By Gerrit Goodwin/ ne news editor
Photo courtesy Ubisoft
With the recent release of Tom Clancy’s The Division, gamers may be tempted to pick up the title and take a break from their mundane Call of Duty routines for something fresh and different.
Unfortunately, The Division isn’t that title.
I really wanted to love The Division. I enjoyed playing Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon years ago. It offered me variety in an area that often felt oversaturated with vanilla run-and-gun shooters. However, the latest entry in the franchise, while bold, had too many hiccups that would allow for only brief moments of enjoyable gaming.
The Division is a third-person, open-world, team-based shooter with RPG elements that takes place in a New York decimated by biological terrorists.
The player, an agent of the Strategic Homeland Division, is tasked with helping to rebuild the Division’s operations in Manhattan, combating criminal activity in the wake of the outbreak and investigating the nature of the outbreak. If the setting sounds somewhat familiar, it’s because it is.
The New-York-in-peril cliche has been passed around from novels to movies to video games so many times it makes one wonder if it’s been played out.
Surprisingly though, this is one of the game’s strengths. The visuals are strong and detail-oriented, and much of the city has been recreated accurately, such as Times Square, Chelsea and the Post Office building, which serves as the player’s impromptu base of operations.
Perhaps it’s the successful recreation of a vast dystopian New York that highlights one of the game’s more critical flaws: Often, there just isn’t much to do. Other than the main story missions, the streets are frequently bare and require a fair amount of walking before participating in the next firefight.
Other flaws include the leveling and progression system, which is minimal and not too rewarding. There is a lack of side missions and random encounters, and the enemies act as tedious bullet sponges instead of engaging opponents.
Where the game shines is in its execution of multiplayer. The Division offers both cooperative team gameplay and player-versus-player gameplay. The game is at its best when teamed up with friends, taking down enemies in coordinated strikes or when one enters the “dark zone,” where players either team up or battle one another for in-game loot.
Still, the multiplayer is only enough to keep one interested for a few extra hours and can quickly become repetitive.
The game is priced at $60 and available on all platforms. The Division isn’t the worst game you’ll play this year, but its shelf life is severely stunted due to lack of in-game content.
Pick it up for an alternative to current shooters. Just don’t expect to stick around that long.
