Watch_Dogs (PC)

[Venkman]

I don't make games, but I will assume that it is a limitation of the middleware.  I suppose people in the 1990s wrote games in C++ while today they are made in a rent-a-engine.

Yea I wonder. I haven't booted up AC4 in awhile, but maxxed out that game looks fantastic. Can't remember the reflections though. Anything on the water did have water reflection, but I don't remember about windows and mirrors. I want to say no, but don't feel like launching.

I am so lazy that in a gaming discussion on a gaming forum, I'll spend three minutes writing a post about a game I don't want to take the extra 4 minutes to fact check a question on

Interestingly, the last game I requested a refund for was From Dust, another Ubisoft title.

A shame. From Dust was awesome.

[brellium]

I don't have high hopes for your success in getting the refund.  They said "you only ever get one" when I got a refund for Force Unleashed 2 because it wouldn't run at all on my system.  I probably shouldn't have wasted my refund on a game I spent $7.50 on, but I was really pissed off.

You actually get as many as your disputes department at your bankcard issuer decides.

Instituting a chargeback on Steam insta-bans your account.

That's always nice, I guess that means I have the bank institute a charge back for the full year.

[Nija]

Wait, what? How is that legal? They remove all the other software you own because you charge back one thing that you can't get a refund for?

I'm up for that class action suit when that goes through. That's some fucking bullshit right there.

[Kail]

Wait, what? How is that legal? They remove all the other software you own because you charge back one thing that you can't get a refund for?

This is the age of digital media, you don't "own" anything.  You're giving them money and they're graciously letting you use their service just because they're such swell guys.*

_{* no guarantee of any kind of quality or longevity is implied, service may be terminated at any time for any reason, by clicking "I accept" you acknowledge that you have read and accept the terms and conditions of the end user licensing agreement and cannot dispute anything we do to you afterwards, if you have a problem I hope you like sports because you won't be playing many video games, do not taunt happy fun ball, etc. etc.}

I'm up for that class action suit when that goes through. That's some fucking bullshit right there.

From the Steam EULA Section 12:

YOU AND VALVE AGREE NOT TO BRING OR PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE ACTION, PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL ACTION OR COLLECTIVE ARBITRATION, EVEN IF AAA’s PROCEDURES OR RULES WOULD OTHERWISE ALLOW ONE.

[Maven]

Multi-studio development and its consequences seemed to also impact the game. I would have lost my shit if I was QA on this game and we allowed this to ship.

I give them maximum points possible for their reveal demonstration, but based on aggregate review scores it seems to be a disappointment.

[Ragnoros]

Wait, what? How is that legal? They remove all the other software you own because you charge back one thing that you can't get a refund for?

This is the age of digital media, you don't "own" anything.  You're giving them money and they're graciously letting you use their service just because they're such swell guys.*

_{* no guarantee of any kind of quality or longevity is implied, service may be terminated at any time for any reason, by clicking "I accept" you acknowledge that you have read and accept the terms and conditions of the end user licensing agreement and cannot dispute anything we do to you afterwards, if you have a problem I hope you like sports because you won't be playing many video games, do not taunt happy fun ball, etc. etc.}

I'm up for that class action suit when that goes through. That's some fucking bullshit right there.

From the Steam EULA Section 12:

YOU AND VALVE AGREE NOT TO BRING OR PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE ACTION, PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL ACTION OR COLLECTIVE ARBITRATION, EVEN IF AAA’s PROCEDURES OR RULES WOULD OTHERWISE ALLOW ONE.

While that is all accurate. A contract is basically only as good as the lawyer arguing its case. Which is to say, contracts are not law, you can put any ridiculous thing you like in them, it all comes down to what a judge thinks. To grossly simplify.

[Miasma]

And then your supreme court went ahead and said that "if a company slips in a statement saying you're not allowed to go to court if you don't like something in this contract that you have no legal recourse fuck you".

And so naturally all companies have slipped said language in.  Including steam.

[brellium]

And then your supreme court went ahead and said that "if a compnay slips in a statement saying you're not allowed to go to court if you don't like something in this contract that you have no legal recourse fuck you".

And so naturally all companies have slipped said language in.  Including steam.

Yup, they can bill you for the item and force you to go through adjudication edit* arbitration, but the merchant agreement and visa/mc/amex/discover dispute process generally trumps tos's.

Amex is very funny, "oh, you're disputing this item?, here's the money back."

[Hawkbit]

Steam just refunded the game to my Steam wallet, which is extremely fair.  Interestingly, about an hour before they refunded the game, Ubisoft decided to answer my technical ticket I placed on Tuesday.  They didn't fix anything in the hour I worked with them, so I'm still glad I got the refund.

I still like the premise of the game.  Maybe I'll snag it when I buy a PS4 later this year.  I'm not sure, though.  This has soured me on Ubisoft.

[jakonovski]

Got this for the PC and yes, it does run like ass (GTX 660Ti). The big culprits for me were motion blur and HBAO, luckily neither will be missed. But even so, controlling a car at high speeds is shitty, especially if you turn.

I played for a couple of hours, and it seems like a competent open world thingy, if you like that sort of stuff (I love open worlds). I wish it were a bit more cyberpunk, but who knows where the story will go. The hacker vigilante Mary Stu they got for a protagonist is hilarious.

Hacking your way out of trouble seems very promising, but there's a needless emphasis on guns. I guess focus testing requires a gazillion different weapons because Reasons. I for one prefer to use hacking, but who knows how long that will last. Making a bad guy's car collide in an intersection was glorious though.

[UnSub]

To promote the game launch in Australia, UbiSoft sent a fake bomb and threatening letter to a journalist who possibly wasn't even the video game reviewer. It ended about as well as could be expected, with the bomb squad being called.

[Kail]

To promote the game launch in Australia, UbiSoft sent a fake bomb and threatening letter to a journalist who possibly wasn't even the video game reviewer. It ended about as well as could be expected, with the bomb squad being called.

Meh, it doesn't sound that bad from the article.  Ubisoft sends a copy of the game in a locked box with the wrong PIN to the wrong reporter (oops).  The reporter can't get it open, thinks it's suspicious because it's black and kinda heavy, so they call the cops, who evacuate the building to poke at it.  Nobody was hurt, nobody was even really worried (according to the article, they were "just being cautious").  Doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me.

[jakonovski]

10 hours in right now, still feeling pretty good. Gameplay keeps getting dumber (insta spawning pursuers with physics defying homing capabilities kinda ruin car chases), but the story is okay. The game is desperately trying evoke Deus Ex vibes, right down to borrowing audio cues. Why they thought that would work in a game that is set in Chicago 2013, I do not know.
 
edit: as a word of warning, the game has a bug where some players cannot join multiplayer games. The game complains of NAT but the problem has been confirmed to be on Ubi's end. Judging from forum chatter it seems to me that Ubi considers the bug fixed and fuck those who still have it. Like me.

[kaid]

Got this for the PC and yes, it does run like ass (GTX 660Ti). The big culprits for me were motion blur and HBAO, luckily neither will be missed. But even so, controlling a car at high speeds is shitty, especially if you turn.

I played for a couple of hours, and it seems like a competent open world thingy, if you like that sort of stuff (I love open worlds). I wish it were a bit more cyberpunk, but who knows where the story will go. The hacker vigilante Mary Stu they got for a protagonist is hilarious.

Hacking your way out of trouble seems very promising, but there's a needless emphasis on guns. I guess focus testing requires a gazillion different weapons because Reasons. I for one prefer to use hacking, but who knows how long that will last. Making a bad guy's car collide in an intersection was glorious though.

The ironic thing about the game having so many weapons is 90% of the time I am either using the starter silenced pistol or just doing ninja take downs. Usually if I am pulling out any other gun except maybe the sniper rifle for really long range take downs or grenade launcher if I am taking out a convoy then I did something horribly wrong.

[jakonovski]

I just played a mission in the projects, where you had to activate some doodads. I stealthed my way through, and then the game despawned everyone and spawned like 10 guys behind me, automatically aggroed and knowing my location.  

I guess you gotta justify all those weapons somehow, even if you have to force the player.

[kaid]

I just played a mission in the projects, where you had to activate some doodads. I stealthed my way through, and then the game despawned everyone and spawned like 10 guys behind me, automatically aggroed and knowing my location.  

I guess you gotta justify all those weapons somehow, even if you have to force the player.

Yes there are a few missions that have set respawn to force you into a fight but even there if you sneak around long enough they lose sight of you pretty fast. And then you can go back to silenced pistol sniping and batons to the knee.

[jakonovski]

I beat it, what a POS ending. Hands down the worst final mission in an open world game. I guess it's true that developers feel like they can phone it in towards the end of a game, because statistically most people don't see it.

I was expecting the plot to suck, but even the pacing was surprisingly amateurish. They filled the world with side objectives, yet the game never once had a spot where it felt like you had time to do them. It was always DO THIS AND FAST. Sometimes to the point of endless plot music playing over everything until you start the next story mission. So I gave up and didn't do the side stuff. Which is a pity, because it might've been interesting.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Though it probably doesn't matter anymore.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=838538

Turns out ubi decided that rather than consoles complaining about getting tuned down versions of the pc game, they would just downgrade the pc versions as well!

[Maven]

Give them a sequel to sort out the issues, worked for Assassin's Creed, though Watch Dogs doesn't seem as powerful a potential for its brand.

[Fabricated]

I have a feeling the game would've turned out a lot better if it was developed solely for PS4/Xbone/PC.

[Sky]

I have a feeling the game would've turned out a lot better if it was developed solely for PS4/Xbone/PC.

Yep.

[jakonovski]

So they released a patch. Multiplayer works for me now, but the patch introduced horrible stuttering that makes it impossible to do any shooting or driving.

When will I learn to not buy Ubisoft games? They always have this awesome setting but the game is inevitably so fucked up that you can't realize even half of what should be possible.