It's a Unix system! I know this!

Watch Dogs has dozens of story missions, hundreds of extra activities, online play, collectibles, dense city blocks, quiet suburbs, guns, cars, motorcycles, parkour -- almost everything. It's an ambitious game, even for a heavyweight like Ubisoft, even for a network of studios with years of experience delivering vast, intricate open worlds. And the finished product shows that it was really too ambitious.

I want to be clear: Watch Dogs isn't a bad game, and in fact is quite fun for much of the campaign's length. Yet despite Ubisoft's wealth of experience in open-world, it's lacking the quality of execution one would expect from an urban sandbox. It highlights the difference between Ubisoft's methods and Rockstar's; while Rockstar is no stranger to meaningless extras, they always make sure to polish a game's central features to a blinding sheen. But like so many of Ubisoft's modern games, Watch Dogs is full of features that seem half-plotted and half-finished.

From the start, Aiden Pearce is a terrible protagonist. You might think that he's a dark, gruff anti-hero, based on his situation and his general demeanor -- and he's certainly got the "anti" part down. Aiden destroys whatever property's in his way, steals for fun, and kills without remorse. But the "hero" part is an accident, at best; with the exception of a few (optional) crime-stopping side-missions, everything Aiden does is either as a hired gun, or in the service of his self-centered mission. The game world brands him as a vigilante, a hero for the networked era, as he kills countless thugs and endangers innocent civilians in his misguided quest for vengance.

Although the writing expends some effort to paint his actions as reluctant, it isn't nearly enough. Aiden is utterly unsympathetic, and often amoral, in practically every cutscene and voice-over. Even attempting to play the game non-violently is futile, as missions frequently present obstacles that are impossible to get past without guns or explosives. By itself this isn't necessarily bad - and the game's gunplay is competent enough - but when random NPCs praise Aiden as a heroic vigilante, or when Aiden tells himself that he's doing a good thing, the dissonance is off the fuckin' charts.

The Watch Dogs story as a whole is pretty silly, with convoluted character motives, vital backstory that's hidden in optional audio logs, and tangents that shoot off in absurd directions. Even though the overall goals of the narrative are relatively simple - generally either chasing a lead, or hunting a specific villain - some sequences of missions descend so deeply into rabbit holes that the objectives appear totally unrelated to anything. There were a few times during the campaign when I really couldn't recall why I was on a particular mission.

That having been said, more often than not, the gameplay on these missions is actually very engaging and entertaining. There are a handful of irritating exceptions, like Splinter Cell-esque missions that fail immediately when you're spotted, or absolutely outlandish firefights. But these are massively overshadowed by some really great set-pieces, and even more often, by some really fun camera-hopping and device-hacking tricks.

These mechanics aren't wholly unique - they're basically the same as the possession and telekinesis powers in Geist and Second Sight, respectively - but they're rare enough for Watch Dogs to feel pleasantly refreshing. Aiden can use line-of-sight "hacking" to hop from one camera to another, which gets especially interesting when hacking a camera attached to a mobile foot-soldier; and each camera's perspective shows more of the environment, reveals soldiers' paths, and allows Aiden to hack previously-unseen gadgets and traps. Using these traps - like explosive transformers, precariously-suspended shipping containers, or just mysteriously-exploitable grenades - to clear a room without ever setting foot in it, is fun and incredibly satisfying.

Aiden's hacking prowess also makes for some pretty fantastic car chases and getaways. After some savvy skill-point investment, you'll be able to activate all sorts of roadway hazards to slow down pursuers or stop fleeing targets in their tracks. The game even does you the favor of zooming the camera around for a cinematic view of cars getting totally ruined by these traps. When all the pieces line up, it is, again, incredibly satisfying.

It's a shame that the game's driving is otherwise dull. Car handling is pretty underwhelming; not unexpected for Ubisoft's first driving game, but severely lacking when compared to Grand Theft Auto IV or V. The feeling of "weight" is about on par with Saints Row 2, which is not great. The collision physics are laughable. And, oh yeah, you can't shoot while driving, a baffling mechanical omission that ruins car chases on highways (which also lack hackable obstacles).

Back in the streets, the virtual Chicago map is dense with activity, of widely variable worth. Some activities, like collecting informative audio logs, are simple and rewarding; some, like the Madness and Spider-Tank "trips," are surprisingly fun; and some, like the criminal caravan and gang hideout side missions, are hum-drum chores marred by the game's more lackluster mechanics. There are a few optional plot threads to follow, such as a weapon smuggling ring and a serial killer, and while these stories are cool to chase down, their conclusions are ultimately disappointing. Of course there are countless achievements for collecting all gajillion widgets and so forth, so, there's that.

Even - or really, especially - if you opt to ignore much of Watch Dogs's optional content, the game will continue to remind you of it, with frequent UI pop-ups for nearby events and activities. While these aren't intrusive enough to totally ruin the game, their persistence can get downright annoying when you're just trying to get something done.

Oh, that reminds me -- the online features. I don't care about them. I understand that some people are all about online deathmatches, or Dark Souls-style game invasions, and that's great, but I am really not interested. So when the game continues to blast me with reminders that I can participate in online missions, and when I have to repeatedly disable online invaders, it's just ... bafflingly irritating. I guess it is a bit of meta-criticism for me to dislike the online features of a game premised on the dangers of persistent interconnectivity.

And that part, the premise, is a surprising victory for Watch Dogs. Using your cellphone Profiler to see random NPCs' secrets; engaging with hacktivists to exploit the smart city; uncovering the corruption behind the pervasive surveillance -- none of these themes are direct focuses of the campaign, but the game is thoroughly saturated in them. No doubt Ubisoft saw fit to embellish these themes, post-Snowden, and the result is a strong and chilling commentary about both NSA-style domestic spying and the dangers of relying on so-called "smart" networks.

Watch Dogs, like pretty much every Ubisoft Game anymore, is difficult to praise without exceptions. The missions are fun, but the story is nonsense. Hacking mechanics are well-implemented, while most other aspects of the game feel anachronistically incomplete. Some extra content is worth doing, but a lot of it isn't. When the fat is all trimmed away, Watch Dogs is an entertaining playthrough, that nonetheless fails to live up to many modern genre expectations.

Better than: Assassin's Creed II
Not as good as: Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag, Saints Row IV, Grand Theft Auto V
I forgot to talk about the PC performance: it works, but, uh, could be a lot better. Come on Ubisoft -- get your shit together.

Progress: 57.7%, finished the story, completed all Investigations.