Also available on PlayStation 4 and Windows Years ago, I picked up The Division right when it came out solely based on how interesting the setting looked. Unfortunately, the game itself was, while not bad from an objective sense, very disappointing to me. As such, I avoided The Division 2 when it came out. I figured it would be more of the same, and I really wasn't interested in wasting time or money on that. My friend-slash-only-slightly-kidding-husband, Grant, however is a huge fan of the game and decided that he wanted to play it with me badly enough to buy a code online and give it to me to download. So here I am with The Division 2 downloaded on my Xbox. The game takes place a little bit after the first one, but instead of New York City, the setting here is Washington DC. That's already something I like better. The set-up of the game is identical; first person shooter action RPG, you have to be online even if you're playing solo, and you've got a main quest line with a bunch of side quests that range from substantial and story-related to utterly pointless. If you played the first game, you know how this one is going to go. Unfortunately, the story isn't really any better. There are a handful of factions fighting over control of DC, and you're an agent with the crumbling federal government. None of the characters are particularly memorable, and the story is about as generic and uninspired as it gets. Still, though, the missions themselves are a lot better designed than they were in the previous game. The first game felt genuinely monotonous pretty much from start to finish; if you were playing with friends, it was downright boring at times. This game, however, is at least fun to play, and the mission environments are a lot more varied making the locations at least interesting even if what you're doing with respect to the narrative and world isn't. Generally speaking, FPS RPGs are a hard sell for me. It just bothers me when I shoot someone directly in the fact with a sniper rifle, and it only takes away like a tenth of their health. I'll fully admit that this isn't exactly a consistent complaint as it's never bothered me in other RPGs when stabbing an enemy through the chest with a sword only takes away a tenth of their health, but for whatever reason, my disbelief is a lot harder to suspend with shooters, so this was never going to be a game "for me," so to speak. That said, I have to admit that I do enjoy playing this with Grant. It looks good for a last-gen game even if the faces and hair have some jank reminiscent of the Mass Effect trilogy, and it the gunplay is really solid feels great. There is, of course, your typical Ubisoft shenanigans with bugs here; I had missions not trigger properly, enemies just kind of float in the air, and menus bug out on occasion. Note the way my character is sitting "in the boat" in the screenshot below. Still, though, it was much less of a buggy mess than most of Ubisoft's games, so kudos for that, I guess. I did, however, play two years after launch, so I feel like that's kind of praising the bare minimum. The Division 2 is a solid FPS RPG, and while the story and characters are still just as boring and bland-as-can-be as the first game, the actual gameplay and mission design have been significantly improved, and I feel like that's definitely the most important thing here. I, as a rule, despise games that require an internet connection despite being playable completely solo, but if you can find this on sale for $20 or less, I can't say that it's a bad purchase provided that you have friends to play with you; it's definitely fun if you've got a team. My Rating - C |
I'm a teacher.And I like to play video games. I like to collect video games. I like to talk about video games, and I like to write about video games. During the day, I teach high school history; during the night, I spend my spare time gaming. Then I write about it. Archives
May 2024
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