Nintendo has pulled off a master stroke of next generation games console genius with the announcement of Watch Dogs for the Nintendo Wii U. With the game also announced as one of the big initial launch games for the PS4, the fact that it’s also going to be on the Nintendo console sets a whole new pace for the future of gaming.
Created by the brilliant French wizards at Ubisoft, creators of Just Dance 4 and Zombi U, it’s set in Chicago and by all accounts you get the entire city as your playground. You play hacker and one time petty criminal, Aiden Pearce, who roams the streets of Chicago in a bid to avenge his family’s tormenters and to put right his own past.
Apart from his skills with a telescopic baton, good aim and one time thug mayhem, Aiden’s real power comes from advanced hacking, which transforms Chicago from a hostile windy city into the instrument of his revenge. As you find a new bad guy target you get to hack video cameras, mobile phones, the rail line, traffic signals and electrical networks with your smart phone to bring them down.
[soliloquy id="12765"]With parallels with Grand Theft Auto and Ubisoft’s own Driver series, you also get to control a wide array of vehicles, which combines with a vigilante concept of justice to create a class introduction to the gaming world. Ubisoft are getting an impressive reputation for computer games innovation with the likes of Assassins Creed, Zombi U, Just Dance and Rayman already mixing things up and if the trailer is anything to go by Watch Dogs is only going to add to it.
The graphics look very stylish, and no doubt they’ll be super slick on the Wii U and PS4 versions (an Xbox 720 release hasn’t been announced as of yet, but it’s a safe bet it’ll be coming soon enough). While the game is also coming to the PS3, PC and Xbox 360, it’ll be the next gen versions that look most impressive. You’ve only got to play Call of Duty Black Ops 2 or Zombi U on the Wii U to see the directions things are moving in.
Details haven’t been announced for how the game will be adapted for the Wii U touch screen control pad, but it’ll be cool if Ubisolf can either bolt in hacking controls or give players the option to play on the game pad screen. We also don’t know the exact release date, as there’s a fair bit of delicacy in the computer games industry until Microsoft come out with details for the Xbox 720, but all clues seem to point to October/November 2013.
The Wii U version of Watch Dogs has been given a pretty reasonable £44.99 price tag, which will probably be a bit cheaper than the PS4 and Xbox 720 releases. The reality though is that whatever console you get to play it on, it’s going to be an amazing experience if the game play matches the genius of the concept. We literally can’t wait to take to the streets of Chicago and put all of the wrongs right.
Ubisoft has also announced that there will be a Watch Dogs movie on the horizon as they partner up with Sony Pictures Entertainment and New Regency Productions to bring the game to life on the big screen.
