First Impression "The Division".

Ubisofts’ open world survival game, The Division, has recently sent out some beta invites to the general public and I got my hands on this piece of work.  You might be wondering what The Division is and luckily I have the basic rundown.  The game has you playing as a member of an agency called The Division, short for Strategic Homeland Division.  This game takes place in a near future scenario where the US has mostly collapsed due to a viral outbreak, which happens on Black Friday.  The beta was pretty skimp on the plot details.

Getting around the plot is the gameplay any good?  Surprisingly it’s pretty average in terms of the pure mechanics, the cover works and the guns handle well enough.  As weird as it might sound this game feels a lot like Borderlands mixed with DayZ.  Your weapons have a DPS chart IE, they have numbers showing how much damage you do, and your character has levels which let you gain access to perks and skills.  Speaking of skills, the only thing available in the beta were the basic level skills for the three ‘classes’.  You have a proximity grenade launcher, an extra damage reduction skills, and a support skill which shows your enemy’s in the surrounding area.  Your basic DPS, Tank, Healer classes.  Such a weird concept to have traditional fantasy RPG rolls in such a modern military style shooter.

So what is there to do in the game?  Well this is where the DayZ part comes into play.  You have an open world where you collect item fight NPC’s and in certain areas you’ll have to deal with other players.  It’s pretty interesting to see a big publisher do an open world survival game with triple A budget.

How does the game look you might be wondering.  Well I can tell you right now it looks nowhere near as good as that E3 demo they had a while back ago, but it doesn’t look that bad.  Cranking everything to the highest setting and upping the resolution makes the game look, on a technical standpoint, pretty nice.  The art direction on the other hand has me wanting more.  All the enemies you meet look pretty much completely forgettable, which is kind of sad.  I want more, The Warriors, and less generic thug with hoodie and bat #245.

All in all I have to say i enjoyed my solo adventure with the beta but I’ll hold off my judgment until the full game comes out. 

News Reporter

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