Watch Dogs Illustrates What's Wrong With Big Developers Today

Congratulations, you made it! The glitz and glamour of E3 are behind you, it€™s time to look ahead towards the future, incorporating the promises that have been made in the past. What I€™m sure most people are still raving about is the Ubisoft press conference and, for the most part, they have good reason to. In my opinion, they were the only presenters to actually talk about video games, at least games anyone cared about. Most notably, as I€™m sure you€™re all aware, the biggest announcement of the best press event was, unquestionably, Watch Dogs, and that€™s what we€™re here to discuss. Though I was not so fortunate as to attend E3 myself this year, I sat on my sofa, watching a livestream like most while a certain sense of jaded anxiety hung overhead. €œRayman, woo!€ I mumbled in a half sarcastic tone while Ubisoft continued to try, with little success, and convince me I wanted a Wii U, but my eyes shot wide when that logo appeared on the big screen. Ubisoft had me in the palm of their hands, I leaned in closer to my computer screen and felt some of that old E3 magic welling up in my chest. The graphics, the concept, the incredibly smooth CQC, by the time the gameplay demo showed Aiden hacking a traffic light to tangle an oncoming target in an accident, I€™d already hurled all of my money at the screen. Watch Dogs was sexy, new, interesting, on its own, for me, it€™d already made this years E3 worth watching but then he pulled out that gun. After stuffing all of my money back into my pockets, because that€™s where I keep all of my money, I began tending to my newly broken heart. I€™d gone from jaded, to enthralled, to broken, all over the course of fifteen minutes, but despite my emotional exhaustion, I found the strength just hours later to be angry. While trying to avoid the usual €œvideo games are too easy€ rant I€™m sure you€™ve all heard before, that single moment in the Watch Dogs gameplay trailer summed up what I find wrong with games these days. Ubisoft had a slick and interesting thing on its hands with the €œhack anything€ concept they demonstrated during their press conference, why add a gun? Sure, there is something about holding a gun to a groveling man€™s face that quenches a certain need to dominate that I€™m sure most have been faced with at least once in their lifetime, but is there no other way? When was the last time a video game you played challenged you to hone some thought process more complex than the best way to level a crosshair at a distant enemy€™s skull? Games like Portal should serve as an example to the mainstream crowd heading into this new generation: if you have something new and interesting put it on the main stage and run with it, do not be afraid to travel off of the beaten path. For now, the gaming industry has reached an awkward place in terms of taking risks. We're at the end of the longest console cycle in history and no one wants to put down money on a "proof of concept" this late in the game, but the injustice done to Watch Dogs is pretty grave. Instead of turning combat into a challenge where players would have to use Aiden's hacking skills in order to gain the upper hand in battle, we are once more pointing cursors at heads. Not to say that another linear point and shoot game wouldn't be fun, but doesn't Watch Dogs and Ubisoft have so much more to offer? In my memory, at least, it's hard to recall any previous title to give players so much control over their environment while maintaining a personal relationship with the main character, Watch Dogs has pulled off a pretty impressive trick. Instead of shooting, why not make gameplay more vertical? Think about it, tapping into phone signals to get an idea of what the enemies up to, manipulating the electrics in a buildings to create distractions and lessen the effectiveness of the enemy even with their guns. It's the type of thing Ubisoft has worked very hard to convey in Assassin's Creed III, and with the more futuristic tools at Aiden's disposal in Watch Dogs, the same thing could be pulled off. That way, combat would be something to really think about before getting into, no more praying and spraying while hitting the X button now and then to switch between cover objects. Combat would challenging, not just another way for the protagonist to show off his ungodly ability to slaughter hordes of enemies without so much as a scraped knee. The next generation is coming, in fact it should be here around this time next year (unless you believe Nintendo is a part of the future in which case the next generation will be here in just a few months), and instead of just making games more visually enticing, why not genuinely make them better? Publishers and developers will get a completely clean slate to work with, and personally, I wouldn't mind a few creative flops while they sketched on said slate in an effort to create something new and amazing. Watch Dogs has, so far, been rumored for a release on the current generation of consoles, and I think Ubisoft has a chance to really make a statement before moving forward. Although I'm excited for games like The Last of Us, and Beyond: Two Souls, Watch Dogs is what I see as having what it takes to create a definitive next generation standard for gameplay, not just visuals or narrative -- though I expect it will have the latter two in spades. What ever it turns out to be, Watch Dogs will, no doubt, be amazing, but if Ubisoft presents this exquisite dish in the same wrappings as every other game on the market, it will be the greatest injustice done in gaming to date.