Ben Whalley

This game is absolutely terrible. If this was released in 1995 I would have been impressed, but I’m shocked that this has passed for release in this day and age. Graphics are poor and the cinematic scenes, just aren’t! It’s clunky, the walkers are badly designed and the movement mechanisms is beyond basic. I get that the game was cheap, but this is just terrible… a complete waste of £35.

I live in the UK, go to London regularly for work and leisure, and have played every Watch Dogs so hopefully have a bit of credibility here. Posts saying dialogue are pure perfection really don’t spend time on UK streets. Far from perfection, the swearing is in every sentence and as often as punctuation. The Brits swear for comedic effect, not just for the sake of it and not that often. Accents are also poor and verge in racial stereotyping. Rather than achieve a representation of the multiculturalism of London and the UK, it has stereotyped characters, namely Eastenders, Jamaican, Indian, Eastern European and serves only to contribute to negative stereotyping of these which is really saddening. I liked the focus on non lethal attacks, and more puzzles, but the lack of tactical opportunity was disappointing and fell into a pretty stale formula after the first district. Finally - what I loved about the first watch dogs is learning about the city I’m in - and it’s history. Instead of getting that, London’s best attractions were reduced to gang hideouts and hostile zones. Ultimately a very shallow and, with the anti climactic storyline, a flop for me.