

"Unlock a standalone mind bending game mode in which cyborgs invaded Chicago. Track them and take them down!"

 

I am very interested in this and how little sense it likely makes.

[Merus]

Well when it's a huge budget AAA game you would think that they want to make a new run animation cycle that is more fitting of Aiden's character.

 

That's assuming the assassin run cycle is supposed to be fitting of assassins, and isn't used for every NPC that runs. I don't know that for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised.

[Nappi]

Can't wait for Nintendo to put out a Mario game in which he cannot jump.

 

Can't wait for Nintendo to put out a Zelda game in which Link cannot jump.

 

I can't really say I have missed jumping, at least not so far. Vaulting works perfectly fine for getting over fences and on top of ledges. This is not a Rayman game.

[Architecture]

To each his own, but I feel that sacrificing player agency for "cinematic" style is one of Ubisoft's many transgressions in the past decade. None of their games play as well as Prince of Persia did 10 years ago.

 

I'm not trying to argue that every game should enable the player to jump, but when you spend $50 million to develop a sandbox game, the least you can let me do is hop around. The restrictive artifice of "press _ to clamber" plain sucks; imagine if Bethesda only let you jump in context-specific instances?

 

The video I posted is admittedly reactionary, but I think the message is important; publishers care more about marketing their mediocre sludge than building a great product and trusting it'll perform in the market. I don't think it's too much to ask for a sound file of bullets zipping through water when you're playing a game surrounded by water wherein you shoot everything. Or for the L-Train to, you know, do anything other than come to a complete stop on a dime because there's a car on the tracks.

[Merus]

The video I posted is admittedly reactionary, but I think the message is important; publishers care more about marketing their mediocre sludge than building a great product and trusting it'll perform in the market.

Surely by now we're all aware that trusting the market is a sucker's bet, great games don't perform in the market as they should, and the biggest predictor of whether a game will sell well is how much unwarranted hype it gets.

 

Particularly for Watch Dogs, which Ubisoft clearly invested too much money in before it became clear it wasn't coming together. From what I understand, part of the reason it feels so much like all of Ubisoft's other games is because the teams that build Ubisoft's other games were drafted to rescue the project, and no-one's going to work hard on someone else's game that's doomed to fail.

[Roderick]

It was the weirdest thing when Link didn't jump in the 3D Zelda's, but after a while you get that it would only complicate things. There's an automatic jump as you approach chasms, and I assume the vaulting works well enough for Aiden Mildred Pearce.

[Gormongous]

Surely by now we're all aware that trusting the market is a sucker's bet, great games don't perform in the market as they should, and the biggest predictor of whether a game will sell well is how much unwarranted hype it gets.

 

Particularly for Watch Dogs, which Ubisoft clearly invested too much money in before it became clear it wasn't coming together. From what I understand, part of the reason it feels so much like all of Ubisoft's other games is because the teams that build Ubisoft's other games were drafted to rescue the project, and no-one's going to work hard on someone else's game that's doomed to fail.

 

This makes me wonder. At what point is Ubisoft crossing the line from all of its franchises working together to build a brand over to all of its franchises competing with each other because they're all relatively the same? If all of their games are annual or biennial franchises that are going to tend broadly towards "dude wrecking shit in an open world with an unlock system and free-running", it might be bad just because I don't know anyone who has a belly for more than one every couple years.

[Merus]

I think Ubisoft's betting the farm on people wanting an open world game every year. The problem with that strategy is that Activision does yearly releases with the explicit intention of running the franchise into the ground, so that they capitalise on current tastes with as much product as possible, and can quickly cancel development as soon as people are over it. The Ubisoft formula is way too specific for yearly releases to work for them; what'll happen is that they run their open world games into the ground and have nowhere to go except Rayman.

 

I wouldn't mind more Rayman. 

[Salacious Snake]

This game would be more fun if Aiden was a bit sturdier. I keep dying before I even realize I'm in danger, and not in a fun way.

Also, my ps4 isn't recording video automatically while i play it. Don't know if that's just something wonky with my system or what.

[tegan]

Link can jump if he's holding the Roc's Feather.

[Dewar]

This game would be more fun if Aiden was a bit sturdier. I keep dying before I even realize I'm in danger, and not in a fun way.

Also, my ps4 isn't recording video automatically while i play it. Don't know if that's just something wonky with my system or what.

Are you low on HDD space maybe?

[Salacious Snake]

Nope, but good idea. I did some poking around, and apparently a lot of people with PS4s have been experiencing inconsistency with the recording feature in recent firmware versions.

[Architecture]

Surely by now we're all aware that trusting the market is a sucker's bet, great games don't perform in the market as they should, and the biggest predictor of whether a game will sell well is how much unwarranted hype it gets.

 

Particularly for Watch Dogs, which Ubisoft clearly invested too much money in before it became clear it wasn't coming together. From what I understand, part of the reason it feels so much like all of Ubisoft's other games is because the teams that build Ubisoft's other games were drafted to rescue the project, and no-one's going to work hard on someone else's game that's doomed to fail.

I don't think I agree with this in totality. In the short term, yes--hype drives sales. But did you hear the figures Nintendo released for Mario Kart titles across the board? Mario Kart Wii has sold in excess of 35 million copies. 35 million. I'm not Michael Pachter, so I'm not sure what we can realistically expect Whirling Dervishes to sell over its lifetime, but I would have to imagine that a large percentage of its potential audience has already purchased the game.

 

Sure, it's somewhat apples & oranges; they are vastly different products. The potential customer base has to at least be equal (if not slanted heavily in Ubisoft's favor), however.

 

Anyway, let's compare this to GTA V. I'm sure GTA V was more costly to produce, but it was done in four years' time (as opposed to Wash Rags's five), and I think most would agree that GTA was a far more polished product. Unfortunately, Rockstar only discloses sold-in numbers, but they've probably sold somewhere around 30 million copies since September (and they sold a third of that in 24 hours!). GTA's day-one business was three times better than Hot Dogs, and it managed that on 40% fewer platforms.

 

It certainly seems bleak at times, but I honestly do believe that a game's quality leads to a better ROI than its marketing budget in most instances.

[Architecture]

Dear lord, top of page.

[Zeusthecat]

So does anyone have anything positive to say about this game? It looks kind of fun to me and got decent reviews but I don't think I've seen a single comment here from anyone saying they have played and enjoyed the game. I mean, I get that it's the cool thing to hate on AAA games around here but I can't imagine this game is as bad as everyone's making it out to be.

And I really don't understand all the vitriol towards Ubisoft. Sure Uplay sucks but I've had quite a bit of fun with most of the Ubisoft games I've played.

Sorry to poop on everyone's party here but all the negativity in this thread and claims of well liked games being "garbage" is kind of bumming me out.

Edit: Rereading posts from a couple pages back, it looks like some people are enjoying the game, so I guess I'm being a little unfair here.

[shammack]

It's not that it's bad, it's just boring. It's exactly what you'd expect from a modern day big budget video game, no more, no less. I played a few hours of it. I could play some more and I would probably be reasonably entertained for the duration of that time, or I could never play it again and I wouldn't miss it. It's just sort of there.

[Nappi]

I'm roughly halfway through the main plot at this stage. I'm still liking the gameplay quite a lot, especially the stealth hacking part. The missions have enough variety and they have been relatively frustration free (which is a nice surprise). I'm still worried that the game might turn into a shoot fest towards the end, but at least so far there has not been any real indication of that being the case. 

 

As you can expect from this type of game (which is pretty sad actually) the story is quite forgettable, and the open-world stuff definitely has its flaws. Still, I have thoroughly enjoyed the game so far.