Tom Clancy’s The Division Review

Ubisoft tries to combine single- and multiplayer aspects frictionless in their latest blockbuster The Division. Players have to fight their way through devastated parts of New York, in which the order no longer exists.  We had the great luck to test The Division for you and want to show you, how great that works.

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First, we would like to apologize. We know that it took a little bit longer to release this review. What we can say is, that The Division is a huge game that can steal your time. It took a little bit long to play it as the game deserves. Unfortunately, that is why we needed more time to release this review.

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What we do not understand is, that a lot of other players say, that The Division is a mix of games like Destiny, Borderlands and has on top some elements of Gears of War. Yes, The Division is a cover Shooter, but we think that this game did not deserve this instruction. It is not a mix of some well known game. The Division is The Division. This game stands for his own. And what we mostly like is that this game is far away of Ubisoft’s TCTD_screen_DepartmentStore_e3_150615_4pm_PT_1434323961known formulas like Assassin’s Creed or Far Cry.

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Let’s talk about the game’s story and setting. According to the developer, the world of The Division is modern societies worst nightmare come to life. An unknown bioterror attack has crippled Manhattan. Instead of living their normal lives, people are paralyzed with terror and desperately fighting for their lives. The results, society starts to collapse. Millions are dying or dead, the government is in disarray, food and water in short supply. In addition to that, criminals roam the streets. It looks like, that the police, CDC and military has failed. Like in every good hero’s story, there’s only one last hope, and this is you. The Strategic Homeland Division (short: The Division) consists of embedded agents whose goal is to ensure the continuity of government following a catastrophic emergency. The players characters are equipped with cutting-edge weapons and technology. The player’s job is to take back New York City from the forces that threaten to destroy it.

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And yes, if we are talking about weapons, there are a lot of it. On the first glance, The Division is looking like a military simulation, but what we like is that Ubisoft included in this game a lot of RPG elements. All stuff you can wear or use has different values, each weapon, each armor and every enemy, too. A enemy dies if his life points reaches 0, but that sound more simple than it is. Unlike other shooters, you did not kill an enemy by hitting him in his head. The only difference to other the other hitpoint, you doing more damage on him.

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It seems a little bit strange at the first glance, if an enemy still standing up after you hit him five times in his head. It is even stranger, if he still continue fighting against you. Fact is, that players will get a habituation effect after playing the game a little bit longer. We think that it will take an hour after players will become TD_screen_streetcombat_e3_140609_4pmPST_1402343530accustomed. It helped a lot that the game has a great atmosphere and is terrific staged. Dogs straying through the streets and sick survivors begging for a bottle of water. In a bizarre kind we also love the moments the sun rises between the deserted streets of the city. It looks very romantic, like we said before, even it is bizarre. From time to time you will see some great looking walls on which a graffiti artist has sprayed for example the beautiful words “Headshot, Motherfucker”. All in all, on the one hand you have a great looking and terrific staged New York, on the other, wonderful looking snow, chaos, anarchy and dead.

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The game looks fantastic. But not only the look, also the sounds are great. We also used our Logitech G633 Artemis Spectrum 7.1 Surround Gaming-Headset that has played the sounds really great. For more about the Headset take a look at jadoRendr’s REVIEW or take a look at the official homepage HERE.

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The destroyed and decaying huge New York is a large adventure park which you can explore completely free. The main missions and tons of various smaller side quests are distributed over the entire map – each mission can be played either in a team or alone. We think that the difficulty level for the Rambos of you is already extremely high. We think that the game is only beatable for for those who are prepared to remember the enemy’s behavior. To fight with a few other agents is much easier, especially if they use their skills wisely. But the enemies and the whole world will be adjusted to your and your teammates’ levels.

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The skills are classified in three different categories: healing, protection and technique. The one you concentrate on determined at the end how you play the game. That also means that a direct election of the class does not exist. You get the known MMO roles like healer, damage dealer or supporter directly from the gameplay. That means, you get one of this roles by the player’s choices of skills he wants to use. You can choose them by extracting the main base. The player can only do this if he has completed enough missions for one of the wings.

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The Division offers also a lot of equipment in addition to the character’s skills. There are dozens of different armor categories, on top of this tons of different weapons which can be additionally modified for example with a new target device or a larger magazine. What we also like is that it is also possible to buy or built the weapon you like if you do not want to rely on the enemy’s loot. What we also love is that each new equipment gives us always a good feeling about it. Players can get the best equipment in the center of theTCTD_screen_Turret_e3_150615_4pm_PT_1434323966 map, there is the so-called Dark Zone.

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The Dark Zone is full of anarchy, more like in the other parts of Manhattan. But this times it is player vs. player. You only see other players in the singleplayer/Co-Op-player part while there are in your group or in so-called safe-houses. This time you can meet other players everywhere in the Dark Zone. That also means that you have to decide only in a few seconds if you or the others are your friends or foes. What we like is that we meet quite balanced both kind of players, benevolent and aggressive players. There are players who prefer to hunt AI controlled enemies and and killers who are only shooting other player immediately.  What we love is that this gives the game a great thrill and is an aspect, which give you opportunity to still play the game after finishing the main story. It is the feeling that also shooter fans know from DayZ. We love it.

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What we also like is, that if you reach level 30 you can play all missions in a much higher difficult level. If you succeed, you get the known Phoenix-Credits which are a kind of End-Game-Currency. Thanks to them you can buy special strong equipments, weapons and blueprints. These kind of equipment is not only useful but badly needed especially to fight high level enemies and for the Dark Zone. All in all, this kind of a cycle of challenges and rewards is very motivated and will steal your time. Lovely.

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Unfortunately, Ubisoft focused much of their work on the game’s graphical details and all the multiplayer stuff. On the one hand, we just only can say thank you. On the other hand, we would love if the game’s story TD_screen_echo_e3_140609_4pmPST_1402343528would be so great as the rest of the game. This huge and with opportunities fully filled up world did not offer much space for more. We want to keep it clear. The Division is not a second Destiny. There is a story in The Division. This story is told by the missions himself and also by some short videos, audio-messages and so-called echoes. These are small holograms which can be found all over the map and document with the help of numerous individual stories the time when the chaos broke out. The story is has a solid fundament, but unfortunately it is nothing that players would not have seen already in other games in another variants. The few two or three surprising twists that are included in the end of the game can quickly get lost in the moment of heat.

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We have been surprised about ourselves while the test. We love a great story in a game that hijacked us in another world. Great is, that we do not miss a deep going story in this game and we know, that gameplay is more important than a story for Ubisoft. The story stays here in the background background friend that you only need at the right the moment. This happens when parts of the game requires an explanation. What we also like about it, is that we can completely focus on the construction and the right equipment for our TCTD_screen_Outside_DepartmentStore_e3_150615_4pm_PT_1434323964character. We think that there is not a better feeling than to test our new painstakingly captured equipment in the next combat.

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All-In-All!…. The Division is anything else but not a classic military shooter. It is an action-packed RPG game which focuses on well sophisticated game mechanics with an intuitive cover system and tons of customization options. We love it that Ubisoft’s portfolio get a complete and needed refreshment with The Division. Thanks god they released a complete new brand, and this game is one of their best works. What we also love is that this game is hard to classify. It is not as fast as Borderlands and does not have the compelling story of The Last of Us, it is not futuristic like Destiny and it offers much more content than games like Gears of War. And that is great. This is Destiny and nothing else. It’s completely something own. It looks such fantastic like a simulation, but it is not one. It catches your attention for hours, but is also made for short game sessions in the Dark Zone, too. It works much better if you play with your friends, but also working well if you play the game with or against strangers. It’s something complete new and we are very excited to see how Ubisoft will develop the title further. We think, that all fans of shooter games, RPGs and multiplayer games will have fun for hours. Thank you Ubisoft for giving us a new and awesome gameplay experience.  And for all others reading this, yes, you should get The Division.

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