Watch Dogs

t’s these state-of-the-art thrills, combined with a genuine desire to investigate and fiddle with every inch of Chicago, that’ll push you to play until the bitter end; until the game has spilled all its secrets. The story is unlikely to keep you logged in, and the missions will often feel annoyingly familiar, but if you connect with and really explore this high-tech world, there are plenty of virtual--and emotional--rewards to harvest.

At the end of the day, Watch Dog's story works as a basic revenge tale, and the final few missions provide some gravity to the characters. Ultimately, however, the main draw of any open-world game is the gameplay, and while not perfect, Watch Dog's hacking abilities add an engaging and unique twist to the third-person action. Ubisoft has another deserved hit on its hands, and I look forward to seeing where the new series goes next.

Though gang warfare slightly overtakes the more pertinent theme of personal security and government surveillance, Watch Dogs is a superlative technical achievement. Its interpretation of Chicago is painstakingly detailed and sets a new bar for open worlds, with only a spare few hiccups in frame-rate. Watch Dogs converges the best of what Ubisoft has to offer as a game developer and serves as one of the strongest debuts for a new franchise this year.