Hello to all my fellow gamers. A majority of us have been eagerly awaiting Tom Clancy’s The Division, a game that has taken three years to develop. While some parts of the game definitely show off the amount of time that it has stayed in development, I’m afraid to say that it also fails in others.
The Division is a beautiful looking game; I cannot stress this enough. This beautifully rendered world gives the game visual depth and realism. The game is set in the not so distant future in New York City, where a smallpox virus was let loose and has decimated the city and the world — yikes! And people thought BvS was too dark!
You play the role of an agent who is embedded into society, but are activated when the shit hits the fan. Looks like even Tom Clancy knew that the MAN is always watching us all. Moving on, you are tasked to take back the city block by trash-filled block. The enemy comes in the form of four factions. Rioters (pissed off people), Cleaners (disgruntled sanitation workers), Rikers (escape convicts), and The Last Man Battalion (a rouge private military force).
The main mechanic in the game is a third person cover based shooter, which is a pretty good and fun mechanic. Now take elements from RPG, throw in a loot shooter RNG system in, and you get this hybrid of a game.
For the first month I was going through the story and getting a feel for a well mapped out one for one creation of the city. You can easily find yourself putting hours, if not weeks into building your character up in skill areas. The three focuses are firearms, (D.P.S), stamina (DUH), and electronics — think spells, but more in tune with high tech bleeps and bloops.
Then out into the PvE world, we have the Dark Zone (gasp!), which is an infected area of the city. In order to extract your loot, it has to be by helicopter in a yellow fanny pack. (Yes. Seriously) This is where we have the PvP element, where players can help you or kill you and take your loot but will be marked as rouge if they do. However, due to certain talent and perk balance issues, it’s more like a hit and run mosh pit.
The problem with the game is that none of the above mentioned mechanics work without some serious issue. The number one mood breaker of the game is lag, and lag does it ever. Then you have exploits, bugs, and glitches. If you brave or death crawl though it, you run into a very shallow end game content pool. There has been a patch to allow for more high end gear to drop from named enemies, but most of it are things you already have, don’t need, or flat out don’t want. Plus, you find better gear and weapons from the vendors in the game anyway. (Hell yeah! Shopping!)
To date, there is also one incursion that is just one big room with a bullet sucking tank flanked by two turrets and protected 15, I say again, one-five waves of enemies. The end result? More gear and weapons to bring up your gear score. (Woohoo.)
This game is a lot more fun with a group of friends playing with you. If not, there is match making.
More DLC is coming. Some that, of course, will be locked behind a pay wall. This will add more game modes and content, to what can be easily considered a skeletal game. Come on Massive/Ubisoft! Imagine us walking them naked down the street, and as we walk, we ring a bell and yell, SHAME, SHAME, SHAME. (Yeah, it’s that real.)
We give Tom Clancy’s The Devision a 5.5 out of 10 at launch, and after the first patch 1.1, a 6.2 out of 10.
Our advice? Wait for six months to a year. By that time they will re-release the game with all the DLC and fixed mechanics for a cheaper price.
Happy gaming.
[UPDATE]
A quick update on The Division. Update 1.2 arrives soon, there by making the base game and end game more worth the grind. In the update we will see a better loot system, the end result being more high end loot and higher gear levels. Also, a major change to the Dark Zone — there will be a new 201+ bracket lobby. Trust me, this will make the Dark Zone feel less like Mike Tyson fighting a three year old, and more like two actual prize fighters that are evenly matched up. Stay tuned, as we will be giving you our review on the update. Sigh….we’re buying a lot of aspirin as we speak people.