Game Review: The Division

The Division has been out for quite some time now and it’s taken me this long to write about it because I wanted to make sure my opinions didn’t change the longer I played the game. The game has generally been received well by critics, but as always that doesn’t reveal the extent of a games quality. If you don’t know what the Division is, it’s a cover based shooter with RPG mechanics, that’s a quasi MMO. Think of Destiny, yeah. It’s sort of like that.

The set up for the Division is simple. A lethal virus breaks out during Black Friday and spreads across New York City, ravaging the city and killing thousands. Manhattan is quarantined and the US Government activates sleeper agents known as the Division to assist emergency responders to bring stability and order to the city.

The game puts you in the shoes of an unnamed Division agent. You create your character and you’re forced into action. After a few missions you unlock your base which is split into 4 distinct sections. You have the general area where the stores and your stash are located. You have the medical, the security and a tech area. Whenever you upgrade each section you’ll see your base grow, with more personal and more people populating the base. It’s a great thing to see and very satisfying to observe. Each base upgrade also helps your character by adding perks or abilities. So you have more then one reason to upgrade your base. It also makes you think about what upgrade to choose first. Think of these three sections and the abilities they unlock as different play styles: If you focus on the medical section you should consider yourself a healer, if you focus on the tech, a rogue and if you focus on security a tank. Obviously you can mix and match, but generally this is how I thought of it.

I enjoy enemy A.I. that is dynamic and that are smart. Bar some inconsistent moments the A.I. in this game is that. The enemies will try to outflank you so seeking cover in one place isn’t going to guarantee you safety. Your best bet is to shoot, cover and move. Staying out in the open will most likely lead to your death. The game features different groups of gangs that each offer different challenges. Within these gangs you’ll come to be familiar with the different types of enemies you’ll face. There are your melee enemies, who are probably the dumbest of all enemy types. They’ll just run up to you and try to hit you with a bat. They’re easy to kill, but if they do end up hitting you, they’ll deal a lot of damage. Then you have the other typical enemy types: a sniper, a shotgun, and regular grunt who uses automatic rifles. Depending on what gang you’re facing you’ll face more types of enemies. For example there is a gang called the Cleaners. They usually come equipped with flame-throwers and will burn anything that comes close to them. Then you have the boss-type characters who have a ton of armor and take some time to kill. Sometimes you’ll have to fight more than one and these fights can be pretty intense.

The gangs in the city are distinguishable. Each dress differently, each use different kinds of weapons and each have different philosophies and backstories. This information isn’t spoon fed to you either, which is something I like. This being a Ubisoft game the world is littered with collectibles. But it’s thankfully not overwhelming and I found most collectibles to be interesting especially as world building mechanics. This is how I discovered most of the back stories about these gangs. You’ll come across phone records, incident reports, drone footage and a few other things that reveal the more personal impact that this virus had on people in Manhattan. The voice acting is believable and some of these stories are incredibly depressing and sad. These collectibles are optional, so if you don’t care about the story or collecting things then you can choose not to pick them up.

The game is visually easy on the eye and the city of Manhattan is incredibly detailed. Someone on Twitter that I follow was even able to find a building they used to work in. One of the things I was concerned about was that there would only be one way to get from point-A to point-B. I’m relieved to know that I was wrong. There are a ton of alley ways and shortcuts for you to discover. In this way, Manhattan in the Division becomes your own playground. There are some interiors you can explore, but apartments generally look the same. Thankfully the locations the main story missions take place in are varied. You’ll be making your way through the New York subway system, Madison Square Garden, refugee camps, a museum and a bunch of other areas. The weather affects are pretty impressive as well. Being out in a blizzard can make familiar areas seem unfamiliar. Snow also builds up on your shoulders and the hat you wear and gradually melts when you go indoors.

One aspect the game really shines in is the Dark Zone. The Dark Zone is a cordoned off area of Manhattan where the virus hit the city the hardest. There are two things you’ll come across in the Dark Zone. Harder, more challenging enemies that drop better loot than the enemies outside of the Dark Zone and other players. The Dark Zone is the location of the PvP (player vs player) aspect of the game. Now the twist to the Dark Zone is that only way to use the loot you find is if you extract them using helicopters. You’ll find extraction zones throughout the Dark Zone where you can go and call for an extraction. Once you do though everyone (real world players) is alerted to your extraction. So if a player chooses too they can come to the extraction point and try to gun you down to steal your loot. Other players enjoy going around and shooting everyone they come across, players or A.I, but that comes at a price. Once you attack another player you’ll be labeled as a Rogue agent for a limited time and everyone around you will be notified to your status and they’ll try to hunt you down. There are two ways to remove the Rogue status. You either run and try to survive until the timer runs down or you die. It’s safe to say that the Dark Zone becomes a pretty intense location.

So how is online play for people living in Kuwait? Minus a few hiccups here and there it’s been pretty smooth for me. I use a Zain 4G router and haven’t had any major issues with lag. I’ve played co-op with friends who live in Kuwait, Lebanon and the U.S. I’ve mainly been playing with a friend who lives in Ohio and I can only think of once or twice that we had problems with the connection. When we went into the Dark Zone together and fought against other players we had no issues at all. We also played with my friend in Kuwait and the three of us were able to get through a few missions with no problems at all either. Missions would be a lot more challenging if one of the players was lagging for a few seconds and I’m pretty relieved that this all works well because this game relies on co-op play so heavily.

If you want to you can choose to ignore all the online aspects of the game and play the game alone. Personally I believe the game really shines when you play with people you know. The game does a great job at scaling the difficulty so it becomes fair but challenging when you play with more people. I’ve been playing with a friend of mine who lives in the U.S. and we haven’t had any connection issues and it’s just a joy to run through the city with a buddy.

One of my favorite moments early in the game was when a fire fight broke out in the middle of Times Square. I had been playing with two friends and this was supposed to be the last mission we played that night so it was a satisfying way to end our session. You can see how the action intensifies the further you watch the video. This I found out, wasn’t even the most intense firefight I’d take place in.

The game has some issues though. Like I said, playing with friends is the highlight of this game. There are problems with some aspects of the way the game handles multiplayer, co-op play in particular. When you join another players world the game will try to balance the difficulty of the enemies so in theory no one would have an easy time. The problem is if one of you is a really low level then you’ll have a hard time no matter what. This is a difficult problem to fix but one solution could be to lower the level of the experienced player to match the level of the player they’re joining. Certain MMO’s do that and it works fine when done right.

Another issue is that the enemy A.I. can be inconsistent at times. I’m not sure if it was due to my internet connection acting up but I’ve seen enemies slow to react and I’ve seen enemies spawn right in front of me. This hasn’t happened enough times for it to be a major issue, but I’ve run across it a handful of times.

Overall though The Division has been a highlight of 2016, I’ve put around 35 or so hours in the game and I can see myself playing it for a lot longer. The developers have been supporting the game and are responsive when it comes to fixing and patching glitches, bugs and other issues the game has. I haven’t had this much fun playing a co-op game since Destiny’s Taken King, but thankfully this game seems to have a lot more content. I played the PS4 version of the game, but the Division is also available on Xbox One and PC.

GamesQ8.com have bundled a $50 PSN card with the Division and are selling it for KD32 so you save a bit if you decide to order it from them. Compared to all the other online retailers, Blink.com.kw are selling the PS4 version of the game cheapest for KD16.500 while GamesQ8 have the best deal for the Xbox One version for KD18. Or you can decide to visit Rihab and scour the basement for a used version which you could buy for 11 or KD12, a new copy would probably cost KD17 at the very least. Either way, I highly recommend this game,

Score: [rating=4]

Post by Patrick