I wholeheartedly concur!
I'll admit that I haven't even completed the game, yet I really couldn't care less about what happens, for it's so convoluted and poorly written to the point of it being somewhat disgraceful. And furthermore, I'm so sick and tired of seeing/hearing male video game characters who possess the stereotypical monotone, sand-filled, scruffy voice. Honestly, can game directors and voice actors please stop this horrendous cliche? Aiden has ZERO charisma, and in fact, he's almost as bad as Connor from ACIII, which is the worst video game protagonist I've had the displeasure of playing as in recent memory.
However, I second what the 2nd commenter said, games rarely have a good storyline and when they do it's most of the times not because it is original but because they present it from a different POV that makes it intriguing like The Last of Us.
I see what you mean, and I do agree with you in most cases, yet given that stories can only be so original, I don't typically look for stories anymore. I look for characters. There have been great games in the past that have had well-developed characters such as Uncharted, Red Dead Redemption, Bioshock Infinite, Portal 2, GTA V, Conker, Batman: Arkham series, Heavy Rain, etc, but I've never had a game to reduce me to tears until The Last of Us.
The Last of Us is a game I believe to have characters that are immaculately crafted, and in fact, I would even argue that the characters are written better than what can be found in 90% of movies out there, which I know sounds incredibly ignorant and hyperbolic to say such a thing regarding a video game, but I'm only sharing my honest thoughts. Alfonso Cuaron's
Children of Men, a film that was indeed an influence for The Last of Us, is a great masterpiece of cinema, yet I found the characters in The Last of Us to have a lot more emotional depth than Theo and Kee from CoM ever did. Joel and Ellie didn't feel like fictional characters; they felt real, and that's not because I was taking control of them. I don't think there's a day that has gone by since its release where The Last of Us doesn't just casually cross my mind. I love that game .
My movie review channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/drumking1006?feature=mhee
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chambersjad
10 years ago
I can agree on a lot of levels. I do think that even a clichéd story can succeed as a story if it has interesting characters. The real problem with Watch Dogs is it's story didn't seem to affect its characters in any way. Even when the sister got kidnapped, when talking to Aiden on the phone you never seemed to get the "HELP, I've been KIDNAPPED and am being held CAPTIVE by PEOPLE I DON'T KNOW" vibe out of anything she said. It was like the voice actress asked the director "what's my motivation here" and he answered "would you like me to get you a sandwich?"
The disconnect between character and player was distracting. Near the end Aiden has the "what have I done" internal monologue about all the "innocent people" he killed along the way to find justice for his niece. Well, I'm glad he's self-aware enough to be so introspective... but I never killed anyone in the game but mercenaries and criminals. And not even very many of those. I'm pretty sure (not at my own cpu to check right now) I never even killed a policeman.
But my ability to have played through the game so "clean" does bring me up to a place where I do disagree. I do not understand the problems with the controls. People complain against the stealth and driving aspects. I had 0 issues with either. GTA's euphoria engine driving is by far inferior to Watch Dogs (at least on pc where GTA is just a lousy port.) I've played games with better driving aspects. But those were all DRIVING games. As far as sandbox goes the driving in Watch Dogs is better than most. Better than the driving in GTA and JC2, and those are games I love. Hell, I thought the driving was TOO forgiving and easy. Can't tell you how many times I breezed past contact with another vehicle that (in the real world or a better driving sim) should have brought my car to a complete halt. After a pretty short time with the driving I was Rockfording (the Bootlegger's reverse), burnout turning, and drifting (the Scandivavian flick) all over Chicago. Got so good so quickly I only ever lost "reputation" points for clipping a pedestrian a couple of times. And those were all "injured" rather than "killed." I didn't even realize "civilian killed" was even something that could pop up until I saw it in a screenshot online. And if a driving engine is good enough that I can make it from the south end of the loop to the mad mile in :45 without hitting any pedestrians... its controls are easily good enough.
And the stealth is so smooth I very rarely got spotted. I was all the way to the attack on the motel before anyone in my game even died. I'm not sure I had even fired a gun before that point. And I had done as much of the "faffing about" (optional missions enough to unlock the unlockables, opened up the entire map, and collected all the collectables opened by hacking the access points) as was possible at that time. I don't ask any more from stealth in a game. One button point and click to hide and switch positions. One button to break out at anytime and free-sneak. Very clear indication of when you're visible and from what direction. A delay between being spotted and the alarm going off. I really don't see what it could add to be any better, its challenging (sort of) without being impossible.
"Who built this f#(%!^g police station." -- Leon Kennedy
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