An Axe to Grind that Everyone Seemed to Miss from Watchdogs

[MCerberus]

Yes, this is a rant.

The main character's sister is the most dense, biggest idiot in gaming this year. While everyone is talking about the state of the port, the graphics, or the human trafficking, she just sort of slipped past everyone's radar. Every time she's mentioned or talk you wish there was a skip button for dialog.

First, it's obvious she's just put in there to be protected. She never does anything useful, and is mostly a prop even when on camera. As such, she's allowed to call the PC out on their BS exactly once ever, in the second mission. It's immediately dropped, even though she's right and it should have meant she cuts you off from contact. And then we get the flashbacks, which I'll spoil.

Spoiler

You're going to tell me that a parent is not going to blame someone for their child's death when it was apparent that it was, at the very least partially their fault. That your criminal activity got her daughter killed? THE HELL?!

This is to say nothing of the conspicuous absence of the father. That, along with the fact every other conversation is about how close they are... just... well it gives sort of gives a "Game of Thrones" feel to their relationship. I know that's not what the writers are going for but that's what you get with a depthless idiot only put there to be protected.

Not only that, but she doesn't even fit into the story

Spoiler

First, biggest idiot of the year award for not realizing her brother is The Fox.

Then she's kidnapped. I know blah blah damsel. The thing is, that the story set up Jackson to be the one to be taken. The whole long and short of it is trying to prevent another of the children from dying, but no, Jackson is just sort of shoved off to the side so you can fret over your sister. You see, switching their places would have forced the writers to put in meaningful interactions with the PC. They can't have that when they've got a character with Other M Samus levels of depth.

And then near the end... she goes on about a rant about how she idolizes the egotistical murderous prick that got her kidnapped; who has lost touch with reality. It's an inexplicable happy ending setup that doesn't even fit with her previous reactions. It's. Just. Stupid.

And no, it's not strictly about how women are portrayed in games (although, yah, sorta). This is just a character so stupid and poorly written, they're a bomb that destroys the whole game.

 

[Diablo2000]

The sister didn't bother me really, in fact the only critic I agree with you on was the fact that she didn't picking up on the fact that Aiden was the vigilante sooner. But Yolanda (or whatever the ***** doctor name was) was much worse than she was in that, at least Nicki was in captivity without much contact with the outside world so that kinda explain why she didn't picked on it sooner, but anyone want to explain why the fuck didn't Yolanda called the police on Aiden, since you know, the fact that Aiden was the vigilante was already pretty know to the public, or at least called him out on that?

 

[Smooth Operator]

It's true that is one bad character, but then so is 90% of the main cast. I would totally care how she was handled in a story worth a damn which however doesn't apply to Watch Dogs, I don't even remember when I last found a story this dull.

At this point we are just picking turds out of a sewage pit... no point to it.

 

[Zhukov]

Yeah, come to think of it, she was rather thick and very token. Might as well have been a walking placard that reads 'Heroic Motivation Goes Here'.

However, I suspect she just sort of faded into the general pile of 'meh' that was the story.

If you slip a teaspoon of dog shit into my delicious blueberry crumble ice cream, yeah, I'll likely notice it. But if it's sitting on an entire plate of dog shit... not so likely.

Watch Dogs has one of those special stories that just quietly slip off my brain's memory banks within about eight seconds of the credits rolling.

 

[MCerberus]

Yeah, come to think of it, she was rather thick and very token. Might as well have been a walking placard that reads 'Heroic Motivation Goes Here'.

However, I suspect she just sort of faded into the general pile of 'meh' that was the story.

If you slip a teaspoon of dog shit into my delicious blueberry crumble ice cream, yeah, I'll likely notice it. But if it's sitting on an entire plate of dog shit... not so likely.

Watch Dogs has one of those special stories that just quietly slip off my brain's memory banks within about eight seconds of the credits rolling.

Well to take an analogy further, this is looking at the plate of shit, and then you noticed some of it is tinged red. For one, it turns into a noticeable turd, and likely the worst one.

But then you realize something's really wrong and someone needs to get checked out.

 

[lacktheknack]

This is just a character so stupid and poorly written, they're a bomb that destroys the whole game.

People keep saying this, and I keep thinking "Man, has no one here ever played a game from the 90s?" We're all spoiled.

My opinion is thus: No, one character is never enough to ruin an entire game, unless that one character is the PC.

 

[Atrocious Joystick]

I felt Aiden´s relation to his sister and her family was kind of weird. Not that it is weird for an uncle to be invested in his nephews and nieces especially if he has no kids of his own but the thing just kind of felt off, the way he takes his nieces death waaay harder than her mother for example. I suspect Aidan was supposed to have been the mostly estranged father at some point and then they changed it later. Maybe because being a criminal father who brings nothing but shit down on his family makes Aidan even more unsympathetic than just being a serial killer hacker who brings shit down in his sisters family.

 

[II2]

This is just a character so stupid and poorly written, they're a bomb that destroys the whole game.

People keep saying this, and I keep thinking "Man, has no one here ever played a game from the 90s?" We're all spoiled.

My opinion is thus: No, one character is never enough to ruin an entire game, unless that one character is the PC.

I dunno, mang... There's always been awful, functional, good and occasionally excellent writing / narrative in games. For all your Contras or Duke 3Ds you had your Lucas Arts Adventures and Black Isle RPGs and LookingGlass / Irrational stuff, to name a disparate few.

I would not call Watch Dogs well written, at least, consistently, which makes it weird that individual characters and elements in it sometimes ARE. I'm inclined to be more forgiving of it than I might be otherwise since it's doing the open world thing and that really waffles up pacing and tone, but that's not the whole of the problem is it?

The game's visually rocking a pretty high visual fidelity to reality, but the story kinda breaks when around the game mechanics and the individual character's motivations seem to break when working around what most would regard logical or sane. Aiden Pierce has the gizmos and influence to rival Batman, but none of the level headed restraint of a self respecting, pragmatic murderer like Rorschach, as vigilantes go.

Honest to god, I think asian fixer, Jordi, is the best 'adjusted' character in the game, the way it's all presented, which - while funny - isn't what I get the sense they were going for.

 

[lacktheknack]

This is just a character so stupid and poorly written, they're a bomb that destroys the whole game.

People keep saying this, and I keep thinking "Man, has no one here ever played a game from the 90s?" We're all spoiled.

My opinion is thus: No, one character is never enough to ruin an entire game, unless that one character is the PC.

I dunno, mang... There's always been awful, functional, good and occasionally excellent writing / narrative in games. For all your Contras or Duke 3Ds you had your Lucas Arts Adventures and Black Isle RPGs and LookingGlass / Irrational stuff, to name a disparate few.

...yet Contra and Duke Nukem 3D are beloved classics.

I would not call Watch Dogs well written, at least, consistently, which makes it weird that individual characters and elements in it sometimes ARE. I'm inclined to be more forgiving of it than I might be otherwise since it's doing the open world thing and that really waffles up pacing and tone, but that's not the whole of the problem is it?

The game's visually rocking a pretty high visual fidelity to reality, but the story kinda breaks when around the game mechanics and the individual character's motivations seem to break when working around what most would regard logical or sane. Aiden Pierce has the gizmos and influence to rival Batman, but none of the level headed restraint of a self respecting, pragmatic murderer like Rorschach, as vigilantes go.

Honest to god, I think asian fixer, Jordi, is the best 'adjusted' character in the game, the way it's all presented, which - while funny - isn't what I get the sense they were going for.

Then that's a general flaw with the writing as a whole, which weakens the "This One Character Ruined Everything" argument.

 

[MCerberus]

This is just a character so stupid and poorly written, they're a bomb that destroys the whole game.

People keep saying this, and I keep thinking "Man, has no one here ever played a game from the 90s?" We're all spoiled.

My opinion is thus: No, one character is never enough to ruin an entire game, unless that one character is the PC.

The difference being 90s games generally didn't have the ego to think they're the best writer ever made. Ubisoft in particular is prone to enjoying the smell of their own farts.

If they're making such a big deal of the story, yah, they get the criticism.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

You know, the more I hear about watch dogs, the more I feel my prediction that it would be a "poor man's Deus Ex".

Not only did the hacking turn out to be mostly one click = result, but the story seems incredibly shoddy and lazy. :s

It's weird to hear that Aiden takes his niece's death much harder than the girl's MOTHER. 0_o

 

[EternallyBored]

You know, the more I hear about watch dogs, the more I feel my prediction that it would be a "poor man's Deus Ex".

Not only did the hacking turn out to be mostly one click = result, but the story seems incredibly shoddy and lazy. :s

It's weird to hear that Aiden takes his niece's death much harder than the girl's MOTHER. 0_o

It's also weird considering that it was him committing crimes in a hotel owned by a mob boss that is what got his niece attacked in the first place, and you find out the niece's death was an accident anyway, so she wasn't even the target, she was collateral damage because Aiden decided to rob some rich people in a hotel and got caught near something the villains didn't want him to see.

Certainly, it's not the worst motivator for revenge ever, but he just seems really obsessed with it throughout the game, to the exclusion of more interesting plot threads that could have been explored better if we didn't have Aiden constantly returning to obsessing over finding out who ordered the attack that killed his niece.

 

[ThreeName]

Well, you can have a well-written game with non-shit characters, or you can have a Ubisoft game.

Pick one.

 

[II2]

This is just a character so stupid and poorly written, they're a bomb that destroys the whole game.

People keep saying this, and I keep thinking "Man, has no one here ever played a game from the 90s?" We're all spoiled.

My opinion is thus: No, one character is never enough to ruin an entire game, unless that one character is the PC.

I dunno, mang... There's always been awful, functional, good and occasionally excellent writing / narrative in games. For all your Contras or Duke 3Ds you had your Lucas Arts Adventures and Black Isle RPGs and LookingGlass / Irrational stuff, to name a disparate few.

...yet Contra and Duke Nukem 3D are beloved classics.

I would not call Watch Dogs well written, at least, consistently, which makes it weird that individual characters and elements in it sometimes ARE. I'm inclined to be more forgiving of it than I might be otherwise since it's doing the open world thing and that really waffles up pacing and tone, but that's not the whole of the problem is it?

The game's visually rocking a pretty high visual fidelity to reality, but the story kinda breaks when around the game mechanics and the individual character's motivations seem to break when working around what most would regard logical or sane. Aiden Pierce has the gizmos and influence to rival Batman, but none of the level headed restraint of a self respecting, pragmatic murderer like Rorschach, as vigilantes go.

Honest to god, I think asian fixer, Jordi, is the best 'adjusted' character in the game, the way it's all presented, which - while funny - isn't what I get the sense they were going for.

Then that's a general flaw with the writing as a whole, which weakens the "This One Character Ruined Everything" argument.

Think we might have a misunderstanding. My fault for not really framing my thoughts; going on tangents without a segue.

Yeah, don't get me wrong, I loved Contra and Duke 3D, but the writing / narrative / etc ranges from nonexistent abstracts to inane and lowbrow - and it works fine! I can work with simple and stupid, if it's a good game. It gets weirder though when you've got something like Watchdogs, that I would describe as detailed and stupid, yet still a good game and something that presents with graphical realism and a sense it takes itself seriously. I guess that's why I like Jordi as the character who will say, 'this is a terrible idea, it's brilliant' as a happy go lucky sociopath.

I WAS speaking of the writing as a whole - I wasn't really looking to argue that any one character ruined everything and I don't feel that way about Watchdogs, or... too many stories, at all, come to reflect... Generally the characters I can't stand are part and parcel with stories I can't stand, which works out, I suppose - not many meals ruined by a bit of gristle.

The character Aiden Pierce is kinda baffling and ridiculous and annoying to inhabit, but not much more so than most half-gritty video games action blokes. The mechanics of the world do more to shape the experience than the characters that inhabit it, ultimately, so it's not a dealbreaker.

 

[Vault101]

My opinion is thus: No, one character is never enough to ruin an entire game, unless that one character is the PC.

Aiden Parice folks!

....and I own a stature of that Douche....