Topic: Watch Dogs thread

Mentioned this in the articles about the reviews, I'm going to be posting my thoughts about this game from time to time as I get deeper into it. I'd like to keep the thread as spoiler free as possible, at least for the next month, but if you want to post some feel free, just make sure to give a warning. I'm playing on PS4 but decided to post this in the Xbox One section for obvious reasons since the versions are the same outside of 'resolutiongate' and a few timed-exclusive missions but the mods can feel free to move it if deemed necessary.

Anyway, I'm not too far, just a couple story missions and a few side missions, I'm off to work in a few hours but when I get home later tonight plan to sit down and put a significant amount of play time in. So far I'd say the good: Gameplay mechanics are mostly solid, hacking is cool and story, though a bit cliché, seems intriguing. The bad: driving controls are frustrating.

I'm currently watching a stream of it being played (haven't tried it myself yet), but it seems like he's having some troubles with the driving as well and having watched some gameplay vids before the launch it's one of the things that makes me rise an eyebrow. Not feeling it and surprised by it. Also I noticed that there's no damage to the cars. Is that something that can be switched off/on?

The cars get damaged. I think it was the first mission I played the car didn't get wrecked but since then my cars have been messed up pretty bad because I'm always wreckless in these games and this one almost encourages it during chases. I've only driven like a mad man in one of the main missions though, which was the opening one. The thing I'm wondering is if maybe the cars take damage in free roam and side missions but not main story ones? I'll be able to answer that in the next day or two whenever I stop getting distracted by the extra stuff to do.

Thank you. Empirical studies are the best!

Well, played some more story missions but I'm still only in Act I so it still feel to me more like 'Tutorial mode' than anything else, but it does have my interest. Don't want to spoil anything but I did just meet a new character which gave me access to even more of the cool hacks in Aidan's arsenal. I have to say I'm really hooked on the side missions and what I like is that unlike say inFamous: Second Son, where everything seemed the same, the fixer missions, the investigations, the hacking missions where you're turning on the main control center of a section of the map... it all feels different. I also like that some of the side stuff has a little bit of backstory to it. But again, since it's early days still, I don't want to spoil too much. There are some investigation missions where you get audio tapes talking about what's going on though.

I've been diggin' the amount of variety as well. I love the bits where I have to hack towers or find ways to unlock doors by climbing and exploring. There are a couple missions in Act II where doing this feels like you're solving a big puzzle, and it's utterly satisfying when you figure it all out. The Digital Trips are also a HUGE distraction for me. Honestly, there's almost too much to do in this game. I lose track of things so easily, but luckily, I have a fantastic time doing so.

@DRL

It's funny you should mention that there's almost too much to do because Sammy B. over at PushSquare wrote a great article about this that created some nice discussion. Personally, I love that there is so much to do. I can't get enough of the side quests in games like this. I think what separates GTA, Saints Row, Assassin's Creed and now this game, from other open world games, is that there's a lot of variety but the side missions are all great. In inFamous: Second Son you have the 'side mission' as well but it was the same thing over and over, so it just isn't as fun or as satisfying to complete those as it is in the other games mentioned. There's also something to be said for very well constructed, linear stories backed by strong gameplay like The Last of Us but Naughty Dog is a developer that excels at that. I'm not sure I'd want Ubi to change the way it goes about making games. It's different than Naughty Dog but it's still great.

Finally stopped screwing around and got to Act II. Compelling stuff so far, imo. It's not the tightest narrative but it's giving me reason to want to keep digging deeper into what's going on, so that's good. Of course, I just downloaded the Conspiracy DLC which looks awesome, so it's likely I'll be distracted from the main story again for a bit.