Hacker and thief Aiden Pearce was the best at what he did, so good in fact, that he uncovered something he shouldn't have which lead to the death of a member of his family. Now, on a mission of revenge and vigilantism, Pearce will make those who wronged him pay and he can use the entire city of Chicago as his weapon. This is Watch Dogs and its surprise unveiling by Ubisoft at E3 2012 blew away the video game industry.

Meshing together open-world gameplay mechanics of Ubisoft's other key franchises, with driving and stealing reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto, progression systems and skill trees of RPGs, with an entirely new way of interacting with environments through hacking, Watch Dogs aims to launch a new and different franchise. After 5.5 years of development, two demo showcases at E3 and a preview event last year, we - along with the rest of the game industry's media community - had yet to get hands on with the title until earlier this week. So, does it live up to the hype?

The story of Watch Dogs remains unclear in how it plays out. We know what protagonist Aiden Pearce's motivations and objectives are but we know little about his enemies or allies he meets along the way. On our visit to Ubisoft Montreal this week we had the chance to play the game - for the first time - on a PlayStation 4 for 90 minutes before chatting with some of the developers who are working on the game. The main Watch Dogs game has actually been complete for a while and the remaining months are comprised mostly of debugging, to ensure a polished and smooth launch come May 27th. More on that here.

The Controls

Watch Dogs plays similar to other open-world shooters and driving games, with a few additional layers, some more subtle than others. Players can, walk run (hold 'R2'), hop and slide over obstacles, and can enter cover. Once in cover, looking at nearby obstacles will let players know on the HUD that they can quickly rush from one to the next by pressing 'X'. While Watch Dogs doesn't feature the climbing mechanics of the Assassin's Creed franchise, Aiden frequently must hop over or into objects such as lifts or garbage cans using the 'Circle' button.

Here's where it gets different. Tapping the 'L1' button will draw the currently equipped gun, and the type of weapon matters. A sidearm will put Aiden into incognito mode and he'll slip on his trademark mask so as to not be identified by cameras, police or random civilians, walking with the gun semi-hidden behind him. A larger weapon like a shotgun or rifle, can't be hidden and people nearby will react in horror. Some may even pull out a phone and begin calling the police which you can then interrupt by taking their phone and smashing it. Holding down 'L1' brings up the inventory wheel. Aiden carries everything at all times, and each of the 8 points on the wheel can have multiple weapons, so selecting left or right lets players choose what weapon they want selected in each slot for quick access.

Of course, firearms and explosives are not Aiden's most powerful and important weapon - it's his smartphone that defines his abilities. Similar to Assassin's Creed and the latest Far Cry, the open-world map (push the touchpad down on the PS4 to access) features hotspots where players can find stores (clothing, weapons, materials, etc.), mini-games (AR games and gambling, etc.), side-quests (blue icons), story missions and ctOS (Central Operating System that runs the city) hubs - the latter of which is key to unlocking content.

To open up the freeroam activities and see points of interest on the map, narrative stuff and additional information, players must infiltrate control centers (red icons on the map). Think of these as outposts from Far Cry 3 where they can be approached from any angle and accomplished in any way the player sees fit. Once unlocked, not only does the map reveal the details of that area, but Aiden can use his handy profiler.

While walking along the streets, pressing the 'Square' button pulls out his phone and begin scanning people as they walk by for information on them, their backgrounds and bank account info. It's from this Aiden can access objects in the environment (i.e. street lights) and use cameras anywhere in the city. In areas where enemies are abound, cameras can be used to tag enemies based on the devices they're carrying - it's a more realistic and practical of way of tagging enemies like you can in Far Cry 3.

The phone is also used as a menu of sorts and pressing up on the D-Pad brings up a menu where players can access skill trees, the music player, options to call in an unlocked car, etc.

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Page 2: Playing The 'Watch Dogs' Demo

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Watch Dogs will be available for PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One on May 27, 2014.

Follow Rob on Twitter @rob_keyes.

The Demo

Our demo began placing us right smack in the middle of a district with $10,000 and a single story mission available on the map. The mission is called "Open Your World" and we were told that someone is threatening Aiden's sister. He asks contacts at the Dedsec hacker group for help and we have to take Aiden to meet up with a hacker with the alias "BadBoy17". Aiden is suspicious of this person and we learn that the hacker is someone we've already met in the Watch Dogs trailers, leading us to believe this mission is relatively early in the game.

We won't get into the mission details but there are guns, hacking and cameras involved. We took the time to play around with the controls and see how well they work. Aiden can run, vault over objects on the fly, enter cover, jump from cover to cover, and he's got the standard assortment of firearms that can be accessed using the left bumper. Some weapons can be looted and others can be crafted but we didn't have time to play with that system. The controls are easy to learn, but might be a tad difficult to master, especially when it comes to using the cover system.

As we mentioned up top in the controls section, to unlock the content and freeroam activities of an area or district on a map, Aiden must hack into the ctOS tower or infiltrate a compound. The former involves using the environment to find a way to get Aiden to the top of where he needs to go - a puzzle since he can't climb walls like AC's protagonists, the latter involves an assault of sorts that we've seen in many of the gameplay demos. It took a bit to understand what I'm supposed to do since it was unclear on what Aiden can and cannot do when it comes to climbing. He can't climb windows or pipes, but he can climb onto objects, using lifts and elevators to get even higher. Verticality was a big element in unlocking the ctOS hubs and in some of the missions so players need to recon areas, circling buildings to find the way up.

Through using the phone on people, occasionally Aiden will locate someone who has a high probability of committing a crime or being victim to one and you can follow them to act on that. For others, bank account, job info and criminal histories can be shown, and you can take money from an ATM using their account. As a vigilante of sorts, you'll feel a desire only to steal and hurt those who have shady backgrounds. The same goes for 'enemies' in restricted areas - some will have ties to mob money, others may simply be a single parent working a double-shift, so how you takedown or bypass these NPCs will affect Aiden's reputation.

While playing non-lethally, avoiding hurting cops and not stealing from the 'good' people is important for Aiden's reputation - which directly affects how the city reacts to Aiden throughout the game, via civilian reactions, news reports, etc., sometimes it's hard not to kill. This is where skill and patience comes into the story-based missions as avoiding being seen and shot had proved difficult in our first hands-on time with the game. After completing the mission, I began exploring points of interest to see what I could do.

This is where we I had the most fun since I got to be creative. I found a gang convoy mission where on the map we could see the path of a person we needed to take out. It took me two tries since the first time I did it I tried to block the highway with stolen cars before cops delayed me from taking out my target on time. The second time I grabbed a fast-looking car and drove it on the highway in the opposite lanes, crossing over at the first break in the median to smash into the target car head on before speeding off. I had stopped the target car from moving but now its escorts were in pursuit so I drove off into a neighborhood, hacking intersections and road barriers to systematically destroy some of the vehicles on my tail. It's very easy to perform these on-the-fly hacks thanks to the smart use of the HUD and despite our reservations, intersections and barricades are very effective at taking pursuing cars off grid, so to speak.

The main target was still on my map, despite not moving so I made my way back up to the highway with a few cars still following and ran over the person who had exited their smashed vehicle, then all I had to do was finish off the pursuers and get away from the cops which I was able to do. After stopping my sports car to take in the beautiful sunrise and river, I noticed a boat so I ran down and stole it, crashing into other boats before beaching it on the other side of the water. Then I ran up and stole another car, before swapping it for a pretty icecream truck. I drove the truck up to one of the gate of a ctOS compound I found on the map, tossed on 3 IEDs, parked it just inside before its guards could see me and drew the guard in close using a gadget that sticks to walls and makes noises. I blew the truck up, opting for the not-at-all-stealth approach from the roof of one of the buildings I got on top of thanks to hacking a lift and I took out the others.

Unfortunately, that's where my time got cut off and I was using my last minutes to go over-the-top loud. Earlier on in the demo, I tried some of the more simple sidequests where after unlocking an area I'm able to run the profiler, where Aiden walks around with his smartphone out scanning everyone and everything around the areas. Through this Aiden can interact with cameras and hack into the phones of pedestrians as they walk by, listening in on their conversations or reading their texts. In a similar fashion, at the click of a button players can of couse alter street lights and raise barricades from the road to directly impact traffic. The mechanics here are very simple to use and work very cleanly, especially when chased by gang members or police.

Out of context, it's hard to tell if the story and narrative are strong, compelling and sensible, as we still know little about Aiden and the other characters he comes across, but the gameplay mechanics are sound, the animations and AI life are top notch and the city is gorgeous. Some of the side-missions and mini-games (guess which cup the ball is in) are simple and familiar, but our hope is that there's more variety in other districts as Aiden explore more of Chicago.

The build we played was highly polished - we didn't experience a single bug or glitch - and there are so many aspects to playing the game that there's quite a learning curve. After 90 minutes I was finally just getting the hang of mastering the use of cameras, distractions and the cover system/climbing. So much of Watch Dogs seems familiar, but it's the theme of 'connectivity' that makes it unique, more dynamic and brings it all together in a way that makes sense for the new IP's story and gameplay mechanics. Almost every aspect of the game had an extra layer thanks to how players can use the environment and information to directly affect what they're doing. There is a learning curve, but one that's appropriate for the game's content.

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Watch: New 'Watch Dogs' Story Trailer

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Watch Dogs will be available for PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One on May 27, 2014.

Follow Rob on Twitter @rob_keyes.