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.

To start with, I hadn't really had much interest in playing Mario Kart again. I played the hell out of earlier entries, and well, the series hasn't exactly reinvented itself in the last decade or so. But everyone seems to agree that Mario Kart 8 is fantastically fun, and they're ... mostly right!

I don't know how it compares to Mario Kart 7 (which I never tried), but by now, 8 has become fully optimized as a party game. You no longer have to unlock engine classes or features; unlockable characters and items mostly share statistics with the defaults; and even the unlocks are trivially easy, a simple matter of winning cups (it doesn't matter which) and collecting coins. Tracks don't really have shortcuts or other secrets to learn; after the first lap, you're basically an expert.

This isn't to say that there's absolutely no skill involved in the game, as clever tactics and extensive track experience will always yield a better performance. But the bottom part of the curve has essentially been chopped off. In a party setting, this is a really great thing, as everyone is on a fairly level playing field -- and since there's nothing vital to unlock, you can enjoy the breadth of the game right out of the box.

EDIT: Since this post, I've ventured back into Mario Kart 8 a couple times, and - surprisingly, to me - there are tricky shortcuts hidden throughout many of the game's tracks. They tend to be of the rough-terrain variety, e.g. you can only really take advantage of them with a mushroom or a power star -- which is exactly the kind of gradually-acquired track knowledge that lends the game further depth. So that's pretty rad. To return to my original point, there is a lack of scale in unlockable content, which is nice for some instant fun...

But these aspects interfere with the game's longevity, since there's little motivation to keep unlocking things, or explore tracks further. Outside of a party setting, MK8 doesn't last long.

So, its appeal is highly contextual. At its best, the game is some great fun (and to its credit, the online play feature is surprisingly well-implemented). It just doesn't have much staying power.

Better than: Mario Kart Wii
Not as good as: Mario Kart 64, I think, although this is becoming more difficult to remember accurately.
Seriously, I'm amazed: at how seamless and painless the online play is.

Progress: Swept the 100cc cups, unlocked all the characters.

Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag is simultaneously the series' best installment yet, and business as usual for the Creed. While AC3 went to some lengths to optimize its predecessors' hodgepodge approach, AC4 is once again a motley assortment of disparate components and ideas: just as Ezio did in the Mediterranean, Edward encounters a weirdly diverse set of activities in his travels throughout the Caribbean. The good news is that the most prominent of those activities are really, thoroughly fun.

Assassin's Creed has struggled to make a meaningful world map since 2007, but Black Flag's West Indies sailing has nailed it -- once you've taken command of the Jackdaw and the map opens up, you can just go out and explore to your heart's content, hoisting the sails and mounting the waves while your filthy crew belts out drunken shanties. The game's three primary cities of Havana, Nassau, and Kingston dot the sea along with a dozen or so smaller towns, and even more tiny little treasure-carrying sandbars; but the real highlight of the map is ship traffic, which you can freely attack, board, and plunder. In a genius bit of design, the materials you gain from looting ships are used to upgrade your own, adding more armor or more cannons, so you can tackle even bigger and stronger ships.

It's a remarkably fresh spin on open-world gameplay, and perfectly embodies what I would argue is Black Flag's primary theme: freedom. (More on this later.)

Of course, being a modern video game, everything is necessarily stitched together by high-action combat sequences. Black Flag shows that Ubisoft learned an important lesson from Connor's tomahawk prowess in AC3: all of Edward's equippable weapons are pairs of light swords. Combat is really just a fast-paced dance of swings and parries through enemies, and it works really well, ... except when there are a lot of enemies in close quarters, making it difficult to stick to one target. Unfortunately this happens a lot while boarding ships, bringing more attention to this problem than it would otherwise merit.

There are also pistols, which are awkward to whip out in a melee, but are great in a pinch for taking down enemy riflemen. And if the need strikes you, you can pick up a downed enemy's weapon and have-at with it. (Actually, hey, that's a borrowed mechanic from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, another sailing-centric nautical adventure. Interesting coincidence.)

This sailin' and fightin' drives, and/or is driven by, a narrative that is generally of the quality you'd expect from Ubisoft. Edward is frequently surrounded by high-profile pirates ripped from history, but the game throws and twists these characters around so much that they never really define a coherent personality. The story overall suffers from sudden, dramatic changes in how sympathetic or deplorable its players are. With the exception of Edward himself.

Edward's ambition and roguishness are immediately charming, but his flashbacks to trouble at home - and his selfish interactions - quickly paint a flawed picture. His tireless quest for fortune comes not only at the expense of other sailors, but of his closest allies, and of himself. While his friends in Nassau discuss plans of freedom from European empires, Edward is stupefyingly focused on increasing his riches, as if this will solve the problem of his estranged wife. Other characters even point this out to him, explicitly, on a few occasions. But nevertheless, until nearly the end, Edward continues to muddle his incredible, breathtaking freedom with this narrow-minded goal.

On a smaller scale this might be an interesting arc, but it simply isn't enough to sustain Black Flag's running length. For all the adventures he finds himself in, Edward's character is disappointingly shallow.

And then there are the Templar and Assassin bits, which are as wacky and silly as ever. Although to be honest, there is an interesting bit that builds on the questions raised by AC3:

A third faction, independent of the control-seeking Templars or the freedom-fighting Assassins, a somewhat insane semi-cult that strives for the chaotic resurrection of Juno.

This constitutes only a fairly small part of Black Flag's story, but it - hopefully - signals some much more fascinating lore in the games to come.

Aside from the main story, there is a veritable ton of other things to do, from the challenging and engaging (fighting legendary ships and doing some scripted extra missions), to the tedious and boring (finding dozens of collectibles for no real reason), to the awkward and stupid (the Kenway's Fleet mini-game, which seems like it was supposed to be a mobile or Facebook game instead). I did almost all of it, although in retrospect much of it feels like it was a waste. I just enjoyed running around like a pirate.

And there are some other rotten apples in this mixed bag: the modern-day story is stuck astonishingly high up its own ass, the PC version's performance does not seem as good as it should be, and the second-screen tablet companion app is totally pointless. But these, like the game's more lackluster activities, and even like the story, are forgettable. The freedom of sailing the high seas, sighting land, excavating treasure, hijacking ships; this is what Black Flag does well, and it does this very well.

This isn't just a good iteration of the Assassin's Creed franchise -- it feels like a great game beyond that, too.

Better than: Assassin's Creed III
Not as good as: Saints Row IV
Now that there's sailing: how is a sequel set in the French revolution going to match or top that?

Progress: 95% completion

I got about an hour and a half into Watch Dogs before passing out last night -- I had a hard time articulating my thoughts, but this hype-to-reality comparison video demonstrates the most immediate issues very well. Pretty much everything from the 2012 demo that looked "next-gen" - the nuanced lighting, the wind physics, the density of civilians and vehicles, the overall level of visual spit-shine - is absent from the released product. I'm not by any means going to claim that the game looks bad, but it looks usual, in the same league as (or lower than) other AAA games that have come out over the past few years; not head-and-shoulders above them, as teased.

Of course, yeah, they are just graphics. I am just getting into the real gameplay and the narrative, which are thus far disorienting and intriguing, respectively. Watch Dogs seems to suffer from the Saints Row (as in Saints Row 1) dilemma of having so much to do, that the map and HUD are too tightly packed to see a clear path through. It's not the worst problem to have, to be sure, but it only further distracts me from the game world's ambience, reinforcing the message that -- yeah, this sure is a video game.

I was not a fan of Bastion. To me it was a classic case of overbearing style and underdeveloped substance. Given the tremendous amount of visual polish being applied to Transistor, I had no expectation for it to be any different.

But with the game's release now imminent, Supergiant is starting to actually talk about what it is -- and some bits are catching my attention. Being hunted by "The Process." Ability names ending with a "()" symbolic flourish. And the game world is called Cloudbank, which leads me to believe that the setting isn't just inspired by TRON, but actually goes beyond it, into the modern-day interconnected network landscape.

Of course it could all be for naught. Maybe I'm reading too much into this stuff. Or maybe the computing metaphor will end up completely missing the mark (as certainly seems possible, given it mashes together "transistor" and high-level programming paradigms). But I'm paying a hell of a lot more attention to it now than I was.

So, almost three years later, here is the game that promised to turn the troped-out MMORPG genre on its head. But that isn't really what I'm seeing, here.

I have to admit to being highly intrigued from the character-select screen. The factions hint at a strong premise; the class descriptions are highly differentiated and flavorful; and the paths, which seem to largely revolve around investigative gameplay, are right up my alley. The sci-fi universe, as introduced in this text and in cinematics, feels richly imaginative and engrossing.

But then the game started, and my level of caring about that world just melted away. WildStar's offerings may sound radically different than the traditional, bland MMO experience, but the gameplay is just too samey and familiar. Hints and tooltips pop up all over the screen; combat abilities are accessed with an icon bar and number keys; a minimap displays markers guiding you through available quests. NPCs offer brief flavor text that only thinly veils basic quest objectives: walk to a target location, use a target item, kill some number of insipid enemies. Combat has some interesting quirks - like a dodge move, and directional aiming for ranged attacks - but still boils down to using abilities and waiting for them to cool-down before using them again.

All of the mystery and excitement of the game's plot is completely absent in the actual moment-to-moment gameplay, which feels specifically streamlined in the same way that every other modern MMORPG is -- on the basis that players don't actually care about the story anyway. The gameplay feels similarly oversimplified and vapid, with only the most nominal attempts to hide the fact that you're just moving to targets and clicking on them. And the UI is way too busy, again seeming to assume that the function of an on-screen widget is familiar to the player ... because it does the same thing in every other MMORPG.

Maybe I'm wrong; I did only play the game very briefly (less than an hour). But past the character creation screen, nothing I saw in WildStar supports the idea that it's a fundamentally new take on the MMORPG. Iteratively better than its peers? Maybe. But different? Not as far as I can tell.

This. I am very interested in this. Airship navigation, port trading, floating island exploration -- this game concept is practically ripped out of my dreams. Yes, I think that I want this very much.

I recently took a sightseeing trip to Colorado, and - because I am an irredeemable video game nerd - the utterly beautiful landscapes persistently reminded me of Red Dead Redemption. (Actually, the state's radically diverse environs also reminded me of video game world design in general -- with lakes, deserts, flatlands, mountains, clear skies, and snowdrifts all packed closely together.) I seriously considered taking this nostalgic energy back to the game and playing through it again; but it wasn't long before I remembered how much I hated herding cattle and lassoing wild horses, which I would need to sink some hours into before the game actually got going, and again once I got toward the end.

Like Uncharted 2 and 3, and as in the few occasions I tried to replay Shadow of the Colossus, I think that Red Dead Redemption is better remembered than played. The game has high highs, at its best when thrilling chases and gunplay totally engross you in its absolutely gorgeous game world. But its tedious, unskippable side-activities, and frequent spells of dry and boring wasteland, balance the gameplay experience back downward.

It's really better to forget that last part, and focus on the title's strengths, when I remember it. Like recalling Drake's heart-pounding action sequences and intricate obstacle traversal, rather than its poorly balanced combat; or thinking about hunting, ascending, and conquering epic colossi, instead of wrangling with a painfully unintuitive control system.

Of course, this doesn't always work (such as by remembering that Dark Void had excellent aeronautics, but was terrible at everything else).

It's fitting, if a little tragic, that Burial at Sea - Episode 2 brings both the BioShock property and Irrational Games altogether to a close.

From the start, this DLC episode shows more outright moxie than its lackadaisical predecessor. Where Episode 1 made some effort to show off a new way of playing BioShock, with more ammunition discipline and more deliberate encounter tactics, Episode 2 gives you no choice but to learn to be much, much more careful. Elizabeth can't take much punishment, nor can she wreak havoc with heavy armaments; instead she's reliant on stealth takedowns, silent knock-out bolts, or even more ideally, sneaking around to avoid combat entirely.

It's a genuinely refreshing take on the rote run-and-gun gameplay that BioShock Infinite previously espoused, and it's impressively executed in this episode, complete with enemy "alert" meters and stealth-unfriendly traps (walking through water or glass shards will rouse the suspicion of nearby enemies!). Although the lock-picking minigame is disappointingly simple - I still miss the original BioShock's pipe-hacking puzzles - this is otherwise as good of a game as the franchise has ever seen.

But what makes Episode 2 really commendable, and what even manages to redeem the stupefying cliffhanger ending of Episode 1, is its story. This episode does a fantastic job of building on the narrative links between Rapture and Columbia, and really adds to the BioShock and Infinite stories in meaningful ways. Rather than just connecting some dots, it composes new lore that's truly fascinating in both worlds. And all the while, the storytelling's focus on building Elizabeth's character goes well beyond what we saw in Infinite, to a place just brimming with pathos.

It all builds to an ending that, while not as dramatic a crescendo as Infinite's final scenes, is still very powerful and memorable. Like the series' greatest moments, it's not just clever fiction, but is told in a convincingly human way.

And this, ultimately, is what I like to believe serves as a fitting metaphor for Ken Levine's BioShock adventure. Through high expectations and external pressures, through the slings and arrows of the industry and workplace, and through the ambitions and downfalls of ego, BioShock tried to do what it thought best -- and put forth its best effort in doing so. No struggle is without bloodshed, and no victory is without tarnish, but it deserves to be proud of what it's accomplished.

Better than: BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode 1
Not as good as: BioShock Infinite
So: ... what's next?

Almost two years after its release, Diablo III finally became the game it really should have been. But it still hasn't become the game that "Diablo II's sequel" should have been -- and it probably never will.

The Loot 2.0 update addresses pretty much every itemization complaint that could have been lodged against the game: where previously, Diablo III's off-class and trashy drops felt designed to push you to the auction house, now the game rewards you for playing it. Fancy that, right? Diablo III now goes to great lengths to give you items you want, not just stuff that boosts the stats you need, but really good stuff, and even more Legendary-tier drops than before. It's the rolling gameplay incentive that Diablo III always needed, keeping you interested even when customizing your skill loadout is no longer fresh and new.

The itemization refresh breathes new life into the game, and I was astonished at how much fun I had coming back to it; especially when I compared my new drops to the "good" items I'd previously stashed, and saw just how much better items have become. But for all that this has done to enhance the moment-to-moment gameplay, there is still something wrong. Not that I expected this to change, but, the narrative - the storyline, the dialog and cutscenes, the scenarios and worlds - is still lacking.

Diablo II's world was staggering in comparison to Diablo's, replacing a handful of imaginatively-designed dungeon and cavern levels with vast and varied environs. Circa 2000, the green fields, dank catacombs, harsh deserts, dark tombs, ... fucking terrible jungles, molten hellscapes, and snowy mountain passes -- all of these were captivating, surprising environments. It still feels like such a tragedy that Diablo III ended up recycling almost all of this, making only the most minor of tweaks to Diablo II's fresh world design.

And the fact that the plot is totally fucking stupid is still impossible to ignore. Even when skipping cinematics and story scenes, the game's dumb characters are irritatingly aggressive at showing off how silly the story is.

There's no question that Diablo III is better than it was. And now, I could really see myself coming back to play this game again and again, continuing to wring fun out of fighting demons and collecting loot. But ... man. It's still not as epic as I really wanted.

Better than: It was.
Not as good as: I really want another Diablo to be.
As for Reaper of Souls: Maybe when it's less expensive.

Progress: Made a new Wizard, Level 38.