Watch_Dogs Catch-All

Pages

Now also available for your favourite video game entertainment system!:

First time I've thought "the next generation is here."

F*ck...
I have been in a "nothing will really surprise me now" mood for a long time but this.. it's not even any specific element but the sum of all of them really appeals to me.
I don't need no stinkin tired GTA or Max Payne, I need this.

Speedhuntr wrote:

First time I've thought "the next generation is here."

I don't want to get excited for this. I just know I'm going to get hurt.

But yes, you're right. The new dawn is upon us.

Grubber788 wrote:
Speedhuntr wrote:

First time I've thought "the next generation is here."

I don't want to get excited for this. I just know I'm going to get hurt.

But yes, you're right. The new dawn is upon us.

And I'm not even necessarily saying this game will be on next-gen consoles (though it should) but between this and Star Wars 1313, it's pretty much here. And I'm excited.

Games like this are the reason I hate it when Ubisoft pull the crap they do on PC with their DRM. Hopefully they won't give me a reason not to pick it up.

Background trailer

Anyone besides me find this amusing coming from "always connected" Ubisoft?

tanstaafl wrote:

Anyone besides me find this amusing coming from "always connected" Ubisoft?

Knowing luck some hair-brained PR person will try to pass it off as intentional when they have problems, ignoring the fact that they're messing around with something people paid money for. There would be interesting ARG possibilities, but you would need to approach it in the correct way.

The problem with such convincing world-building is that when the civilian in the passenger seat is whimpering because his wife appears to have died in the crash/shootout I initiated I get sort of grossed out by the character I'm supposed to be controlling. Neat stuff but it's still people sliding across surfaces and shooting dudes in the face at a certain level.

Slumberland wrote:

The problem with such convincing world-building is that when the civilian in the passenger seat is whimpering because his wife appears to have died in the crash/shootout I initiated I get sort of grossed out by the character I'm supposed to be controlling.

I think that's possibly a good thing If they can pull it off right. It would show the character as a sociopath and doesn't care about collateral damage, that the character you play has unlikeable parts to them. Too many games give you a 'bad' character that's really not.

The problem with such convincing world-building is that when the civilian in the passenger seat is whimpering because his wife appears to have died in the crash/shootout I initiated I get sort of grossed out by the character I'm supposed to be controlling. Neat stuff but it's still people sliding across surfaces and shooting dudes in the face at a certain level.

This is a really interesting point. I think you're right, but I'd see this as more of a positive. I have no problem with controlling a character that I dislike, simply because I enjoy playing games that make me feel strongly about the character one way or another. Characters like this, if they're done right, have the potential to be simultaneously hated and adored by audiences. Take Tom Cruise in Collateral for example. Throughout that movie, Cruise's character is almost a super-villain from the perspective of basic human decency, and yet, because he holds together so well as an individual that

Spoiler:

his death is meaningful and affecting.

The question is whether this kind of thing can be done with a video game, a medium in which the player can't help but feel somewhat complicit when they take the role of someone who is fairly ruthless. Then again, Ezio wasn't exactly an angel, so maybe there's precedent...

tl;dr: Can video games cause existential crises? LOL

The game is current gen, but the gameplay that was shown was from a high powered PC. I don't have much hope that the game will look anything near that on a 360 or PS3, but hold out a slight bit of optimism that it may be one of those "cross generation" games like Gun and Tony Hawk that release on both current and new consoles.

I want to play that game exactly as it looked at E3. I'm afraid I won't be able to.

Cool graphics are cool - but I will be happy with whatever they put out. I still get impressed by 360 graphics!

This game looks fantastic.

SortingHat wrote:

I have no problem with controlling a character that I dislike, simply because I enjoy playing games that make me feel strongly about the character one way or another.

I'm totally down for this as well, but the particular alchemy of in-game freedom and violence seems to breed the same type of dislikeable character over and over again... sociopaths.

Slumberland wrote:

I'm totally down for this as well, but the particular alchemy of in-game freedom and violence seems to breed the same type of dislikeable character over and over again... sociopaths.

Hm, yeah. I've had that experience while replaying GTA4 recently. I think the problem occurs when you try to thread the line between outrageousness and compelling, serious narrative. Here, the action has a kind of over-the-top feel, but at the same time some elements seem very real and serious. But as a whole, I think the trend is towards immersion and reality, as opposed to something like a Saints Row the Third, though there is of course always a place for that. I feel like once a game gets it right, if it's able to shed the bombast and extreme action, we won't feel like the characters are sociopaths, just rational actors in a complete world. Because it's so hard to behave like a human being when shooting people in the face is so darn fun.

Really excited for this one!! One of the few stand outs from all this E3 shenannigans...

Scratched wrote:
Slumberland wrote:

The problem with such convincing world-building is that when the civilian in the passenger seat is whimpering because his wife appears to have died in the crash/shootout I initiated I get sort of grossed out by the character I'm supposed to be controlling.

I think that's possibly a good thing If they can pull it off right. It would show the character as a sociopath and doesn't care about collateral damage, that the character you play has unlikeable parts to them. Too many games give you a 'bad' character that's really not.

Yup. It's interesting, because what turned me off of the God of War games is that Kratos is such an unrelentingly sociopathic, mysoginistic asshole that I simply had no desire to play a game as him. I could get the gameplay elsewhere with a more palatable presentation.

With Watch_Dogs, that sequence with the multi-car pileup actually made me uncomfortable, but what sold me on it is two things:

First, that you have the option to rescue the civilian who wasn't killed. That introduces a very grey and interesting area to me; is your character evil because he caused the death of the guy's wife, or is he a "good" guy because he's eliminating a person that causes more suffering than the main character ever will, and in the process he takes the time to save what bystanders he can? The truth is somewhere in between, I suspect.

But regardless, I watched that segment and immediately decided that when I play this game (and I will), I will make it a personal challenge to minimize exposure of bystanders to danger at every turn.

Or did you have a choice to not cause this accident at all and do something else?

tboon wrote:

Or did you have a choice to not cause this accident at all and do something else?

That's my hope, and that's going to be part of my challenge when I play it.

Farscry wrote:

The truth is somewhere in between, I suspect.

But regardless, I watched that segment and immediately decided that when I play this game (and I will), I will make it a personal challenge to minimize exposure of bystanders to danger at every turn.

Hm, maybe. I'm not sure I have any faith in mainstream video games to explore that sort of territory. But if any big studio can forge ahead in that direction, it's Ubisoft Montreal. Far Cry 2 hit that existential nail on the head, but in a very different setting that let them avoid friction that Watch Dogs will, judging by the trailer, probably have.

On the other hand, as I distill the WD trailer in my mind, it boils down to: walk here, watch this, walk there, watch that, shoot them, kill him. Maybe that's just the way they have to play it to grab eyeballs, but now I'm struggling to see what has everyone so captivated about this game.

Gravey wrote:

On the other hand, as I distill the WD trailer in my mind, it boils down to: walk here, watch this, walk there, watch that, shoot them, kill him. Maybe that's just the way they have to play it to grab eyeballs, but now I'm struggling to see what has everyone so captivated about this game.

Atmosphere.

You can distill many games down like that. Diablo boils down to "find enemies, click frantically to kill them all, scoop up items that make your clicks more powerful, repeat", but yet the experience of playing it, with all the details behind those actions factored in, is a lot of fun.

Watch_Dogs looks like GTA but with more convincing atmosphere and potentially better gameplay (the shootout was better than GTA combat, for example).

I got the impression that there were a lot more possibilities than what we saw too.

For example, the first hack (where he shuts down everyone's cell phone) was so he could get past the bouncer at the door. Was that the only way in? Could he have done something with (say) the camera crew out front that would have distracted the bouncer as well.

Inside, he finds his target's employee and listens in on her conversation and so knows the guy is coming. He chooses to go back outside. Could he have stayed somewhere inside the building and waited on him? Could he have confronted the woman and done something else? (Remember, he could have disabled her phone the way he did the ones outside.)

Outside, he arranges the accident by setting all the lights to green. Could he have set them to red? Was there something else he could have done?

It seems the game is going to allow all sorts of options and we only saw one; probably the one that made the best presentation.

As for the woman being killed, too often in games like this the "civilians" either simply don't exist or are magically immune to the player (unless some need to die to show that "this is really serious") or if civilian casualties are somehow part of the wacky fun. Having a game where the consequences of what the player does are realistically reflected I see as a good thing. Too often things like that almost seem to be "well, a bunch of people just died but hey, the hero survived" so there is nothing wrong with bringing it to the player's attention.

tanstaafl wrote:

Outside, he arranges the accident by setting all the lights to green. Could he have set them to red? Was there something else he could have done?

When he hacked the lights, a radial menu popped up. He cycled between "Traffic Lights" and "Control Train", and there were a bunch of other icons as well.

Gravey wrote:
Farscry wrote:

The truth is somewhere in between, I suspect.

But regardless, I watched that segment and immediately decided that when I play this game (and I will), I will make it a personal challenge to minimize exposure of bystanders to danger at every turn.

Hm, maybe. I'm not sure I have any faith in mainstream video games to explore that sort of territory. But if any big studio can forge ahead in that direction, it's Ubisoft Montreal. Far Cry 2 hit that existential nail on the head, but in a very different setting that let them avoid friction that Watch Dogs will, judging by the trailer, probably have.

On the other hand, as I distill the WD trailer in my mind, it boils down to: walk here, watch this, walk there, watch that, shoot them, kill him. Maybe that's just the way they have to play it to grab eyeballs, but now I'm struggling to see what has everyone so captivated about this game.

an up to date cyberpunk story

mechanics that remind me of the pnp rpg Mage, possible mmo capabilities are just the top of my list.

It strikes me that they made a UI that allows lots of options, and then they scripted a scene where they could play through and all the AI reactions were made to that script. While the interface looks wonderful, the very specific and immediate reactions show that this was essentially a long cut scene. Chances of an actual game with branching options that looks and feels the same are slim to none.

Yeah, I agree. I was really hoping the gun was just for a threat or a 1 shot kill after using other abilities to make the approach. Then it turned into GTA.

Yves Guillemot just confirmed Watch_Dogs is 360, PS3 and PC. The demo was PC which probably explains why it basically looked next-gen.

Yeah, that looks pretty interesting. I love games that give you lots of different ways to solve a problem...there isn't only one correct solution.

We need more info on this. We really do.

Must....have....this...

Scratched wrote:

Games like this are the reason I hate it when Ubisoft pull the crap they do on PC with their DRM. Hopefully they won't give me a reason not to pick it up.

+∞

Pages