1) Watch Dogs
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Genre: Third-Person Open World
Available For: PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, PC, Playstation 4 & Xbox One
Release Date: North America: November 19th/ Europe: November 22nd
Who watches the Watch Dogs?
Granted it’s not exactly a newcomer to the crowd given its show-stopping reveal last year, but Ubisoft’s upcoming cross platform, cross-generation sandbox game is riding a wave of buzz in the lead-up to E3 2013. Set in the very near future, Watch Dogs centres on an ambivalent antihero known as Aiden Pearce. Part-time vigilante, full-time hacker, Pearce is a downright murky protagonist who uses Chicago’s omnipresent supercomputer; CtOS – Central Operating System – to access every byte of information imaginable.
Think Grand Theft Auto meets Assassin’s Creed. An intelligent open world adventure game that challenges conventions as much as it draws from them – the in-game feature that reveals propensity to crime, for example, echoes Minority Report. The level of detail on show here is staggering and while the game will become available for both current-gen consoles and next-gen systems this November, it’s fair to say the game will flourish on the PS4 and Xbox One in terms of performance.
The team at Ubisoft have built a profound, immersive world and given the multitude of options at the players disposal – including the ability to manipulate traffic lights, retrieve bank data and even access personal information from NPC’s via an augmented reality feed – Watch Dogs appears to offer the kind of gaming experience that makes you forget to feed the cat. The footage we’ve seen so far pairs stunning visuals with dynamic, jaw-dropping gameplay and if last year’s vertical slice is indicative of the entire in-game metropolis, then we may have a true classic on our hands.
What we want to know:
- Just how much of the game is scripted?
- Will the world be open to explore from the get-go, or will it be unlocked in an area-to-area basis a la GTA?
E3 2013 Hype-o-meter: We tried 11, but ultimately had to settle for 10/10
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