Brief Look: Watch_Dogs

Dogs of War
The demo opens up innocuously enough on the streets of Chicago. Wearing a hat and trenchcoat, you walk quietly down the sidewalk attempting to draw as little attention to yourself as you can. You destination is what looks to be an interactive art/movie exhibit. All the while, your cellphone like device is constantly scanning, constantly picking up random bits of information from people around you. Simple things at first. Things like this person is in debt, this person is seeing a psychologist due to depression, even going so far as saying this person is H.I.V. positive.

To get into the exhibit itself is no easy feat. Guards are posted at the entrance, preventing anyone without an invitation from entering. This where your character flips though some of the command functions on his little device, such as one that blocks and disrupts communication lines in a given area of effect. Hitting that causes all sort of havoc as people suddenly lose cellphone connections, more importantly radio connection to the headsets of the security personnel guarding the front.

In the midst of this chaos, your character slips in unnoticed for the most part, though a few prying eyes know who you are. One in particular is sympathetic to your cause after a brief exchange, giving you something that will be vital for your survival real soon. You scan the room, picking up some cellphone chatter that has alerted your prey to your presence. Though he is not at his own exhibit, he soon will be. And he's not coming alone.

You make your way to a side door, but you notice that your scanner is alerting you to the fact that one of the guards (an ex-army reservist) has a 30% chance towards violence. That number grows exponentially the closer you get. The guard shouts out a warning, telling you to get back. But you don't have time for complacency. You move in, two rapid punches to the man's face, followed by a brutal kick to his kneecap, punctuated by a solid elbow to the back of the head. The guard lies unconscious at your feet as you slip out of the building.



Urban Brawl
It's raining when you step out, various people running for cover or grabbing at umbrellas as the torrential downpour turns the streets into black glass. You check your scanner, seeing a small icon suddenly pop up and coming at you fast. You activate your scanner to hack into the nearby traffic signal grid. And before you know it, You've caused a multi-car pileup with your prey trapped in the middle. You then slip a bandanna over your face, and pull out a weapon.

It's not long before your spotted by the target's bodyguards, who waste no time in opening fire on you, even in the middle of a panicked crowd. As you duck and slide and amble over one car after the next, taking out one guard after another, it all seems so fluid and responsive. One move in particular seemed so over the top cool as to bear some merit.

As you move closer to your target, one last guard has taken cover behind a nearby taxi, pelting your with sporadic gunfire as he taunts you. You dart forward towards his location, and slide over the taxi's hood, pelting the guard with a face full of lead paint. At least now you won't have to listen to his endless taunting now.

What grabs me the most, beyond being able to hack into, well, pretty much any electronic device around you, is the absolutely gorgeous looking visuals, which just screamed "next gen." And if the rest of the game proves to be as visually taunt as this little tidbit of the game has proven to be, then Watch_Dogs will be perhaps the next big hit out of Ubisoft's corral.

And from a company that's given us recent smash hit franchises like Assassin's Creed, Ghost Recon, and upcoming Beyond Good and Evil II, that's no small feat.

More on this to come.