Delayed by nearly six months due to technical issues, and available during a very crowded Holiday shopping season, Ubisoft’s hacker-based action game finally sees a release on Nintendo’s Wii U. In a fever-pitched market where Nintendo gamers are asking for Super Smash Bros, Hyrule Warriors, and Beyonetta 2 for the Holidays, it begs the following question — was Watch Dogs’ release on Wii U too little, too late?
Since this release was a collaborative effort between Ubisoft Bucharest and Ubisoft Montreal, the amount of effort that went into the Wii U version is noticeable. The city of Chicago is now shown in full detail on the Wii U’s Gamepad. As Aiden walks or drives through the city, his location is constantly being updated. Moreover, you can create a waypoint to a specific destination with the touch of a finger. These features eliminate the inconvenience of constantly pausing the game to view the map for points of interests, finding supplies, or planing an escape route from the police. And while a mini map exists in-game, it can’t compare to the larger map shown on the Gamepad. Plus, there’s a magnifying feature to zoom in on the city. It’s also worth mentioning that Watch Dogs supports the Wii U Gamepad’s Off-TV Play feature. While not important, it does add portability to the game.
As a rule, secondary console releases that arrive several months after the original usually receive DLC as a bonus. Sadly, the DLC that extended Watch Dogs’ story and the more recent ‘Bad Blood’ DLC are missing from the Wii U version. While disappointing, it doesn’t affect the gameplay, which is identical to the originals. Aiden’s ability to hack is the main focus of the game, and at first it’s a novelty to be able to hack security cameras, street lights and peoples’ cellphones for important data. In fact, a majority of the campaign missions rely on hacking devices and disabling security systems via an intricate network of internal fail safes. While the concept of hacking a living, breathing world sounds appealing, it’s the world itself that tends to hamper the gameplay experience.
Before its launch, Watch Dogs promised an open-sandbox world similar to the Grand Theft Auto series, replete with pedestrians, the ability to hijack vehicles, etc. While all of that is present, the physics behind the driving engine feels clunky and slow. It doesn’t matter if you’re driving a van or a sports car; it feels like you’re steering a tank the entire time (especially when driving at high speeds). The free-roaming mechanics for when Aiden is on foot work relatively well, but only when the environment isn’t congested with too many objects. This happens often during gunfights (when they occur), but luckily the auto-aiming feature helps to correct this issue.
Watch Dogs’ performance seems to suffer the most during car delivery missions (i.e. side missions) that involve high speed car chases through the city. For starters, the sprawling cityscape seen during campaign missions is replaced by a fog-filled, low-textured environment. Only the foreground buildings are shown, and the performance is a minimum of 10fps when your vehicle is at full throttle. The controls suffer greatly during these segments, making it impossible to take sharp turns or change lanes without crashing your vehicle. It is possible to complete these missions despite these issues, but only if you’re willing to repeat the same mission multiple times.
It should be noted that Watch Dogs’ graphics vary based on what is happening on screen. During the parts when you’re exploring Chicago on foot, the amount of traffic, pedestrians and buildings seen is impressive. The textures are also quite detailed for this style of game on Wii U. And since the cars you can hijack are relatively slow (i.e. you can drive fast, but not at breakneck speeds), the environments remain highly detailed. It’s only when you take on those aforementioned missions that the graphics scale back for faster driving. Could it be a hardware limitation? It’s possible, but only Ubisoft can answer that question.
If you already own Watch Dogs on another console, there really isn’t anything compelling about the Wii U version to warrant a second purchase. But if you held off on purchasing Watch Dogs on another console just to play the Wii U version, you’ll find that it delivers as promised, despite all the performance issues that plague it.
[During the publication of this review, Ubisoft has released two DLC packs for Watch Dogs — Access Granted and Conspiracy! respectively.]
Mike Pittaro
Platform: Wii U
Developer: Ubisoft
Publisher: Ubisoft
ESRB: M (Mature)
Price: $59.99
| Review Score | |
|---|---|
| Graphics |   |
| The graphical inconsistencies are painfully obvious. | |
| Sound | |
| There really is no difference between the Wii U version and its predecessors. | |
| Gameplay | |
| The game plays relatively well until the framrate drops during a high speed chase. | |
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| Unless you have been waiting for the Wii U version, there really isn't anything new to warrant a second purchase. | |
