Tom Clancy's The Division Reviews
Tom Clancy's The Division is an enjoyable shooter with social implementation for those that want to play with friends. After putting 50+ hours into the game, completing the story and running around the Dark Zone as a rogue, Massive will need to keep updating the game with new end-game content. Daily missions are currently the same content, but harder, and running the same missions for the umpteenth time will eventually grow tiresome. The Division has a solid base to build off of, and I'm sure that Massive will keep updating the game with new activities for players to enjoy.
Every work is entitled to express its own worldview, but the value of one as profoundly distrustful as The Division's is questionable. In an era when such cynicism colors our collective culture and political processes, influencing popular views on issues ranging from immigration to international relations, indulging in a fantasy so ready to justify our paranoia can be hard to swallow.
A co-op, third-person cover shooter with a whole load of loot-based, ability upgrading, gear crafting, stat levelling stuff built in, The Division is an entertaining game. If you want to play through all the content and move on, you'll have a good time. If you've a weakness for loadout-tinkering and don't mind grinding, it could be your new obsession.
The Division is a fantastic game that has presented its core ideas and mechanics extremely well. When comparing the game to Destiny, which might seem somewhat unfair, it's still clear that Massive certainly borrowed some mechanics that made that game so wildly popular. It's the grind; The promise of ever better loot; The potential to kill a boss and see that orange glow from a distance, that's the stuff that makes The Division worthy of time investment. The gameplay loop is fascinating, even if somewhat repetitive.
The Division is an addictive entry in the shoot & loot genre with some quality visuals, but an afterthought story and lack of innovation hold it back from greatness.
It's going to be interesting to see what The Division is like six months from now.
The core is excellent, but it could be much more
And if you find yourself spending minutes going through all your latest purple items after a few successful high-level Dark Zone extractions, then you'll probably be sticking around to find out what that will look like.
The Division is taking the best aspects from many other MMORPGs and cover-based shooters out there and adding its own touch to it. This is a game that you can play how you want to play it. It is an instanced third-person shooter with a great progression system. Whether you are a loot seeker, a role-player, or a story fanatic, you will enjoy this game. This is not the new Destiny that so many comments seem to be about, but it also isn't the next major MMO. The Division stands great on its own legs and borrows ideas from vastly different genres and games, which it transforms into its own in the end.
It's not perfect but it's one of the best online titles ever released.
There's a charm that sits just under the surface, and sometimes you have to scratch away the filler to get to the good stuff, but when you do, The Division shines in the most beautiful way.
Creating a mix of MMORPG and third person shooter elements was never going to be easy but Tom Clancy's The Division gets so much right. It's worth investing in at this stage.
Cooperative play is a joy, an abundance of gear means your agent is ever-evolving, and an air-tight narrative set within a game world that is unmistakably Tom-Clancian provides a sense of purpose and urgency that makes it nigh impossible to put the controller down. You'll be like me soon enough: fighting off sleep as you recount recent battles with your friends and think about which branch of your base you'd like to upgrade next. It's an addiction as contagious as the fictional virus sweeping through The Division's New York. The wait was worth it, so get out there and gear up, agent. I'll meet you in Brooklyn.
The storyline can be a little underwhelming and some can argue that once you reach the end game there's not too much to do besides run the same few mission types over and over on higher difficulties. Whilst this is true to a degree, the sheer addictive thrill of increasing your weapon accuracy by two points well and truly sucked me in and I found myself finally understanding the draw of MMOs and games like Destiny.
It feels borderline useless to try and write a review of a game like The Division because it's packaged under this games-as-a-service banner, expected to bandage its problems and evolve into something wholly different in six months/a year/two years.
I may wish a plague of locusts on Ubisoft support, but I tip my hat to the masters over at Massive Entertainment.
Despite a few noticeable warts, The Division's highs are high enough to warrant millions of players sticking around for a significant amount of time.
If only The Division's visual design was so memorable. While its 1:1 recreation of a slice of Manhattan is achieved with stunning accuracy, its devotion to realism is also one of the game's biggest problems. For one thing, it dictates that the overworld, while enormous and detailed, is samey and uninteresting. But worse, it makes the gamier elements stick out awkwardly, and actually renders some of them boring.
The Division is surprisingly good despite its lean plot. With so much to do and all of it fantastically executed, there's no reason to miss out on it.
All in all, despite a few tedious moments and some strange design choices, The Division excels at delivering a paranoid, distrustful world full of ambivalence and moral dichotomy along with an extremely enjoyable RPG experience. If you're looking for a solid shooter experience then I'd say maybe this isn't the game for you. If you enjoyed Destiny or love MMO games but wish they were a bit more action based then The Division will provide you hours upon hours of fantastic gameplay. Just make sure you have your buddies or that you find other players to play with in order to really get the full experience.