Watch Dogs

Genre: Open-World Action-RPG

Players: 1

Game Company Bad Behavior Profile Page: UbiSoft

.

Review:

Watch Dogs is an Open-World Action-RPG in the same vein as games like Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row, putting players in the role of a hacker and vigilante in a slightly fictionalized version of a more or less contemporary Chicago. This game was released in 2014 on PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and six months later on Wii U.

Watch Dogs may be best known these days for a bit of controversy caused by its pre-release marketing, showing footage of the game with graphical advancements that were inexplicably removed from the game at launch. I suppose there’s an argument to be made that by launching a full half year after the other versions of the game, the Wii U release of Watch Dogs may have benefitted from an opportunity for this controversy to blow over. However, this resulted in a different problem – making Wii U players wonder just why the heck they had to wait in the first place.

To put it bluntly, Watch Dogs on Wii U is not a good port. The game does have moments of brilliance shining here and there, such as some nice textures and environmental detail, as well as some good writing and voice acting. But the good qualities are undercut by the extremely distracting graphical flaws present throughout the game. Nasty framerate drops, a blurry resolution at times, and sometimes in vehicles I encountered some ridiculous shaking as if the entire world was being struck by an earthquake.

These graphical issues aside, I found Watch Dogs to be a solid foray into the Grand Theft Auto-style Open-World game, albeit not a particularly ground-breaking one. The “hacker” angle this game takes makes for some fun and unique opportunities to make use of camera networks and spy on people, but most of the time it just feels like a theme rather than something that truly changes the way this sort of game is played.

I suppose I should mention that the one unique addition to the Wii U version of Watch Dogs, the ability to view your map on the Wii U gamepad, is actually a pretty good addition to the game, allowing you to seamlessly interact with your map without stopping if you like… but this is nowhere close to a good trade-off for the terrible performance issues this game has. I should also note that this game does have some multiplayer features, but I was unable to test these directly in this review, so I cannot say whether they’re still supported in 2022 or if there are many players making use of these features. I kinda’ doubt it.

That’s unfortunately what this all comes down to. Without these performance issues, Watch Dogs would be a solid, competent Open-World game, but nothing truly special within the genre. Unfortunately, the Wii U version is a mess, making it really hard to enjoy this game through all the graphical problems. If you want to play a great Open-World game on Wii U, you do still have other options, like Assassin’s Creed IV, Batman: Arkham City, or The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But to get your “Grand Theft Auto-style game” fix, you’re better off going with… well, pretty much any other modern game platform.

tl;dr – Watch Dogs is a Grand Theft Auto-style Open-World Action-RPG where players take on the role of a hacker and vigilante in a version of modern-day Chicago. It’s mostly a solid but not especially noteworthy Open-World game, but the Wii U version has some absolutely nasty graphical issues that make it difficult to enjoy, and the addition of a Wii U gamepad interactive map does little to mitigate the damage to this game. Stick with other Open-World games, or get this game on another game platform.

Grade: C+

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Andy Miller, Exlene, Johannes, Ilya Zverev, Connor Armstrong, Eli Goodman, Kristoffer Wulff, Stov, and Gabriel Coronado-Medina. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}