Well I just sunk 50 hours into Watchdogs, what an awesome game.
The Good
-Solid Single Player story and characters; sure it’s not Conan Doyle, but it’s still good enough to be interesting, and far better than the GTA V garbage story. I also liked the characters in the game, though my favorite was the mob boss +10%
-Graphics; the graphics are gorgeous and the game world is immersively rendered +10%
-Mini Games; sure some are ho hum like the cup game, but others like the Carmaggeddon style trip are awesome +5%
-Side Missions; Great fun, I only wish that the stronghold side missions continued after you completed the game, still a real blast and much better than GTA V +5%
-Combat; Let’s face it third person shooting mechanics are always going to be a bit clunky, but at least Watchdogs pulled it off better than most +5%
-Driving and vics; mechanics no better or worse really than other games of its type as far as I could tell, realistic looking cars +0%
-Gameplay; the hacking mechanic really gave this game a shot of awesome, hacking people, stoplights, pipes, bridges, trains, road blocks, cameras, explosives, comms, helicopters adds a whole new dimension to this genre and it is a blast +60%
-Immersion, yeah I’m adding it separately as well, but the game world feels so alive, especially compared to GTA V, it’s got a grittier vibe like GTA IV, the NPCs are engrossing whether it’s watching get in line for the ATM, flying little toy drones, talking, taking out phones to take pictures of ensuing mass chaos, etc. amazing. The environment itself inside Chicago and in the outskirts is incredibly detailed, so much work must have gone into it, and sometimes I just wandered to appreciate the art of it all. +15%
The Bad
-Performance -10% Definitely playable on a single card, but not dual cards; still has occasional crashes and some stuttering while driving, but not bad enough to completely torpedo the game.
-Some incredibly frustrating missions with “gotcha” mechanics -5%
-checkpoint system -1%
-No shooting from cars -5%; I figure they wanted you to focus on the hacking mechanic, but still, come on ubisoft
Final score: 74% Awesome game let down by performance. I have now officially played Watchdogs about 30 more hours (50 hours total) than GTA V. I hope Ubisoft keeps this series going and fixes performance issues.