Tom Clancy’s The Division - Review
Visually stunning, immersive, fun and challenging.
That is how I would quickly sum up my experience so far with the Division. The game has been out for a week now and I've spent most of my free time after work playing it with my friends and other agents. As I'm writing this review I've managed to push in nearly 60 hours and I'd like to think I have a pretty good understanding of the game's mechanics and content.
I've noticed that there's a good amount of players that have had a negative experience with this game, but for me it's been a breath of really fresh air amongst the multiplayer games. I don't remember when was the last time a game hit me like this, keeping me up to the morning hours.
I know some of the users have had their fair share of techinacl issues too, but luckily I have encountered zero problems so far. Game has been working flawlessly from the start. I had one blackscreen issue on the first run but that was only one time hiccup.
Background
I like the way the game starts, throwing me in the ruined New York, slowly opening it's story to me like a book. I am one of the activated Division agents, governments last tools to bring peace back to the streets filled with looters, psychopaths, disease and... Trash.
I hate spoilers a lot so I'm not going into details with where, whens and hows - so I'll leave that part for you to find out yourself if you're interested.
Here's a quick peek in game's story:
Setting
The world in the Division is very detailed, good looking and living (as much as a post-apoc world can be.) The map currently available isn't overwhelmingly huge, but it's definitely enough to keep you nailed into your computer for many nights to come. You can spend hours after hours just walking down the streets, enjoying the chaotic sceneries, scouting out the subway stations, exploring abandoned buildings and apartments - while fighting the various hostile factions that make the bad situation even worse.
And like I said before, there's a lot of trash everywhere. Piles of junk people left behind while trying to escape the city in a hurry, abandoned cars, homes, trashed stores and shopping centers. When you see a sickly civilian collapsing into snow for good, rats running around, contaminated areas with huge biohazard warning signs and combine that with very atmospheric ambient city noises, the experience is very immersive.
Some of the most resilient New Yorkers never left - or perhaps were too late and now walk around the streets, still trying to survive. They go trough the trash piles, try to lock pick cars' doors in hopes for valuables, fight and squabble on the streets, shout from the windows and get in a trouble with the local gangs. As a Division agent you are very often offered a chance to help out these remaining civilians with their troubles, whether it be with just handing out some spare medkits and other resources or solving out some gang related issues.
Progress
As the story opens and you've gone through the soft landing and basic training of Division agents, you're given the freedom to start exploring the ruined city on your own. After talking with the intel officers and exploring the situation map on various safe zones you quickly learn about areas and possibilities around you. There's tons of missions, sidemissions, encounters, collectibles etc. to do and you are free to tackle them in any order you want - alone or with friends.
As you progress, do missions and gain rewards and experience, you unlock new skills for your character and upgrade points that can be spent on upgrading different wings (Medical, Tech, Security) in your base of operations. Each upgrade sounds more or less logical and realistic and it makes sense that when the situation advances, you would like to build up certain commodities and security measures for people living in your base.
Gameplay
Gameplay is only in 3rd person and you can juggle between the left and right shoulder cameras according to the situation at hand. You can zoom in or scope down the enemy for better aim, depending on what kind of mods your current weapon have. The core combat focuses a lot in squad tactics, launching the right skill at the right time and taking care of your buddies while advancing using the terrain as cover.
The cover system works 99% of the time like it should, though there are some weird spots in game where you just can't take cover behind that cement block or hop over it. Luckily those are quite rare and those accidental deaths because of the cover system just fell asleep aren't happening all the time.
The gunplay works really well, combat feels and sounds nice and I really do enjoy it alot. But remember, carrying a big gun is only half of the act. You also need to look badass while doing it and luckily the Division has a lot of cosmetic gear for you to play with.
Dark Zones
Upon examining the ruined streets of New York, you encounter pockets of hazardous, contaminated areas. There's usually some nasty story behind them and entering these areas without a protective mask is deadly.
Dark Zones are like these zones, only bigger. They contain whole blocks completely closed from the rest of the New York and you can only make your way in there through specific checkpoints. No one's really forcing you to head into Dark Zones, but the excitement of better loot and intense action is enough to lure in the bravest of Division agents.
Out there everyone is a possible threat and it's not rare for agents to turn against each other, fight for contaminated loot like weapons, gear, clothing.
Great game, great future content already planned, tons of fun to be had. Don't let the negative reviews and other people's bad experience turn you away from this awesome game. It would be a shame if you'd skip this just because some tech savvy gentleman didn't understand how to upgrade his GPU drivers, or just tries to run this game with his 8 years old "beast rig" and can't reach more that 5 FPS.
Go in, make up your own opinion.
A BIG, fat and juicy recommendation from me.
annaxmalina
germansingergirl
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