It has been almost two years now since Watch Dogs was first announced at E3 2012, and since then there have been a few delays and the series has been somewhat hush until recent months. Now it is May of 2014 – the new ambitious franchise by Ubisoft is being released, but was it worth the wait and delay? For the most part, yes it was.

Watch Dogs is a very interesting title since it will always be compared to the king of free-roam shooters, ‘Grand Theft Auto’. Are there similarities? Of course, but there’s something special about Watch Dogs that separates it from the pack to make it a great addition to the open world action-adventure genre for gamers.

In Watch Dogs you play as Aiden Pearce, an all around hacker badass with somewhat of a “Christian Bale Batman Voice” to him at times. The main story focuses on past mistakes Aiden has made with hacking, which resulted in the death of a close family member of his. Now he’s off to figure out what happened and why to get his revenge those who wronged him.

The story might sound cliché to some, but there’s a lot more to it when it comes to Watch Dogs. The acting by main and recurring voice actors is on par, and it is some of the best I’ve seen in comparison to recent games, especially Jordi Chin acting as comedic relief. A great soundtrack containing “hit artists” like Weezer and Kid Cudi helps immerse you in the world while driving through Chicago. Speaking of Chicago, in the near-future setting everything is controlled by computers through a system called Central Operating System or commonly shortened to ctOS in the game. With the use of his cell phone, this city-wide operating system becomes Aiden’s main weapon throughout the game. The creativity and thought that went into this what separates Watch Dogs from games like Grand Theft Auto and Saints Rows to truly make it something special.

Watch Dogs features a very rich and immersive world. I got the chance to play it on the Xbox One (running at 792p, 30 FPS), and thoroughly enjoyed the graphics presented by Ubisoft. One of the most interesting yet simple activities that I enjoyed was wandering the city, cell phone in hand, reading the brief descriptions of the NPC around Chicago. Along with that, small features like drivers flashing their headlights when you drive on the wrong side of the road, or running down the streets and being able to see details inside buildings really fleshed out the universe Ubisoft is trying to deliver to the player.

With the game being open-world, load-times can be expected. On the Xbox One you can take advantage of that with the “Resume Games Quickly” feature. Without that, a cold load to the game can take about 25-30 seconds. In certain missions that you fail or die you can expect load times of 10-20 seconds too. Nothing too crazy but was hoping for less on the next-gen consoles.

There will be people out there that will automatically denounce the game for it’s lack of 1080p or 60 FPS, but for me as a gamer, it’s about gameplay. Like many games today, your combat and hacking skills will be nerfed off the start of the game. Somewhat of a drawback that I noticed about playing the role of Aiden Pearce was being this acclaimed “brilliant hacker” and not having the abilities do some things around the city. Instead, I was forced to gain these skills through an XP system promoted by completing side jobs or campaign missions. Once you get about 1/3rd through the campaign you start to become the “brilliant hacker”, and this is where the game starts to really excel with the abilities to outsmart enemies with creativity.

Besides Aiden’s cell phone, there are an assortment of typical weapons like: Pistols, SMG’s, LMG’s, and other side accessories (Frag Grenades, Jam Coms, etc). The gun-play in the game is surprisingly good and feels fluent and natural with the environments. Mix this arsenal with your abilities to change the environment with explosions and cover, and it creates somewhat of a meta where you can outsmart the AI without even having to use your gun at times. Moments like those are when you feel truly invincible and the game clicks on all the right cylinders for pure fun.

One minor gripe I did run into was the controls, when you want your character to “snap to cover,” you have to use the A-button. I was having a hard time breaking the habit from other games that both use the A-Button for snapping and leaping over walls, they are 2 different buttons in Watch Dogs. It’s a minor annoyance but if you’re like me you might snap instead of leap on accident in the beginning. There’s no way to change that in the controls either.

Watch Dogs features quite the collection of vehicles at your disposal, from cars to motorcycles, and even boats. Notably missing are airplanes, to which Ubisoft said late last year, “We did not feel it was core to the experience we wanted to create”. Flying of any fashion has always been a favorite part of open-world games like this for me, and it does weaken the experience to see something like this potentially cut from the game. With that, the cars drive decent at best, you aren’t going to get that Forza-like control with them. Either way, the cars get you from A to B just as they should. One of my favorite things to do was drive the motorcycle around the streets of Chicago. With a lot of alley-ways, narrow gaps, and city blockers it’s the best way to get around if you don’t have to take someone out that’s in a car.

If you’re not liking the story, or are getting bored in near-future Chicago, there are a lot of side games and activities to take part in around the city. These mini-games range from the outlandish Digital Trips, where players are placed into an environment filled with romanticized technology such as the Spider Tank, to being able to play poker around the city of Chicago. These games are hit or miss for the most part, but if you enjoy these features in other open-world games, you’ll have a blast. If you’re like me, you’ll play them once or twice and they then go on the back-burner while you finish the campaign or play multiplayer.

With multiplayer, there’s quite an array of things that you can do. “Online Invasions” is the most common mode available to players, where you can either hack or be hacked into different player worlds. Being the snob I am, this mode is both brilliant and highly annoying at the same time. When roaming the streets of Chicago or getting to your next campaign mission, there will be times when other players hack you and you play the mini-game trying to find them around the city. Now this is fine the first or second time, but at a certain point it becomes annoying. However, this is where it gets funny. You can disable this option in the menu but you as a player lose your notoriety skills that have been unlocked. Not sure if this was a huge oversight or not, and hopefully they tweak this option in future updates.

Besides those Online Invasions, there are the typical multplayer modes like Racing and the Classic Competitive “Decryption Mode”. Decryption is very similar to Team Oddball (from the Halo series) but with a “File” instead of a human skull. The goal is to work as a team to get to 100% downloaded for the file. These are fun game modes for the first few days or weeks but I’m not sure how they will fair in the coming months. I really hope that Ubisoft takes this opportunity and fleshes out the gamemode and future add-ons to bring a lot of replay value to the game, similar to what Rockstar has done through Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption.

Final Thoughts: Watch Dogs is a great addition to the Ubisoft line, I’ve sunk 25+ hours over the long holiday weekend and really enjoyed the title overall. What the game lacks in some areas with resolution makes up with depth, there’s so much to do in this universe that I couldn’t cram into this review. Watch Dogs is well worth the $60 price-tag and one of my favorite titles so far in 2014.

Author’s Note: My Watch Dogs review took place on the Xbox One (post patch). I didn’t encounter any huge gameplay hiccups or AI issues in the 25+ hours I’ve played in 5 days.