Botch_Dogs

I’ll warn you now, this is a grumpy article. You know, one of those ones written in white hot rage as you bitterly read tweets of your friends succeeding where you cannot. And where are they succeeding? In a world where they can play Watch_Dogs.

It’s not very often that I have the funds to fork out for a AAA game on its release day, so getting Watch_Dogs was a bit of an exception. Having never used Uplay before, I was a bit wary but I’ve mastered Origin so how hard could it be, right? Turns out it’s just a big ol’ mess. Yup. After getting my key in the morning and attempting to install, it is now eight hours later and I have yet to sample the delights of the hacker. 

At first all was going well, Uplay installed fine, I popped in my key-code and Watch_Dogs installed, albeit a bit slowly. When it was ready I was waiting for the extra updates to get on board and then clicked play. As it started I felt a wave of relief and excitement at the opening sequence and allowed myself a few cheeky minutes fiddling around with the settings to get them just right. Then it was time to start... or rather not. CRASH. And proper crash, screen frozen, immune to alt + tab, only ctrl + alt + del and task manager resolving the issue with an end programme.

After another five or six attempts, myself becoming more and more desperate I got fed up and started to Google (duh) my issues and how to fix them. I tried disabling the Uplay overlay, repairing the game and going offline. None of these worked, so I decided to try a reinstall of Uplay. Uninstalling it was fine, but then when I went to reinstall the site was down!

 Before I panicked too much, I went to my downloads and restarted the installer from the last time. Of course upon its installation I gleefully discovered Uplay was (and still is) down.

Now I’m biding my time scrolling through two windows on Twitter. One with #Watchdogs as all my console friends play the game and rant about it, and one with #Uplay as all my PC friends pull their hair out in unified agony as they are denied access.

Sort it out Ubisoft.

**UPDATES**

19:25: After Uplay finally being available again, upon logging in I was told there was an error with my internet but that I could login in Offline Mode. On trying this I was told that I have to log in online for the first time before I can use Uplay in Offline Mode. *head desk*

19:59: Finally managed to get into Uplay and then of course discovered I have to re-download Watch_Dogs again. I'll see you in 2 hours.

21:06: Downloaded quicker than I had hoped. However upon launch, exact same problem occurs.

09:00 the next day: No patch, no resolution. Still no Watch_Dogs.