Zero Punctuation: The Division

ZigzagPX4

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No surprise here. The Division, from what I gathered within my foray into the Beta, was a grab bag of everything Yahtzee despised. Bland third-person cover-based shooting, token RPG mechanics, the grindiest grinds of all the MMOs, repetitive Ubisoft missions that don't explain much of the context, the modern military setting that's completely self-unaware, the uninspired samey environments, and the biggest dick-waving competition of them all - the Dark Zone PvP. Oh well, our contender for first place in 2016's blandest games is here. Yahtzee getting bored, sick and tired of games before he gets to their worst parts is becoming a pattern, too.
 

JayDeth

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Yahtzee was so bored he didn't even talk about the bugs or the god-awful performance on the PC. I guess maybe he just thinks Ubisoft games playing like it's still in beta or even alpha testing just goes without saying.
 

Darth Rosenberg

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Oct 25, 2011
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That more or less describes my feelings seethingly perplexed rage-boredom at most things Ubisoft make. Are their games getting more Ubisoft-y? This and Far Cry Primal look like absolute nadirs of creative design.
 
Jan 27, 2011
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At least in Borderlands you can pick up a shotgun that shoots lightning in between mind controlling enemies to beat up their friends. :s I'm glad I have no interest in the division.
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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Ubisoft seems determined to only churn out one type of game nowadays, unaware that the sandbox genre is not some be-all, end-all apotheosis. Furthermore, the glut of sandbox games in the past ten years has allowed their flaws to shine through and are now open to scrutiny, such as the tedious commutes, the monotonous missions, and the atrocious pacing. And unfortunately no devs are really trying to remedy those issues.
 

Airon

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Jan 8, 2012
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Great work Yahtzee.

At shitless I almost went shitless with laughter. Almost.

I watched a couple of gameplay videos and it offered pretty much just what you mentioned. Even though I appreciate a good challenge to crack with a couple of willing secret police buddies, the bad guys seem overly bland, as do the weapons.

Maybe they should have crossed it with Left 4 Dead baddies to throw a few curve balls your way, and made it 1st person shooting to give it more excitement than the waiting in line at the post office on 5-stamps-for-the-price-of-6-day, if you could find a post office these days.
 

martyrdrebel27

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Feb 16, 2009
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i guess there's something wrong with me then, because i've been loving the division. the gunplay and combat in general is some of the most intense, hectic fun i've had in a game in a while.

I would recommend finding someone to play with and never not playing with them though, this seems infinitely more fun when i'm at my friend's house "LAN" ing this game.
 

09philj

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Spare a thought for the poor souls/masochists who played all the way to the endgame, so they could report that it too is mediocre.
 

Arnoxthe1

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Dec 25, 2010
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Pegged it, Yahtzee. So we all agree here at the Escapist pretty much, The Division is a boring PoS? Awesome.
 

Bindal

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May 14, 2012
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I enjoyed my time with the public beta and would consider getting the full game (but only at a massive discount). But I can see why most people would consider it dull, due the enemy variation being so minor. I'm just not the guy that really cares about variation with enemies. It's good when it's there, but I won't miss it when not.

And in regards to the "Tom Clancy" in the title - Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon keep it out of tradition (so will probably End War and Hawx games), The Division gets it simply because Red Storm was involved with it and "Tom Clancy" works better than "Red Storm" for marketing due the former being well known.
 

Steve the Pocket

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Mar 30, 2009
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Aiddon said:
Ubisoft seems determined to only churn out one type of game nowadays, unaware that the sandbox genre is not some be-all, end-all apotheosis. Furthermore, the glut of sandbox games in the past ten years has allowed their flaws to shine through and are now open to scrutiny, such as the tedious commutes, the monotonous missions, and the atrocious pacing. And unfortunately no devs are really trying to remedy those issues.
And I could almost forgive them for it if the goal was to get their money's worth on a single open-world game engine, but they keep creating brand new, proprietary, in-house engines for every. Single. Franchise. Is there any reason at all that they couldn't have used the Watch Dogs engine for this? Or even Assassin's Creed? EA may never manage to sell a single Frostbite license, but at least they've wrung more than one game out of it themselves.
 

Jeremiah Payne

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Mar 29, 2011
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If your partner keeps snoring while you are trying to sleep tell them to stop playing the Division...

Seriously I went to watch a livestream of this game, was bored of all of the game ideas within 5 minutes of watching it so I asked what the streamer said they liked about it. They replied "It has survival aspects that makes it different than most shooters" to which I replied what are they, "Oh you have to go get items for civilians to survive off, plus you have to craft what you need to progress"...

JUST PLAY ANY OTHER SHOOTER OR SURVIVAL GAME YOU ALREADY OWN THEN!!!

Rant over.
 

PunkRex

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Quick government sanctioned law enforcer, shoot those starving/scared looters and proceed to then loot them... AND THE HOOOOOOME OF THHHHHHE BRAAAAAAVE!!!
 

Adeptus Aspartem

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Jul 25, 2011
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And apparently it's still Ubisofts best selling game ever. And people wonder about why the AAA industry behaves the way it does - because people buy the grey sludge anyway.
 

Imp_Emissary

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Makabriel said:
But... I'm having fun with it

:(
Congratulations! :D
May you continue to have fun. With the Division. Over there.
Away from me. ;p

OT: Yeah. This fits what I've heard so far about it. Ultimately, not a bad game, but just very very VERY "okay".
They say the game is more fun with friends, but that's true of pretty much everything.

Tried Destiny when it was out and traded it in when I got bored. I doubt Destiny with more "realism" and no space magic will entertain me any longer.

That said.
May those who have found joy with it continue to. =w= b
 

FPLOON

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I'd rather masturbate to the Statue of Liberty's fire... But, I don't think you could even walk there, let alone dispatch yourself there via HELICOPTER!

Other than that, if that's the case, then the sequel would be an open world dating sim where various secret police members try to bone one another with their genitals rather than their bullets... However, if you don't use protection, then you get infected and die of the "Money Virus"...
JayDeth said:
Yahtzee was so bored he didn't even talk about the bugs or the god-awful performance on the PC. I guess maybe he just thinks Ubisoft games playing like it's still in beta or even alpha testing just goes without saying.
He was also so bored that he didn't even mention going "rogue" in that game!
 

Erttheking

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Adeptus Aspartem said:
And apparently it's still Ubisofts best selling game ever. And people wonder about why the AAA industry behaves the way it does - because people buy the grey sludge anyway.
I'm skeptical, considering that Ubisoft is saying the amount of money it made and not the number of copies it sold. When Halo 5 did this it turned out that it was counting the money made off of Xbox One bundles, and sure enough, similar bundles are being offered for the division.

OT: Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought the idea of secret government agents being prepared to take over sounded a little dodgy.