In case you live under a rock, I’m sure you noticed that The Division Beta happened, and to be honest, it was surprisingly alright… Turns out that this particular Tom Clancy game is a mixture of Borderlands, Destiny and a fairly basic kind of MMO, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, it’s just not what I thought it would be. I did enjoy it, though, it was rather fun to play, and while there was an obvious graphical downgrade, the game was still a pretty thing to look at, hopefully, they beef up the graphics at release.
In the beginning of the beta, you start off with customising your character, which is really basic, I’m sure that will be more in depth for release, though. You then have a cut scene on a chopper with a woman called Faye Lau, who is basically your character’s boss throughout the beta and chats to you while you wander the area. Then you get to play the game, and while the gameplay is solid enough, I did find it a little “meh” at times, mostly because it played a lot like Spec Ops: The Line, and felt all too much like it at times. The way the game feels like Borderlands is due to the weapons, you get colour coded guns with grey being rubbish, green being okay, blue good and purple great (sorry if I get something wrong).
From what I did play, though, it feels like there is the potential for a fantastic game here, I thoroughly enjoyed playing it for the few hours I managed to squeeze in. I feel one glaring problem is the bullet sponging enemies, I thought with it being a Tom Clancy game it would be more realistic in that sense. There is a simple fix for it, though, all Ubisoft have to do is add more enemies who are more realistic to shoot at, rather than fewer enemies who eat up headshots like peanuts.
I’ll give this game another shot at release because I hope Ubisoft listen to the constructive criticism given to them for this beta. Tom Clancy is a franchise that I’m a huge fan of and either way I’ll enjoy this game, but with the few fixes they could implement this game could be right up there with the best of the Tom Clancy games!
