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Forums - Sony - Watch Dogs PS4 first review: 8/10 from Gameblog.fr

artur-fernand on 26 May 2014
JWeinCom said:

Strawman arguments... but w/e.  The Tony hawk games that scored 90+ were 1,2,3, and Underground.  The first three were awesome games, and Underground was the first to take the formula open world.  After that, the series consistently scored lower and lower. What was the common complaint?  Lack of innovation.  So, not a double standard at all.  Just took us longer to get sick of it because there weren't like 12 other skateboarding franchises.

Btw that's why it's mandatory to surprise.  Cause there are tons of other open world games on the market.  There are like 2 skateboarding franchises (I think that's down to 0 now) and maybe about 4 Kart racing franchises apart from things like hello kitty.  And that's also what I mean by within the context of the medium.  How many games are doing what Mario Kart does as well as better?  You could maybe make an argument for Sonic and Sega, but that's about it.  It's an experience that comes along once every Nintendo console.  There is a new open world game every month or two. 


There aren't that many open world games, aren't you exaggerating a bit? This year, we had Second Son and Watch Dogs - and then there's AC Unity and Arkham Knight scheduled for 2014, and that's all I can remember honestly. Now, it's hard for me to use Mario Kart as an example here, since I haven't played the most recent ones, but it's a series that keeps constant high scores without ever shaking the formula. Yes, it's once every Nintendo console, but it's a series that just takes a formula that works, and builds a good game around that, and that's it. No secret. It's like I said, Watch Dogs is probably a game that takes the already estabilished formula and just builds around that. I don't think I'm expressing my thoughts clearly enough, it feels like something is missing... but anyway.



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Anfebious on 26 May 2014

I was never going to buy this game anyway but... it makes me feel al tingly inside to see the game flop in metacritic.



"I've Underestimated the Horse Power from Mario Kart 8, I'll Never Doubt the WiiU's Engine Again"

JWeinCom on 26 May 2014
artur-fernand said:
JWeinCom said:
artur-fernand said:
JWeinCom said:
veritaz said:

I hate reviews that give a game a lower score because it isn't revolutionary enough for their standards. A good game is a good game in my book. It doesn't have to change the whole formula to be great.


You can't evaluate games in a vacuum, like any other medium.  Doing something for the fourth, fifth, tenth, or twentieth time isn't going to have the same appeal as it did the first.  Surprising and innovating is a key part to making a game exceptional.


Perfecting an already existing formula is enough to create an excellent game, at the hands of a competent developer. What does GTA V and The Last of Us have when it comes to "surprises" or "innovations"? Or, hell, Mario Kart 8 got an 89. Multiple games on the series have 90+. The series isn't exactly known for innovating on every single instalment, but for what the game proposes to be, it probably has unmatched quality.

Sometimes, it just feels like a huge double standard really. I'm not saying Watch Dogs or Second Son are anywhere near The Last of Us or GTA V. But listing "lack of innovation" as one of the flaws is horrible, not everybody needs to reinvent the wheel.


So uhhhh... give me a chance to reply maybe instead of quoting the same post multiple times?

Anyway, I haven't played Last of Us, or GTA V, nor do I care to.  I've only played about 4 races of Mario Kart 8, and I'm guessing you don't own it either.  Three entries of the series scored above 90.  Super Mario Kart, which basically invented its genre, Mario Kart DS, which was a pretty substantial leap as the first title with online plus had a ton of modes.  Then you have Super Circuit, which I didn't really like either.   And, I have seen complaints about the lack of innovation in Mario Kart.  The score isn't simply a measure of how innovative a game is.  Mario Kart may just be more fun than watchdogs in general.

You don't have to reinvent the wheel, but you need to improve it somehow.  Otherwise, why is this game going to excite me?  If you have the same meal for dinner every night, you're going to get sick of it.  If you choose to make a game in a genre that is heavily over-represented, you need to seperate yourself from the pack somehow.


I'm not quoting the same post multiple times. It's just another guy who coincidentally quoted your post at the same time.

 

But anyway, I strongly disagree with it being basically the same meal. Out of all the major open-world games, pretty much all of them play differently from each other. I'm gonna exemplify with the ones you've mentioned in a previous post:

RDR and GTA are kinda similar, only the former is more serious and on the Wild West. It's the same dev, so it's only natural. inFamous gives you super-powers, AC puts a lot of emphasis on free running and climbing, the Arkham games are about the combat and the gadgets, Just Cause is about over-the-top action and LA Noire's status as "open world" is questionable, imo.

Those are the ones I've played anyway, and all of them felt extremely different from each other. And if you look at the scores, they are pretty fair (how AC3 was kind of a disappointment and AC4 a surprise, for example), and none of them complain about "lack of innovation". But there are a bunch of Second Son reviews out there who list lack of innovation as a flaw for the game, giving the impression it would have scored higher if not for it, and that's my issue with it. Granted, I haven't played SS, but I can only assume it plays similarly to the first two inFamous - naturally, since it's the same series.

Now, maybe Watch Dogs is indeed a generic open-world game that tries to be GTA too hard, who knows? But if it's just a game that follows the GTA formula with a relatively small twist to it, and does it in a competent way, then lack of innovation is not as valid as it is for Arkham Origins for example.


I wouldn't call a change in setting to the west a really significant change.  Infamous is hardly the only open world game to give you powers.  Prototype obviously comes to mind, as well as a slew of super hero games.  Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction, Spider-man 2, and a bunch of other super hero games of various quality.  

Regarding Assassin's Creed, here are a few quotes about the game...

"Four titles in five years appear to have taken the shine off the series.


Revelations via Digital Fix: "Four titles in five years has taken some of the shine off the series"

XBox Achievments on ACIV: "Six games in, and you'd have thought the series might have attempted an overhaul, but Black Flag is by and large, business as usual."

So yeah, they do complain about that.  I'm sure I could find more, but those are just the first couple of reviews I read. Seems like there might be some sort of confirmation bias clouding your judgment.  Lack of innovation is a common complaint levied against games.

But to sum it up, we get bored of things.  If a game doesn't do anything new, it's perfectly justified for a reviewer to call them out on it.  Whether reviewers do so with consistency is another matter entirely.



Locknuts on 26 May 2014
JWeinCom said:
veritaz said:

I hate reviews that give a game a lower score because it isn't revolutionary enough for their standards. A good game is a good game in my book. It doesn't have to change the whole formula to be great.


You can't evaluate games in a vacuum, like any other medium.  Doing something for the fourth, fifth, tenth, or twentieth time isn't going to have the same appeal as it did the first.  Surprising and innovating is a key part to making a game exceptional.


So this. It seems there is a group of people who want last gen repeated, only prettier. These remakes and remasters of games only 12 months old are testament to that. I would definitely prefer some innovation. Especially considering games running at 1080p/60fps are nothing new to me.



DucksUnlimited on 26 May 2014
Anfebious said:
I was never going to buy this game anyway but... it makes me feel al tingly inside to see the game flop in metacritic.

Your definition of flop is an odd one.



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JWeinCom on 26 May 2014
artur-fernand said:
JWeinCom said:

Strawman arguments... but w/e.  The Tony hawk games that scored 90+ were 1,2,3, and Underground.  The first three were awesome games, and Underground was the first to take the formula open world.  After that, the series consistently scored lower and lower. What was the common complaint?  Lack of innovation.  So, not a double standard at all.  Just took us longer to get sick of it because there weren't like 12 other skateboarding franchises.

Btw that's why it's mandatory to surprise.  Cause there are tons of other open world games on the market.  There are like 2 skateboarding franchises (I think that's down to 0 now) and maybe about 4 Kart racing franchises apart from things like hello kitty.  And that's also what I mean by within the context of the medium.  How many games are doing what Mario Kart does as well as better?  You could maybe make an argument for Sonic and Sega, but that's about it.  It's an experience that comes along once every Nintendo console.  There is a new open world game every month or two. 


There aren't that many open world games, aren't you exaggerating a bit? This year, we had Second Son and Watch Dogs - and then there's AC Unity and Arkham Knight scheduled for 2014, and that's all I can remember honestly. Now, it's hard for me to use Mario Kart as an example here, since I haven't played the most recent ones, but it's a series that keeps constant high scores without ever shaking the formula. Yes, it's once every Nintendo console, but it's a series that just takes a formula that works, and builds a good game around that, and that's it. No secret. It's like I said, Watch Dogs is probably a game that takes the already estabilished formula and just builds around that. I don't think I'm expressing my thoughts clearly enough, it feels like something is missing... but anyway.


Dead Rising 3 (technically last year but within recent memory), Dying Light, Amazing Spider-man 2, Infamous.  Saints Row 4 was a fairly recent one, GTA V, Far Cry 3, Remember Me, and I'm sure a few others I'm missing.  There are a lot of them.  Every two months is, at worst a slight exaggeration.  

As for Mario Kart, they change over time.  64 to double dash was a huge upgrade visually, in course design, plus the two racer mechanic.  Mario Kart DS , online play, a revamped battle mode, mission mode, and so on.  Wii version was not the most innovative, but it introduced motion based steering, bikes, and a revamped online mode.  7 had gliders and underwater sequences, and customization (which may have been in DS I don't remember).  Mario Kart 8 is actually (from my limited playtime) a pretty nice change.  The antigravity tracks combine with the gliding and underwater segment to shake things up quite a bit.  

Of course, all of this is combined with the fact that the genre isn't veery represented.  Before Mario Kart 7, it was three years since Mario Kart Wii, and there were another 3 years (!!!) between 7 and 8.  The only other notable racing games were SOnic and Sega, and mod nation racers.  It's hard to get sick of a genre that sees an entry every few years.



kitler53 on 26 May 2014

unless a game completely changes the way a genre feels and is played it is generic trash and deserves to burn in hell. the lack of innovation is killing gaming and gamers refuse to put up with this bullshit. open world games were fun once and once only and i don't want to buy the same game all over again.

now excuse me foe a minute,.. i'm going to go pre-order the next CoD game.



Anfebious on 26 May 2014
DucksUnlimited said:
Anfebious said:
I was never going to buy this game anyway but... it makes me feel al tingly inside to see the game flop in metacritic.

Your definition of flop is an odd one.


Odd? I use the one that those hardcore gamers use.



"I've Underestimated the Horse Power from Mario Kart 8, I'll Never Doubt the WiiU's Engine Again"

JWeinCom on 26 May 2014
Locknuts said:
JWeinCom said:
veritaz said:

I hate reviews that give a game a lower score because it isn't revolutionary enough for their standards. A good game is a good game in my book. It doesn't have to change the whole formula to be great.


You can't evaluate games in a vacuum, like any other medium.  Doing something for the fourth, fifth, tenth, or twentieth time isn't going to have the same appeal as it did the first.  Surprising and innovating is a key part to making a game exceptional.


So this. It seems there is a group of people who want last gen repeated, only prettier. These remakes and remasters of games only 12 months old are testament to that. I would definitely prefer some innovation. Especially considering games running at 1080p/60fps are nothing new to me.


Yeah, this has been a pretty shitty generation so far.  Nintendo Land, Wonderful 101, and Zombi U were the only games to really grab my attention (if only Zombi wasn't so glitchy).  Sunset Overdrive looks neat. Hopefully E3 will show off some more ambitious projects.



pariz on 26 May 2014

I loved Read Dead Redemption, I sometimes got pretty bored with GTA IV, the same happened with Assassin's Creed II, and I just couldn't get myself to finish either Infamous or its sequel. I was having a blast with GTA V but I had to give it back (it was borrowed).
The sense of progression and a story driven experience, even in open world games, is very important for me.
I wonder what might this game be for me.



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