First, a quick rating in 1-5 stars *



Lots of praise to this game despite some very bitter remarks in this review. I still play this game despite how stoooopid this game can be but as a genuine RPG lover I already know how to enjoy the good and endure the bad that comes with all RPGs. Bad things such as ridiculous damage sponge enemies, level difference penalties, unrealistic combat, hordes of enemies, enemy spawn nonsense, insane sick disgusting difficulty one moment and then super easy difficulty the next moment, death penalties, item costs, gear rarity issues, and general issues with leveling balances or progress impediments. Yep, this is an RPG through and through!!



Animations: **

-Enemies often move, idle, run and die in very comical ways. In fact, you might watch the enemies and think aloud, "What was that? Seriously???" For example, some of the gangsters wiggle and bobble like a cross between boxers hopping around like Muhammad Ali and zombies scrambling or shuffling. Not exaggerating. Memorizing enemy animations is key to headshot skills, so believe me, these animations are borderline silly at times.



Shooting/Smoothness: *****

-The gun mechanics are buttery smooth. Not only are there no complaints, but this game achieves what I only wish other similar games like Borderlands tried to do. Some games people just can't get the knack of, but in this game whether I used a shotgun, sniper rifle, machine gun or pistol, I felt epic and the shooting was incredible



RPG Elements: ****

-This game is VERY similar in game play and RPG mixture styles to Borderlands and Destiny. Loved Borderlands but hated its shooting, all around hated Destiny. This game is takes the best. The RPG elements are more diluted but the talents and perks system work just like it. I only wish Borderlands was this smooth.



Action and Mission Basics:

-Basically nonstop but plenty of time to explore without constant spawns breaking down the quiet exploration of the dying city. Side missions get very repetitive fast but reaching level 30 and burning a week on this game is well played time because the world and RPG elements keep you going strong to get great gear and blast more heads with fewer shots, amplifying the action it offers. Despite the repetition, anyone who has ever loved RPGs like Path of Exile, DOTA or Diablo 2 will not be bothered at all by the side missions, in fact the predictable nature of them are a comfort since you have a foreknowledge of what the mission will throw at you, giving you the ability to plan, predict, and even wander safely into much higher level areas. A little knowledge is a lot of power in this game.



Graphics: *****

-Beats the Witcher 3 and GTA5 by a fair bit, but it helps that this game uses so much shadow-play in the landscape to really achieve its look. The game is nothing shy of visually impeccable. Though games like the Witcher 3 and GTA5 take on far more effects in their worlds, there is plenty of light, weather and atmospheric changes in Division to still say its visually superior to either of these games. If you can run GTA5 and Witcher 3 on max like I can (R9 390 35-45 FPS) then this game will run fine. I average 50 FPS all graphics maxed with minor dips here and there. Most PC Ubisoft games run about as smoothy as a person being thrown in a woodchipper but Ubisoft looks like to have achieved better optimizations in this game than its previous games.



Story: *

-What story? Not really any story, but more like snippets of peoples' experiences strewn throughout the world. Doom 3 had a similar method to allow the player to hear the story but even its story and delivery was wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better. hence the 1 star on this facet of the game. That should give you an idea! It bothers me that the previews and trailers for the game made the Division look like an epic story but saying there is no story at all is almost totally accurate. The voice acting and dialogue is oppressively depressing, generic and dissatisfying. One of the characters Faye Lau talks over walkie-talkie a lot during missions and she irritated me the entire game. Her dialogue is so bad! Oh my lands, so bad! And you're going to hear it a lot since this game will make you grind main missions to get great gear. You will memorize the bland, sparse dialogue better than Jack Van Impe quotes the Bible!!!! The game's story is barely more than cliche chatter. For heaven's sake, it's irritating to be called "Agent." Every five seconds you're called Agent, but that would make sense for a fully customized character, but Division has only character presets. The character creation is not fit to even be called character customization. There's no reason why you, the player, should not have a voice in the game and a name. There really is NOTHING holding this game together beyond gear hunting and shooting people.



DARK ZONE: *

-This is where the game dies, fayls, explodes with misery and causes casual players to rage quit or have to buy a new monitor from the FURY this zone induces in anyone who just wants to get in, get some needed gear then GTFO asap because even getting out is almost impossible. So you hit level 30 in the story world, you beat the story missions, completed your Base of Operations and now you don't know what to do. Your regular Credits no longer have use, and then you realize you've started earning minuscule amounts of Phoenix Credits and on top of it when you go into the Dark Zone entrance you see gear selling for DZ Funds... 3 currencies in one game? And the prices are astronomical. Astronomical, as in the word "astronomy" denoting stellar distances lol because that's how far you'll have to go to get a single piece of high end gear from a vendor!! Get in your rocket ship to spend the next 81,000 years flying at 35,000MPH to reach our nearest star Proxima Centauri, lol or I should say to buy one item that is of scarce improvement over your current gear.

.....

Well, screw that, you'll just go find the gear instead! So you go out into the DZ to hunt DZ money, phoenix credits and high end drops from elite named baddies and try to do your thing to keep the game going. But then a 4 man rogue party comes and shoots you dead in one bullet because they are geared to the teeth, then they steal your DZ Funds, all the loot you found and you de-level from death penalties in the DZ (not actual level, your DZ level which opens up new gear to buy and find). Wow, ok, maybe it was bum luck. You go back in and...a mob of lv32 all Elite enemies spawns ON TOP OF YOU quite literally. They aren't even fully loaded yet but they are already shooting you dead. You run away down the block to take cover and regroup your position to tactically kill then but then another mob of Superior enemies spots you and also starts shooting from down the other road you ran down. So then you barely run away from the two mobs but then run INTO ANOTHER MOB and ANOTHER and ANOTHER until you run out of health packs and cannot even run anymore. So you take cover, deploy some healing skills and slowly regenerate your health. Oh if only it were that easy, the enemies RUSH you relentlessly no matter how many you kill in a row. Some tactical shooter my butt! Then really grit your teeth to die like a man and so you plop down to fight in your new corner. About halfway into the 10 mobs chasing you, rushing you, grenading you out of your precious cover (heaven forbid if they even twitched a muscle when you throw a grenade) you realize you're out of ammo because every enemy takes about 15 (LITERALLY) perfectly aimed 150,000 damage headshots. So you finally say SCREW THIS when you see a gap in the mob and make a desperate run to a nearby safe room. SORRY, you cannot enter the SAFE ROOM while enemies are chasing you...WHAA? How is a safe room even safe if you CAN'T take refuge there when you actually need to be safe from danger? Why not call it a USELESS ROOM? So before the enemies catch up, you try to make a break for the DZ exit. Sorry, you can't leave the DZ while in combat. You turn around but see no one. Oh wait, the mob that is 10 blocks away is still chasing you despite the tremendous gap between you and them. So then they catch up and guess what? You get gunned down at the exit door with no med kits and no ammo and no special abilities. You're beaten down like a whipped dog. Worn down by their relentless, irritating, unrealistic pursuit. Why do they pursue you? Because. And guess what? That half hour you spent trying to escape them? Guess what it got you? De-leveled again and lost even more money. Guess what again? The game spawns you at the nearest Safe House. You still have to run 10 blocks through enemies just to exit the DZ hahahaha. How cruel. How sickly cruel. And you will have to keep running and dying like this until you finally get out successfully or you will be trapped in the DZ literally forever. So then you finally leave and a week later after foolishly forgetting how ridiculously overpowering the enemies are, you come back with epic gear and die again like a dog. So, now you're mad. You get your buddies to buy the game. You make yourself a great team of 4 people. Yeah now we're talking, those elite enemies are melting like butter now. Look at all of that great gear they drop when they actually die! Oh man! This is great! At least until a hacker or exploiter comes and kills your entire team with one grenade that does 20,000,000 damage (LITERALLY), steals all of your teams' gear and money. Ok maybe it's just one jerk in thousands being a loser. Let's not get too discouraged because we were on a roll! We can do this! Then you repeat, you spend 2 hours killing special named enemies for drops and finally you and your team call in a helicopter to extract all the great contaminated loot you found in the DZ in order to permanently keep it (all gear must be extracted to actually keep it all). The helicopter takes 90 seconds to come. Alright, here comes the swarms of baddies to try to thwart your success! As you're killing all of the baddies down drops a rope to hang all your loot on to extract and then BANG. During the chaos of the fighting a very high gear scored (204+) rogue party shoots you all down in half a second, kills the remaining baddies you were painstakingly fending off with hard work and effort, then they steal your entire teams' gear and money THEN USES YOUR HELICOPTER TO EXTRACT THE GEAR YOU SPENT 2 HOURS HUNTING. Ok, get the picture? Don't go into the freaking dark zone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The hackers are every where. I can't emphasize this enough. This rant above is a real experience. There is NO exaggeration in here. This is a real, actual Dark Zone grinding experience. I reached level 38 in the DZ, I have a gear score of 169, 90,000 health and 150,000 damage per headshot and these rogues don't just gun me and my team down, THEY PASTE US UTTERLY because even when they aren't cheating they are also totally outclassing you gear-wise. I can get headshots all day long without missing but the RPG elements in this game negate actual skill in many instances.



In Call of Duty a headshot is difficult yet rewarding as it offers an instant kill like in real life. In this game you can dump 800 bullets into an enemy's face and the guy will still be no where near death. While the enemies are no where near as bad as ones in Destiny, this is the major annoyance as Tom Clancey games have always at least attempted some modicum of realistic combat. Well kiss that goodbye in this game. This game is much more like Borderlands and Destiny than it is like any shooter you've likely ever played.



Overall I love this game. Just stay the hell out of the Dark Zone for heaven's sake!