It takes about seven hours for Watch_Dogs to 'sync' in. Once it does, the gameplay picks up steam, the story gains some much needed momentum, and you start to enjoy this virtual world with its cool nooks and crannies. And believe it or not, Aiden sort of develops a personality. But it should not take this long. While it's unfortunate, audience attention spans are slim, and you need to grab their attention immediately - especially in an action game based on an open-world formula that has been done at least a dozen times in the last decade. It takes eight story missions before the plot becomes something worth investing in, and in that time you've already found yourself confounded by tacky driving controls, missions that intentionally require you to be non-lethal for no reason, getting embarrassed by the casual vulgarities, clichéd themes, and a bunch of other things that simply don't quite gel with what folks expect from an open world game on a next generation console. Watch_Dogs also constantly distracts you from the story - which over time becomes the best part of the game. Approaching a campaign mission almost always results in a side-mission or activity popping up with a contextual command to enter it into your GPS. While directing players toward exciting things to do in a game is good - doing it in a way that distracts from the campaign as you intend to participate in such a thing, is strange and off-putting. Like Howard Stern, Watch_Dogs is a fungus. It grows on you but takes its time doing so. If you put in the effort and sweat equity you'll end up with a pretty exciting game, but in all honesty in 2014, grabbing players' attention from the start is a necessity.
