'Formula' is often used as a negative critique of something. If a movie or TV show or video game follows a familiar formula, folks assume that also means generic and derivative. And it does and it doesn't. The thing about a formula is that many of them are popular because they're good. If you're baking a cake and leave out the eggs or substitute salt for sugar because you want to be different, you're gonna end up with a unique creation for sure, but no one is going to want to eat it. However if you make another cake like ever single other one, it'll be fine... but kind of bland because you've eaten it so many times before. Watch_Dogs is a store-bought cake with decent frosting. It's content to give players what they're used to and change up things in a few interesting areas via hacking mechanics, a focus on stealth, and a quasi-futuristic setting. It tastes fine, but you're not running to Yelp to give it a five star review either. The thing about games like Watch_Dogs is that they are fundamentally good. They taste okay, they play okay, they're pretty enough and fun enough, but there doesn't seem to be a creative thrust behind anything. When looking at game like Grand Theft Auto V - which is formula on paper, yet in actuality seemingly every element of that game informs the world, the characters, and the player too. Be it Michael's domestic desperation and bafflement at the insanities and contradictions of modern society, the in-game talk radio stations jammed full of brutal satiric cheap shots or the fact the 'internet' features countless gags that promise to make you a Hollywood star, help you find spiritual enlightenment - or help you quit (or start) smoking by picking up electronic cigarettes. There are so many layers to its cake that even if you've tasted those flavors before, the way they combine is like nothing else on the planet. Grand Theft Auto V paints a very specific picture of the world we live in via a hyper-reality its open world formula affords - it knows the first thing people are going to do is cause mass chaos and go on insane rampages, but still includes things like tennis, golf, and pseudo Italian movies as a bit of a gag on the player. The whole game is a satire - ultimately conveying the idea that all political correctness does is allow people to say horrible things through advertising and politics in an 'okay' way and we'd be better off without it. It literally has its cake, being an awesome sandbox game with multiple opportunities to wreck house, and eats it too - by actually being about something that's worth investing critical thinking skills in because its clearly engaging the player through personality, good writing, and strong themes. Meanwhile good luck figuring out what the heck Watch_Dogs is about beyond surface level 'surveillance state' muck. It's about Aiden, sure. It's about hacking, yes. It's about how our technological world may eventually ruin us all, but there doesn't seem to be any layers - it's just perfunctory. You can do some QR code mini-games, steal cars, play chess, take over bases, and it's all fun and good and decent, but it feels deliberate and based on some kind of weird market research / focus group kind of thing. It's feels completely manufactured in a world where players are desperate for creative passion. Watch_Dogs uses a collection of popular formulas, and to paraphrase a popular movie that has been oft imitated, stood on the shoulder of geniuses in order to accomplish something as fast they could, before they even knew what they had. The subject matter of Watch_Dogs is just as contemporary as that of Grand Theft Auto V, Papers Please, Gone Home, or any other popular game where creative pungency is apparent. But instead of exploring it, they patented it, packaged it, and are selling it without taking the time to do it the justice it deserves. And that, more than any other problem with this game, sucks the most.
