This simplistic beat 'em doesn't stand up as a good adaption of the Watchmen franchise or a good game.
Fans of old school beat 'em ups will find some fun in Watchmen; the core gameplay is undeniably very entertaining. Fans of the comic book, however, will see this uninspired adaption as the disappointment it is, anybody who thinks that games can transcend to the art form that Watchmen shows comics can is better off sticking to exemplary titles such as Braid, Shadow of the Colossus and Metal Gear Solid 4 among many others. These games show that intelligence, depth, complexity and profoundness is possible in this medium and are therefore more suitable for fans of the graphic novel. Watchmen: the End is Nigh is not a terrible game though. Its simple brutal combat is a lot of fun, there is an inherent joy to seeing a masked madman snapping the bones of foolish criminals. Video games have been supplying fun for years however and it's understandable to expect more than this, or at least a greater amount. Watchmen: the End is Nigh is old school in a bad way, it harkens back to a more simplistic time where basic fun was the only option. Other titles show how much game design has progressed alongside game technology, whereas the End is Nigh just shows the progression in technology. It has great graphics and some equally great animations, but it feels like the end result of giving a big budget to an 80-90s arcade game developer and telling them to make a HD title. The result is a very polished title that delivers a modicum of fun but disappoints in every other area.
The gameplay of the End is Nigh is exceptionally simple, you play as either Rorschach or Nite Owl and beat up a lot of copy and paste thugs in a 3D space. You fight them in corridors, in warehouses, on scaffolding, on a dock and some other places, but no matter where you fight them every encounter feels more or less the same. The environments are quite detailed, and very impressive for a downloadable title, but they have no impact on the gameplay at all. The occasional large drop provides a great opportunity to throw a generic enemy from, but this is the limit of the interactivity. Environments are littered with enticing objects that just beg to be thrown at the nearest goon, but this is impossibility as everything is simply window dressing. This, once more, is a great disappointment. As Rorschach you can counter bottle wielding thugs and steal their makeshift weapons for your own use, but then you can walk past several bottles lying on the floor that you simply can't interact with. Mixing melee weaponry into this otherwise unarmed brawler is a fun addition, but it seems poorly implemented. Only Rorschach is able to use these weapons, and only a few of these weapons are actually usable, even though could be weapons are littered throughout the stages. This is an example of lazy design, and it doesn't stop there.
The End is Nigh is full of brutal combat animations that are satisfying to watch and pull off. Combat consists of four buttons, light attack, heavy attack, dodge and throw. These can be strung together to make greater combos; a dodge and a light attack inputted as an enemy attacks you instigates a violent counter move that disarms some enemies and greatly damages all others for example. On top of this well-timed light and heavy attacks strung together pull off effective combos that are simple but very satisfying. However, there are a few issues which detract from the experience. The brutality of the brawling is the main sell and it's very entertaining, this entertainment is lessened by certain sloppy design points though. Not only does the simple counter system make the game exceptionally easily, it also takes away some of the impact from the fighting. The blows in Watchmen all feel very powerful, blood spurts from your punches and the effective sound design makes you feel like you are dishing out some serious hurt. The counter attacks are a great example of this, but they are also very flawed, several counters involve breaking the limbs of opponents with a satisfying crack, these are particular highlights but a single flaw lets them down. Enemies who survive this brutal assault will clutch their broken limb for a brief second and then continue to fight you like nothing happened. One moment you are breaking a thugs arm and the next he is hitting you with that very same limb. On top of this some of the animations are rather suspect, due to lazy design once more. When you beat an enemy enough, a God of War style button prompt appears above their head, press this and you perform a kill animation. These animations are great fun to watch, Rorschach's are feral and vicious and Nite Owl's are efficient and professional. They can also be quite bothersome however. If Rorschach has a melee weapon you get a specialised kill move using that melee weapon. It is not one per melee weapon just one for having a melee weapon, this means that some just look very silly. Jumping on a man's back and bludgeoning him on the face with a baseball bat is an effective kill move. Jumping on a man's back and repeatedly hitting him with the flat side of a knife is anything but. It just looks stupid. This is a great example of how Watchmen: the End is Nigh continues to disappoint the player.
Little issues like this make for an unsatisfying experience, with the End is Nigh you definitely do not get value for money. You get a 3-hour long experience that is primarily filler, exploits and regenerating health make it incredibly easy, and every enemy encounter (and there are a lot) feels exactly the same. The only variety comes from pulling a lever or opening a door. Rorschach and Nite Owl have different animations sets that match their character but apart from that there is no real difference. Nite Owl's grapple hook means he can occasionally progress one way in a level when Rorschach has to go another, but this is not real variety as it all it does is make you do the same repetitive combat alone. The only other attempt at diversity comes in the shape of an optional lock-picking minigame that is just needlessly complex and feels out of place. Rorschach seems more like the type to break a door down and Nite Owl seems more likely to have a more elegant solution than a traditional lock pick. All in all the game is just extremely repetitive, what starts as fun combat soon becomes tiresome, and there is little incentive to make it all the way to the end, bar some attractive cutscenes. The cutscenes of the End is Nigh do deserve a special mention: at the start and finish of each of the six chapters you are rewarded by a slice of exposition in the style of the Watchmen comic. The animation is very slight, and it gives the impression of stills taken directly from the book, and while the story itself is in no way impressive the cutscenes are still really great. The story is a prequel to the events of the book, it is Rorschach and Nite Owl back when they we partners solving a simple case that may be more complex than it appears. The story is not good, but it's not terrible, it's just there and rather unobtrusive. However, the very end cutscene provides you with a single great moment that will make fans look forward to the already announced End is Nigh Part 2 picking up from where Part 1 left off.
Calling a prequel the End is Nigh may sound like an odd decision, seeing as the end is clearly not nigh at this point in the timeline. However, it is soon clear that the end the game refers to is the end of this franchise as a credible gaming series. This game is a huge disappointment to fans of the comic and almost an insult to all that the book does well. Saying that this overly repetitive and boring brawler doesn't stand up to its source material is an understatement, but this title doesn't stand up to other games either. It's fun enough to warrant a sale purchase and the cutscenes are worth a watch for the artstyle rather than the content, but Watchmen the End is Nigh does not warrant full price. There is fun to be had in Watchmen, but everything comes with a price. The violence is the main appeal, but even than isn't extreme enough to keep you interested, gore fans would be happier with God of War or Mortal Kombat. Everything the End is Nigh does has been done better elsewhere, it won't appeal to fans of the Watchmen comic at all and it won't impress newcomers either. You wouldn't know it from playing this, but the video game medium can do so much better, let's hope Moore forgives it.