Watch Dogs has a lot to say about our smartphone-obsessed culture. As brooding vigilante Aiden Pearce, you spend much of this game being chased around Chicago in a car. Using your hacking skills, you can change the traffic lights at a whim, causing massive pile-ups in your wake. Look back and you’ll see bystanders capturing the resulting carnage on their phones. Watch Dogs, the most anticipated (and hyped) game of this generation, casts a critical eye over our connected world, surveillance, and how our most intimate details are within reach of savvy hackers and government goons.
It’s a shame the characters or story aren’t this smart. Pearce is a bore; the A-Team had better villains. While the open world Chicago is no GTA V, the breadth of opportunity is incredible. Hack into cameras, trains, forklift trucks. Driving is a bit wooden, but there’s enough side-missions and technological whizz-kiddery to have you hacked off until the inevitable sequel.