Video Game Tuesday: Watch_Dogs and what went wrong.

Michael Blaker
Game Industry News is running the best blog posts from people writing about the game industry. Articles here may originally appear on Michael's blog, Windborne's Story Eatery.

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This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m going to talk about what didn’t work well in Watch_Dogs.  Sorry it’s not about a new game, however I’m really limited in my time due to my computer failing and need to be quick using someone else’s computer.

Driving: For a game in such a vast city and such importance on being able to escape from the police or other enemies, controlling your vehicle was way too hard. If you wanted an easy way to escape you got on a Motorcycle and weaved through traffic with ease, but if you hit anything that wasn’t destructible you would go flying off the bike. Driving felt like you were sliding on Ice in a platforming game like Mario 64.  I really hope for the inevitable sequel that the driving gets improved vastly so that everything handles much better, and that I don’t feel punished for not using my Sayonara motorcycle or dying mid mission and losing the bike I parked outside the mission area to escape.

Money: I have at least a couple billion in my wallet right now in Watch_Dogs, because I took the time to get all the cash hack upgrades and now I never worry about money anymore. There is a fine line between having way too much money and not enough that you feel like you need to grind for it. Watch_Dogs took the easy way out and decided to give you millions at your fingertip at any time. In fact after about an hour into the game I never worried about money ever again.

Combat: I actually enjoy the combat in Watch_Dogs, but I felt that after unlocking the Spec Ops SMG and Assault Rifle that I was able to blaze through every mission with little difficulty because I could take out enemies with my silenced weapons way too easily.

Side Quests: I loved the side quests in Watch_Dogs, but I really wish that they would give us the Far Cry 3 treatment and give us the option to reset each of the gang hideouts and ctOS mainframe server locations.

Update: Regarding certain sidequests they added this past Friday, the 23rd of August, the ability to reset them. However they didn’t allow for the resetting of the ctOS mainframes which is a shame because I loved that as well.

Aiden: Look Aiden sounded like a really great character prior to release, but dammit I hate the way he turned out. You made him a gruff Batman wannabe and while I love his look with the long leather coat, I really wish that he wasn’t so shallow. He was so caught up in revenge that he ruined his entire life for it. I hope we get a new main character in the sequel, someone like Jordi, who was my favorite character with T-Bone close behind.

Multiplayer: I loved the multiplayer, in fact currently I’m in the top 1% percentile of players worldwide in Multiplayer. That being said I wish that you had random NPC’s driving on motorcycles around the city. If you spotted someone else on a motorcycle they were always another player and you were obliged to gun them down.

Overall: The game was great, but it doesn’t have the longevity that GTA 5 does, partly because GTA Online is updated so often and people can do so many different things.

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