So I got this for free for buying an Nvidia card.
Spent I don't even know how long trying to get the resolution to not cut off the tops and bottoms of the screen because of those stupid letter boxes and Ubisoft's wretched handling of aspect ratio. Running it at my monitors native 1920x1080 caused the game to lag its balls off on medium, so I had to dial it back.
It was even more confusing because when I first started playing, at my default resolution and what not, the first choice in most menus simply had no text. It read as .......... So I played for about an hour before I finally found the display menu, or the keyboard configuration. I still ended up going to a controller, because Ubi mapped out every single action in game to its own key while making several important ones (for an arrow key gamer) unavailable. I'm glad I used a controller anyways, because the driving is pretty tough without any sort of throttle control. For a few hours I was wrecking into every until I started to get the hang of the handling. Unlike other driving games, cars in WD seem to have their own very specific rules for how they handle, and that makes for fffrrrrruuuusssstttttttrrraaaaatttttiiinnnnnngggg fixer missions until you learn each car's quirks. Now I'm starting to feel like I actually know what I'm doing, the driving isn't so bad. Although the fact that almost every car has to do a burn out when you launch, lurches something horrible for the first few feet and the screen shakes is totally obnoxious.
The whole "Use your hax0rz skeelz while driving!" thing seems shakily implemented. There doesn't feel like a lot of finesse to you. You just mash button while you're driving because eventually, it'll work in your favor. It's highly reminiscent of AC: Brotherhood's multiplayer and the escape gates and stuff. I barely remember to use focus though so maybe that's part of my problem. Some of the stuff they expect you to do can only be achieved with it.
I'm not really a fan of how many timed events there are. Even the exploration/investigation stuff often has a timer on it. Combat is about as messy and unpleasant as GTA4, and I avoid straight combat if I can.
In about 7 hours I've done most of the first island, and I kinda already feel like I'm done. I've done two story missions so I know there's all that but....I dunno. There is this thing about Ubi open world games where the sense of progression is flawed. It's all so cut and dry and spelled out in menus that there's nothing to really imagine. "Oh boy, I'll be able to activate spike traps in another 10 levels!" "Oh boy, can't wait to get some more crafting components." "Oh boy, yet another vehicle I'll probably never use!" "Derp, time to go save another random person from crime because justice!"
So yeah. Very glad I didn't actually pay for it. It's very much a Ubi game in that it promises a lot of depth, but gameplay is made up some of the same basic activities repeated ad nauseam in a large and pleasing sandbox environment. Diddling with your phone. Driving. Crashing. Gobbling up markers on the map. Standing around deciding what the best way to do something is. Walking slowly and thematically around the city. There's so much of AC's design in this game sometimes I forget which world I'm in.
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Topic: Watch Dogs, Ubisoft new IP (Read 65359 times)