If you want to buy a game for its graphics, go grab a copy of Infamous: Second Son, or Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes. For the rest of us who remember when interlaced lines didn't matter - and a game could be tackled and completed for the sake of partaking in the medium itself - Watch Dogs is a bevy of great missions set within a fun city comprised of drastically different districts, and a set of powers that not only match up to the E3 2012 demo, but far exceed them. Some of you may already have seen the popular Videogamer.com comparison video where one staff member played through the retail build of Watch Dogs and attempts to replicate the actions therein, to hilariously bad effects. But it must be said the way the game is being played at puts this retail build at a huge disadvantage - the main reason being the newer version of the game is not in-mission, and the only way to get the likes of the traffic lights and bollards to work in the way the demo presented, is to time them perfectly with an on-screen indicator that appears when an enemy is near, and not a moment before or outside a mission. Even mentioned therein is the aspect of the game where you can elect to help citizens out of their cars, which many gamers have said they didn't see the prompt for, even though following an accident or a firefight such a thing will pop up on the map for you to interact with, along with a swathe of citizen-animations playing out as people rush to talk to those involved in the crash, or drivers argue with one another. Is the entire thing as polished as what we saw? In terms of graphics no of course it's not, but there's also no way that the full city was rendered back in 2012, meaning the section that was shown off could be rendered much higher instead. It goes without question that you shouldn't show off a game in an initial state if you cannot deliver on it (Sony learned that thanks to Killzone 2's initial CG-reveal), but when the only thing holding back your enjoyment of a title is "Well it's not as shiny as I thought it was going to be", surely you need to re-evaluate why you're playing the game in the first place. Sharpen those torches and pitchforks and head into the comments below, or perhaps put them down and enjoy an immensely fun open-world hacker's dream. Either way let us know what you think in the comments!
