Watch Dogs – Xbox360

In its opening scene, Watch Dogs refers to hackers as modern-day magicians. That’s a good analogy for the bag of powerful but mostly scripted tricks we get to use as we run amok in this huge and impressively detailed map of Chicago. With the push of a button, you can trigger environmental traps that smash pursuing cars, empty a citizen’s bank account, or even remotely activate a grenade in an enemy’s pocket. Hacking’s not as dynamic as it appears at first, but the illusion gives us a bit more to do than there is in most third-person action games, and it puts on a great show.