Watch Dogs: How we spent our first five hours

WATCH Dogs has been promising greatness for nearly two years now. We got five hours to give it a go, will it live up to the hype?

Play as Aiden, a computer hacker trying to avenge his sister.

The long wait for Watch Dogs is finally nearing its close. Since E3 2012, we’ve been anxious to see if Ubisoft’s take on Chicago would live up to the hype of its fantastic reveal trailer.

Well, I was finally fortunate enough to spend five hours inside of this cyberpunk thriller before its release on May 27th. Here’s what I walked away with.

Fantastic Opening

Watch Dogs’ opening mission is a fantastic introduction to Aiden Pearce, the connected world of Chicago, and the kind of power the player will have throughout the game. After kidnapping a man who may have information relating to a death in his family, Aiden has to escape a baseball stadium swarming with cops. Causing a massive blackout, slipping past a gaggle of confused guards, and nonchalantly walking through an adjacent bar and into the Chicago night is a smart, tense, and ultimately satisfying introduction to Ubisoft’s world.

Right off the bat, the tone of Watch Dogs is much more Max Payne/The Punisher/Death Wish than I had initially figured. So far, Aiden’s violent tale of revenge has provided enough affective moments to make me genuinely curious to see where his story goes.

Chaos and Diversions

In a city where everything is connected, you can hack absolutely anything.

While most of the major missions in Watch Dogs follow in a similar serious, techno-thriller mould, I have to say that I really appreciated the decidedly lighter tone of many of the side quests. Distractions included strange digital drug trips where you had to run around the city collecting 8-bit coins, driving a Carmageddon-esque death mobile through a flaming city filled with demons, and using a giant, fully-armed spider mech to cause as much chaos as possible.

This wealth of genuinely entertaining diversions points to the density of this world, which is one of Watch Dogs’ strongest elements. Every time I set out to drive to the next major mission, I found myself getting distracted by any number of activities. Open-worlds can quickly become boring if they’re not populated with enough content, and luckily Watch Dogs always seems to avoid that problem.

Companion App

Though this preview event served to confirm a lot of my preconceived notions about Watch Dogs, the one big revelation came in form of the ctoS companion app. This thing has been completely off our collective radar since it was first introduced as a neat piece of second-screen technology, but nothing more. Well, to my surprise, I had a ton of fun playing the role of the griefer on my iPad, and subsequently trying to avoid other trolls while in the game itself.

First off, the app is actually better described as a stand-alone game. It’s free to download on pretty much any mobile device or tablet, has its own set of progression goals and skill trees, and can be played without ever even owning or touching Watch Dogs proper. It reminded me of being the dungeon master in Zombi U’s underrated multiplayer mode. Being able to spend points setting roadblocks, raising bridges, and amassing a fleet of more powerful police vehicles, all while keeping your all-seeing-eye of a police chopper directly overhead your in-game opponent who’s doing their damnedest to escape you is a unique and straight up exhilarating form of asymmetrical multiplayer. If this is the kind of stuff Ubisoft has in store in their future push for second-screen experiences, count me in.

Stealth Driving

This one’s a quicky that Ubisoft has shown off before, but it’s something that still gets me every time in the best possible way. Multiple missions throughout Watch Dogs implore Aiden to drive across Chicago while it’s absolutely covered in cops. To combat this without causing all-out urban warfare, the game gives you the mechanics to drive with stealth. At any point, you can pull into an alleyway, turn off your ignition and headlights, and duck down in the front seat. The tension felt while watching a cruiser slowly pass your car in search of you, but ultimately coming away empty-handed is an awesome rush and a really clever idea that I’d love to see further explored.

So What Are We Worried About?

Knowing people’s background can sometimes make it harder to take them out.

That isn’t to say there aren’t elements of the game that I’m not wild about. Despite being genuinely interested in the story of Aiden Pearce’s revenge, I’m getting a bit tired of the generic mission structure that hasn’t seemed to evolve all that much since Grand Theft Auto III. I’ve written at length about how I feel that Watch Dogs is at its best when it separates itself from what Rockstar has accomplished, and I completely stand by that.

The core gameplay loop of driving to a marker on your map, watching a cutscene, completing a mission, and watching another cutscene that leads you to the next marker on your map has really had its impact dulled from sheer use over the past decade. Despite enjoying the handful of core missions in WD I’ve gotten to play, I’m really beginning to feel the fatigue of this decades-old formula.

What I want to see from this new generation of consoles and games is a more natural means of storytelling. I loved being in control during that opening mission and having what I did as the player help move the story forward. Having control ripped away and being forced to watch an info dump of a cutscene, not so much. Despite being intrigued by Aiden’s story, I’m a bit worried I’m going to become frustrated by this loop and simply find myself focusing on the wealth of side-content throughout the game.

Despite that caveat, my time with Watch Dogs definitely reinforced why I’m excited for the game. Its take on Chicago still resonates heavily with my Midwestern heart. The freedom to tackle missions as an invisible cyber ninja, machine gun-toting madman, or anything in between adds a great dose of player agency. And the mere act of profiling NPCs and getting tiny chunks of their backstories helps the world convey a genuine sense of density missing from many open-world games. I’m still hyped after five hours. Can’t wait to see how the next 30 hold up.

This article originally appeared on IGN.