VIDEO GAME REVIEW: FTN reviews Tom Clancy’s The Division

Tom Clancy’s The Division
PS4/Xbox One/PC
Ubisoft

Back in E3 when this was announced everyone went crazy with anticipation with the promises they were making, about controlling air strikes and tactical moves from an iPad so you didn’t have to alienate your friends entirely considering how huge the game was gonna be. Though they took that bit out.

The game is a lovely big open world that you can run around in and complete missions with anyone you feel like , you can invite friends in the usual fashion, or approach strangers in underground bars and ask them if they want to go and kill hundreds of cleaners with you. Which Incidentally is how I got fired from the bar in the janitors union. I know that isn’t funny.

The intro of the game is a very close to the bone news montage of real events such as Black Friday shoppers crossed with Bird Flu and Ebola reports, it seems the virus in question has been released at a shopping mall on Black Friday through the money and has destroyed the world. One of the major story selling points for me is that lack of mutations, a much more believable infectious disease than would be found in Resident Evil.

You can also, if you’re looking for direction in life, just press a button that causes someone who needs a hand at a random mission to teleport you practically into their pockets so you can just shoot misguided people in the face, something that you can do to each individual about five times before it affects them more negatively than a common cold. Something about Ubisoft games ,that I’m not sure is particularly negative ,is that every single thing available to come across on the map through exploring is highlighted making the possibility of adventuring essentially redundant. There is no need to go anywhere that doesn’t have a big glowing sticker on it, it feels like training wheels for adventuring. It’s like tricking stupid people into thinking they are adventuring around a map when all they are doing is the digital equivalent of fetching sticks. For people like me who like to complete things it makes it easier though as I’d probably have a strategy guide on my lap anyway when it comes to finding all the things on the map. It’s also perfect for anyone you might know that enjoys tidying. Like Jon Richardson.

In the book world Tom Clancy is the adult version of Andy McNab, in video game world Tom Clancy’s The Division is a less cerebral right wing version of the Last of Us. I didn’t feel particularly propelled by the story line in this which is basically that there is a virus of some respect that has almost but not entirely ended the world and everyone is very angry and most of them are killing each other. Because of these events a group of highly trained mercs called The Division have come in to Judge Dredd everyone into chilling out.

There’s a section of the map called the Dark Zone where you can get a lovely collection of powerful weapons that can assist you with killing the A.I and rogue agents. The element of the rogue agents that I like is that there would be absolutely no Rogue Agents in the dark zone whatsoever if people weren’t complete wankers. If we could all work together and play nice the Dark Zone would be clear and acceptable for people to live in in a matter of weeks, but of course take away rules and give people guns and they are gonna kill you and steal your stuff.

Most of the game can be completed by yourself but it is a lot of fun playing with other people and the different skill trees that you can equip in real time add a real fast paced dynamic to any battle. Ubisoft with Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry have made, what I consider to be a vital mistake which is that they have saturated the player with so many quests and quests within quests that you never feel like you are progressing but just performing a collection of meaningless and near identical side quests, which leaves such a large gap between story cutscenes that I find myself forgetting what is going on and losing investment. It is also a record breaking game that everyone is playing, so if you like Destiny or Rainbow 6 or just killing people then give it a look.

3 out of 5 Nerds