The Division (PS4, XBO, PC)

[amnesiac]

ok dis is gonna be HOOGE, HOOGE I TELLS YA

A new open world third-person-shooter (!) set in Manhattan and being touted as a 'Destiny killer'.

Apparently every single Destiny player has had enough (I haven't played it in ages) and will jump on board this thing.

There's a Beta from tomorrow to the end of Jan.

Deets of how to take part and not actually have to spend the £80 (for the PS4 Gold pre-order at least) are here:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/heres-how-to-get-the-divisions-ps4-beta-without-sp/1100-6434175/

It looks flippin good! This is weird but I can't remember many/any games set in Manhattan.. must be me.

[ArchieGemmel]

I have the Beta loaded up and ready to go when I  get home from work. Really hoping it's good am trying to be cautiously optimistic after being burned by Watch Dogs. The premise and gameplay is right up my alley though.

[Lee Van Cleef]

Played a couple of hours of the beta last night and really enjoyed it. Looking forward to this now.

[ArchieGemmel]

I've played the one mission you have access to and the side-quests. Enjoyed it, shooting feels better than I was expecting and when you move between cover and use grenades etc it comes together pretty well. I think it will be lots of fun to play with a few friends.

The city feels so empty though, which I realise is the point of the game but when you're not shooting people it's just trudging through all these empty spaces. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of shortcuts so you constantly have to double back on yourself if you do go exploring. Maybe that's just in the beta though as certain areas are blocked off.

Dark Zone seems a bit weak at the moment but that might be because there's no loot worth getting in there currently. It's fun to team up to take out 'rogue agents' though.

[amnesiac]

I'm not sure I enjoyed it. I also felt the City was empty, there were plenty of objects but hardly anything to interact with and I was just blindly following the orange beam taking me to my destination. I was a bit 'do you actually need me to do this?'. I don't think this is a beta issue as that first mission seemed complete. I kept comparing it to FO4 and it felt a bit weedy, I'm not a big fan of TPS, I don't feel as connected.

I lasted about 5s in the darkzone and think I invited friendly fire by not knowing wtf I was doing, there was a helicopter, people were running around, things happened.

I liked the vertical beacons of light showing where stash is on people you murder.

Do I cancel the pre-order?!!

[Thursday]

Yes, because there's no need to pre-order it, just buy it if you decide you want it at the time.

[amnesiac]

That's true enough, the pre-order has some extra stuff, usual bribery, but it's EIGHTY QUID on PSN! I'm out.

Just checked and the 'Sleeper Agent' edition on Amazon is £100 but you get a fake watch at least.

[Pinckle Wicker]

So is the Beta gone now? I tried on Monday to do the old pre-order then get Beta and then cancel but got fuck all when I went to get the Beta. Really like the look of this as well.

[Shay Chaise]

I heard there will be a public open beta before the final release. Seems the previous open beta was successful and some more positive reports after recent concerns from that XB1 footage.

[ArchieGemmel]

I cancelled my pre-order. I want to hear wether the missions are decent, and fully formed rather than just being stuck in there so you grind for XP.

I hope they sort out the HUD, there's far too much shit on the screen, and as amnesiac says you spend half the game following an orange beam and not concentrating on whats around you.

[Pinckle Wicker]

New mission footage out on IGN. http://uk.ign.com/articles/2016/02/19/the-division-multi-channel-late-game-mission-ign-first-placeholder

It does look like will be a great co-op team game along the lines of L4D but more mission based.

[Undercoverman]

There's an open beta running at the moment for one more day (today), which you can download through Ubisoft's Steam equivalent, Uplay.

I was playing it last night. The beta's (obviously) hugely limited and I've now exhausted the available missions and upgrades. I grouped up with a bunch of yanks last night (chiefly because I was playing at a stupidly early time in the morning) and once I had levelled up, I had a great time in the Dark Zone, which is really where the interest lies outside of trying to score sweet loot. It's well worth mic'ing up and chatting as, aside from the obvious benefits for teamwork, in the Dark Zone your group's chatter is overheard.

There was one hilarious moment where a bunch of people we were looking to gank heard one of our party's strategising about how we were going to bait them into attacking us and going rogue (the dynamic in the DZ is that those who attack get marked and the rest of the players in that zone immediately start to converge because the rewards for retribution are huge). Lesson learned there. A few pitched battles with a chinese group of players as well. The whole DZ/extraction dynamic leads to some fraught moments as it encourages players to converge but Ubi are really going to need to introduce more variety into both the DZ and everywhere else to keep people interested.

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

Played the Beta and enjoyed it for a bit but I'm not sure about buying it yet. Couldn't stand Destiny so this might not be my bag.

[Undercoverman]

I ended up pairing with an absolute lunatic in the Dark Zone, who was insistent upon causing trouble all the time. We weren't even that high in level at the time, and I spent most of my time playing peacemaker trying to convince the badasses walking around to "just leave it, mate... leave it, we're going". You can get heavily punished for going rogue and you should only really do it when you know you can get away with it. Like an idiot, I'd added him as a friend before realising how much of a nightmare it would be trying to manage his behaviour, and as entertaining as I'm sure it was for everyone else, I've got to somehow either lose the guy before the full game comes out in two weeks, or spend my time trying to avoid him. As Uplay's privacy options are dogshit, I'm anticipating an awkward moment where we run by one another in the DZ.

Also - stuff like this happens constantly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0yEWvLRE4Q

[mobias]

Quite tempted to get this. I desperately need a new game to span the time between now and Uncharted 4 coming out, along with the Witcher 3 Blood and Wine DLC. Its going to be a busy Summer of staying indoors in front of a screen again.

The attention to detail in the physics is incredible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKtjDDsO6Y4&feature=youtu.be 

[Pinckle Wicker]

Yeah am seriously thinking of getting this for ps4. Anyone got the full version yet?

[Onken]

I didn't touch the beta or watch any videos. Two of my mates are getting it so I've just walked over to Sainsburys and picked it up for £41.99. Installing now on Xbox One.

[Benjaminos]

Played a couple of hours on the PS4 so far. I was hoping it was going to be the new Destiny, as loads of places have touted it - it's more like a multiplayer Mass Effect though. Lots of finding a position in cover and taking potshots at people, with your stats/skills dictating how much damage you do. There's some skill to it too, obviously - headshots do more damage and the like, but overall it's quite a perfunctory third-person shooter, as opposed to the nigh-perfect gunplay of Destiny.

Either it'll really shine in the endgame, or it's just.. fine. Not sure which yet, but it's not exactly blowing my socks off - that's not to say it's bad, it's perfectly enjoyable. It's just not spectacular.

[Pinckle Wicker]

Was it the same price for PS4 Onken?

[Onken]

Yeah should think so.

[Shay Chaise]

Isn't it basically Tom Clancy Future Soldier with more grinding for gear? That's a fine game but it's as pure a cover shooter as you could ask for. This looks identical in mechanics, if not presentation. I don't really understand where the hype has come from beyond the early graphics videos.

[mobias]

Going to catch up with some youtube footage of this before deciding whether or not to buy. I'm so much less daring when it comes to buying games these days. I want to be as convinced as possible I'm going to like it before buying. Certainly not buying from the PS Store though - 55 quid for a download your can't even trade in. Bollocks to that.

[Benjaminos]

Hnngh. I'd like this a hell of a lot more if I didn't spend twenty minutes working my way to the end of a story mission, only to be booted out to the title screen with a message saying 'the division online services are not available at this time'. And who doesn't implement in-mission checkpoints, in this day and age? Fucking thing.

[Pinckle Wicker]

Going to catch up with some youtube footage of this before deciding whether or not to buy. I'm so much less daring when it comes to buying games these days. I want to be as convinced as possible I'm going to like it before buying. Certainly not buying from the PS Store though - 55 quid for a download your can't even trade in. Bollocks to that.

Am the same, i need to be convinced will get some decent time in before a purchase these days. Not like my old buy most games willy-nilly back in my 360 days, of which some have hardly been played past the first hour.

[mobias]

Watching clips on Youtube the game really isn't doing much for me I must say. Lots of running around shooting people in a beautifully rendered but otherwise dull looking New York with the same washed out colours most games of this type seem to have. It also seems to be a total UI head fuck, and some people on Neogaf are reporting this, which is another thing I hate in games these days. The whole premise of the game seems fairly dull too. Think I'll pass on this.

Uncharted 4 can't come soon enough. I badly need a new game in my life.

[Onken]

Four hours is and I think it's alright.

[Undercoverman]

Get yourselves in the Dark Zone early on. Not that it's of any benefit to your progression, as it's totally worthless to your character to go in low - the first bracket is 1-14 and you'll spend your time avoiding mobs which can easily crush you, as well as other players. Being hopelessly outmatched and trying to sneak out a good weapon is great fun though... even if you can't use them because they're level locked. It's just constant anxiety, trying to navigate a nightmare where almost everything can kill you quickly and easily... Completely at the mercy of other players. I at least managed to get myself a decent M1A, which is waiting in my stash for when I reach level 10.

[Benjaminos]

This seems to have Borderlands syndrome, where if you don't have a decent gun, it's no fun. I've switched to marksman rifles now, and I'm enjoying myself much more - got myself a scope with extra experience and damage for headshots, and I'm just popping heads like there's no tomorrow.

The setting is very dull though. Only two factions of bad guys, a largely empty city to run around in, and no real flavour to the whole thing. But then sometimes it switches to some weird forced humour (like the woman at your main camp who has no confidence in you staying alive, or the safe house commander who used to be a TV star), and it's very jarring. You can't have it both ways - either you go full po-faced paramilitary wank fantasy, or you go the sense of humour route. The two just don't go together.

[mobias]

Great photo of people queuing inside the game. Reminds of me of the queues you had to stand in in Warhawk do get your jetpack from the jetpack dispenser at the start of each round.

[lazarou]

The setting is very dull though. Only two factions of bad guys, a largely empty city to run around in, and no real flavour to the whole thing.

Real-world settings don't really lend themselves all that well to this kind of game, I feel. With Destiny there's all kinds of funky business you can play around with, but here it feels like it'll mostly be a succession of fairly similar assault rifles and hats/hoodies. On top of that, it's mostly the same bunch of weapons you've been playing around with in every modern-day shooter of the last few years. Which is fine in itself, but doesn't really lend itself to interesting and exotic gear to pine after in quite the same way.