The original Watchdogs

[PZ]

I really enjoyed being in Chicago in the game, and the simplicity of the controls. Watch Dogs 2 is a good game, but the controls can be a bit cumbersome. One of the reasons I began the game again (the original Watch Dogs) is that I enjoyed the environment - you could go from the city to the suburbs where there is trash, weeds growing through the sidewalks, etc.

Even with today's standards, the graphics are quite good, but I realize it is personal preference as to the appearance of the environment.

I like the game (mostly for the graphics and side missions) despite parts that I despise, for instance, the timed events, and more importantly, when you fail a mission for whatever reason, you are forced to go back to the beginning to start over again. I do not know why game developers think it is a good idea to force people to go through the same sequence time and again until you stumble upon the correct solution.

Interestingly, game development seems to follow cinematic productions, for example, the John Wick series. I loved the first iteration, the second was meh... and the third was a loser. How trying to expand upon the success of something becomes worse with each subsequent release is really stupid.

[Art Blade]

 

[fragger]

I agree, PZ. "The law of diminishing returns". It's particularly true of movies, and seems to be increasingly true of games, though not all.

I recently watched the original Jurassic Park movie on Netflix, which I hadn't seen since it first came out, and I really enjoyed it. I'd forgotten what an entertaining movie the original one was compared to the tripey sequels they've turned out since (I've lost count of how many sequels there have been). When it comes to movies, I really get sick of seeing titles with numbers tacked onto the ends.

I'm not a fan of the musical "Cats" by any means, but it seems that the producers of the recent film version took a leaf from the gaming industy's playbook. In their haste to get the movie into cinemas before Christmas, they released it before all the CG-ing had been completely finished, then they released an updated, fully-completed version later.

So now they're effectively making post-release patches for flipping movies. Great. Just great

[Art Blade]

 

[PZ]

Well said fragger 

I'm still playing the first Watch Dogs, and while I love the environment (dirty, weed infested sidewalks, homeless bums), I'm still vocally cursing the "escape the police" scenes, and timed events. I have to say that some of the chase missions seem like they are ridiculously difficult, if you stop and think about how to go about the mission, the solution is relatively easy. For example, you need to kill someone who is escaping in a vehicle. The solution is to get in front of him and burst a steam pipe to kill the fool instead of trying to chase him down.

I like the game mechanics of the second Watch Dogs, but it fell short of the physical "beauty" of dirty Chicago. The third iteration of the game is due this year, and I'll watch videos of game play before I plunge down that rabbit hole of purchase. I still love the basic theme of the game in the ability to hack into phones, buildings, and computer systems.

[fragger]

There's always something... It's really difficult to find a game that ticks all of one's boxes. There seems to be an unwritten rule that every game has to have at least one annoying aspect.

Those sorts of "escape the police" and timed missions were what annoyed me about the SP game in GTA V. I persevered with it just so I could get to the post-game free-roam, with plenty of money in the bank to keep resurrecting myself after playing chicken with the traffic. Nothing gets the juices flowing like going full-bore on a superbike down the wrong side of the freeway. It's the ultimate reflexes test, and about $40 million for each of the three player characters buys a lot of $5,000 hospital bills - 8,000 resurrections for each guy A lot more than that if you took advantage of the five assassination missions post-story with the associated stock-market exploit and finished the game with well over a $billion for each character.

[Art Blade]

I did that, making billions. I really couldn't spend all of it and all three characters are billionaires.

[Dweller_Benthos]

I think I stopped with the stock market stuff after each guy had a couple hundred million.