Watch Dogs Review on Xbox 360

Stop at nothing. Except to spy on people.

You’re Aiden Pearce, you’re on a quest of revenge. And you’ll stop at nothing. Well, except to check out what random individuals in Chicago are upto instead of hacking a citywide network to aid you in obtaining your aforementioned revenge.

Now, apart from the above sentence being extremely long (and tough to say if you trying doing so 10 times in a row), it showcases what we already know. We’re all voyeurs.

Profile all the things!

You’re able to profile the residents of Chicago at a tap of a button. Everything from their income history to the important events in their lives become known to you.

Want to know how much a coffee shop barista earns before threatening him? Just point your phone at him. Deciding whether to steal that slick sports car from the guy driving it? Why don’t you check if he’s a known gang member by looking at his info on your phone? Deciding to kill off a gunman standing between you and your goals? Be a pal and first find out if he has a family or suffering from a terminal illness.

By adding this layer of information, Watch Dogs adds context to your actions.You’ll find yourself profiling everyone you come across and act accordingly. And when you can, observe their actions via video or thoughts left around as recordings.

Devious derivatives.

Aside from promoting the innate human trait of being a nosey parker, you’ll indulge in gameplay that borrows from Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne and the company’s own Splinter Cell and Assassin’s Creed franchises. From skulking around corners to tailing targets and even slowing down time to hack traffic signals and steam pipes, Watch Dogs wears its inspirations on its sleeves.

And you know what? It works. The stealth works well as is the ability to distract your foes. Shooting if you so choose to indulge in it is slick and free-running across the streets of Chicago is as it should be.

Perfect? Almost. If it weren’t for the driving. Cars handle poorly. You’ll find yourself swerving into walls more often than you should, usually moments before you’re able to complete an objective. It’s annoying given the sheer number of missions that involve chasing down enemies or running from them. Nonetheless, you’ll be forced to come up with creative ways to complete the game’s many chapters because the plot takes a few interesting twists and turns.

That’s not to say this is a well paced game. Far from it, you’ll find the first few missions clichéd and borderline sleep inducing. It’s only once you’re past the initial chapters do things really pick up. And once they do, Watch Dogs gets a lot better.

System of a down?

Along the way you’ll find yourself acquiring new skills thanks to a character progression system not too dissimilar to what we’ve seen in the other games. On top of this, there’s a morality meter which dictates how likely the citizens of Chicago are likely to snitch on you or not. They’re interesting add-ons but barring a handful of skills, they do very little to affect the core experience.

For a game with a major focus on hacking, Ubisoft’s approach is mixed and right so. There are one button presses for most things such as profiling people or manipulating traffic signals. Apt given you’ll end up doing these things on the go. Hacking through the city-wide operating system however has you hijacking cameras, manipulating guard patterns (or outright killing them) and then solving puzzles not too dissimilar to the original Bioshock’s. It all boils down to point streams of data in the right direction.

By and large, it works with minimal fuss. The puzzles are just about the right level of difficulty. Flailing your controller to the ground is the last thing you’ll do.

Multiplayer madness (kinda).

Apart from this, there are a ton of interesting elements to toy with. One of which are online modes(only if you have Xbox Gold of course) such as installing a virus in your friend’s single-player experience and car racing. However unless you’re playing it on an Xbox One, PC or PS4 you won’t be able to experience the game’s 8-player free-roam or decryption modes.

To be honest, given the hilarity to be had trolling a friend’s single-player game (and defending from the repercussions of doing so) I’m not too convinced there’s much of a downside of losing out on the other multiplayer modes.

How does it play on the Xbox 360?

Now that I’ve got everything out of the way (or so I hope), let’s talk about performance. Almost every review is either on the PS4, Xbox One or PC. The important question is, with around 80 million Xbox 360 consoles in the wild, how does it play?

The answer is a mixed bag. How good it is depends on your tolerance for blurry textures, screen tearing and use of low-res assets on the game’s mini-map. However the frame rate holds up quite decently only taking a hit in the game’s more intensive sections (like squaring up against a bunch of gun men). The full installation of Watch Dogs occupies around 17GB on the Xbox 360 and the game requires mandatory storage. Which means you 4GB Xbox 360 owners are out of luck.

Does it live up to the hype? Maybe…

Compared to the PS4 or Xbox One version, the difference is extremely visible but that’s to be expected. However if you can’t play it on either next-gen console or PC, it’s well worth considering due to the sheer amount of fun to be had. Besides, don’t you want to know want an entire city is upto without the fear of being caught?