Is something missing? First thoughts on Tom Clancy's The Division
this weekend, I've so far sunk 8 hours into the open beta for Tom Clancy's The Division. and I suspect that I'll sink a few more hours into it before it closes.
First impressions are very good - it's basically a RPG with a 3rd person cover based shooter approach set in a virus ravaged New York City. I caught one forum comment liken it to Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, which is actually a very apt summation of it's strengths and weakness's.
It plays well, and it is a realistic vision of a city that is under siege from within - it's the trappings of video games that go towards breaking this (bullet sponge bad guys, for instance). As with ME3 multiplayer, it plays better if you have friends to go to town with and I like that the base of operations is instanced for each player. The Dark Zone area with it's PvPvE set-up works very well - though I wonder if it's a little easy to go rogue. That said, making it easy to go rogue was very satisfying when I was able to flank the guy who had targeted our extraction earlier in the session.
I noticed a few glitches during playing. Joining with existing friends seemed not to be as smooth as it should be, and someone within my group, struggled to get fast travel to consistently work. The background kept vanishing in a number of menus in particular locations, especially the vendors in the Base of Operations. The biggest issue I had was in the midst of some solo play, working my way through some of the side missions. One set of missions has you exploring virus contaminated houses to activate scanners then upload the data received. I was in the midst of one of these, all the scanners set and on my way to the uplink, I was a little cavalier around a few Cleaners and they nicely ventilated me. This mission now still shows on my map but I can't start it. I can enter the area freely, have picked up an item of loot from there and can use the uplink terminal but don't seem to be able to complete the mission.
I'm hoping that a return to NYC will allow the mission to be reattempted. I'd like to see more enemy types than hoodies and guys with propane tanks on their backs, though I presume that the limited enemy type is a restriction of the beta and not a restriction of the setting.
On the subject, I will digress slightly. There is a whole Reddit thread on whether this should be called an open beta, or should it be a demo, or a stress test, or something else?
There are one or two open minded people who give some balanced arguments as to why it's called an open beta, most of the respondents are very insistent that it should really be called a demo.
In my mind, a demo is a finished product with defined limits (such as one level, or one character) whilst a beta is indicative of a finished product but the developer is using the beta to check something(s) before finalising the product.
The more uncharitable part of me wonders if some people are still a little constrainted by their degree tuition but I'm trying to think of any time I've played a demo where the section on offer was in any way different to the retail version, story cutscenes not withstanding.
The worry with the game as a whole is whether it can maintain interest. I actually like that zombies aren't the enemy for once but there are concerns about what the endgame will entail and I'm not certain that a realistic near-future setting will provide enough impetus to continue long-term.
Which is a shame because any game looking for an audience without zombies these days should be applauded on that merit alone at least.
First impressions are very good - it's basically a RPG with a 3rd person cover based shooter approach set in a virus ravaged New York City. I caught one forum comment liken it to Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, which is actually a very apt summation of it's strengths and weakness's.
It plays well, and it is a realistic vision of a city that is under siege from within - it's the trappings of video games that go towards breaking this (bullet sponge bad guys, for instance). As with ME3 multiplayer, it plays better if you have friends to go to town with and I like that the base of operations is instanced for each player. The Dark Zone area with it's PvPvE set-up works very well - though I wonder if it's a little easy to go rogue. That said, making it easy to go rogue was very satisfying when I was able to flank the guy who had targeted our extraction earlier in the session.
I noticed a few glitches during playing. Joining with existing friends seemed not to be as smooth as it should be, and someone within my group, struggled to get fast travel to consistently work. The background kept vanishing in a number of menus in particular locations, especially the vendors in the Base of Operations. The biggest issue I had was in the midst of some solo play, working my way through some of the side missions. One set of missions has you exploring virus contaminated houses to activate scanners then upload the data received. I was in the midst of one of these, all the scanners set and on my way to the uplink, I was a little cavalier around a few Cleaners and they nicely ventilated me. This mission now still shows on my map but I can't start it. I can enter the area freely, have picked up an item of loot from there and can use the uplink terminal but don't seem to be able to complete the mission.
I'm hoping that a return to NYC will allow the mission to be reattempted. I'd like to see more enemy types than hoodies and guys with propane tanks on their backs, though I presume that the limited enemy type is a restriction of the beta and not a restriction of the setting.
On the subject, I will digress slightly. There is a whole Reddit thread on whether this should be called an open beta, or should it be a demo, or a stress test, or something else?
There are one or two open minded people who give some balanced arguments as to why it's called an open beta, most of the respondents are very insistent that it should really be called a demo.
In my mind, a demo is a finished product with defined limits (such as one level, or one character) whilst a beta is indicative of a finished product but the developer is using the beta to check something(s) before finalising the product.
The more uncharitable part of me wonders if some people are still a little constrainted by their degree tuition but I'm trying to think of any time I've played a demo where the section on offer was in any way different to the retail version, story cutscenes not withstanding.
The worry with the game as a whole is whether it can maintain interest. I actually like that zombies aren't the enemy for once but there are concerns about what the endgame will entail and I'm not certain that a realistic near-future setting will provide enough impetus to continue long-term.
Which is a shame because any game looking for an audience without zombies these days should be applauded on that merit alone at least.
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