Tom Clancy is a US techno-fiction writer who writes literary thrillers and computer game scripts. One of those is Tom Clancy's The Division. Reviews characterize the project from different angles. The article will discuss whether it is worth playing or not.
About the project
The plot of the game Tom Clancy's The Division is based on the idea of a viral terrorist attack that has put the world's population on the brink of extinction. The gamer will have to get used to the role of an operative of the Division squad, the last hope of mankind.
The story is based on a real scenario developed in the United States in 2001 based on a simulation in which terrorists infect 3,000 people in a shopping mall.
The purpose of the unit's existence is to preserve the remnants of civilization and restore the lost order. In peacetime, members of the "Division" function as sleeper agents: they lead a calm, measured life, work to support their families, but are ready to mobilize at the right time.
Tom release dateClancy's The Division - March 8, 2016 for Xbox, PlayStation 4 and PC. In the first week, the project broke sales records, bringing developers $ 330 million, then the players lost interest in the product, but the creators worked on the bugs and the number of users returned to the original mark.
The game was released in three formats:
- Gold edition. Includes National Guard season pass and addon.
- Sleeper Agent Edition - a copy of the wrist bag and watch of a member of the "Division", a brochure with art on the game, a poster, a collector's package and a subscription with the Hazmat Gear Set DLC.
- Exclusive edition. In addition to the game, there is a mini-game box, a poster, 4 sets of equipment inside.
The method of bringing the project to the public is reminiscent of Diablo 3: downloading hacked versions from torrents is useless, because an Internet connection is required for a comfortable game. Some missions cannot be completed alone, and PvP mode will not work.
Purchasing Tom Clancy's The Division includes a subscription for a year, add-ons are purchased separately. Those who want to save guard discounts. Gamers who fork out to pre-order get a solid edition with a bunch of goodies and beautiful design.
Perks
Tom Clancy's The Division gives you the chance to roam the streets of a detailed post-apocalyptic Manhattan. Once there, it's best to head straight to the news stand at Camp Hudson. The received tasks differ from those issued on the basis of the "Division". There are three available for improvement.perk branches.
Security Wing:
- Experienced agent - free perk increases experience by 10%. Helps in leveling the character. Opening information - displays intelligence that was not taken into account when completing the quest, will help you get the most experience from passing.
- Shooting Range - Unlocks talents: Desperate Time (increases blind fire accuracy by 20% when on low he alth) and Stopping Power (damage to enemies increases by 25%).
- Grenades/Advanced weapons - both perks are unwise to activate at the beginning of the game due to lack of funds. Adds slots for grenades and a merchant for advanced guns.
Medicine Wing:
- Credit - the player receives 10% more money.
- First-aid kits - additional slots for medicines open.
Technique Wing:
- Inventory - adds 10 slots to the backpack.
- Dark Zone Resources - Items found in the Dark Zone are increased by 10%.
- Engineer/Materials of the Division - opens two talents, allows you to create the necessary items from improvised means. It is better to open after learning crafting.
- Hazardous Materials - Adds an inventory slot. There are similar skills in other wings.
Tips
The passage of Tom Clancy's The Division becomes more convenient when using teleportation: the map opens, the site is selected and the movement is made. The method eliminates tedious walks from one location to another.
The map plots a standard route from the start point to the end point, regardlesscaches, underground passages and loopholes with secrets.
Eliminating wild dogs from the streets increases experience, and doing what you can to help the locals unlocks new equipment. Equipment parameters are different even if the level is the same: typical for any MMO.
Tom Clancy's The Division walkthrough will be more pleasant when moving unnecessary things to the "junk" section - the template saves space in the backpack and time when selling: the "sell all junk" button transfers the accumulated to the seller.
Assigning hotkeys will help you react faster in battle: it is useful to prescribe a first-aid kit for prompt healing of wounds. If you remove the damage pop-up marks in the settings, the game screen will not look busy. This is useful in fast-paced fights in confined spaces (such as the Dark Zone).
The corner avoidance option is set for the correct passage of locations with a large number of enemies: in order not to abruptly jump out of cover under the barrels of machine guns. You can give a group a command to attack by highlighting enemy units with the gamepad's D-pad or by pressing the Z key.
Weapons
Damage stat is not critical: attention is focused on critical hits, single bullet hitting factors, and horn capacity. Weapons in Tom Clancy's The Division have different uses:
- Assault rifle - good for mid-range encounters due to recoil. If you get used to it, you can use it in close combat.
- Lightweight machine gun - a team battle weapon for barrage and suppressive fire. Less recoil than an assault rifle.
- Submachine gun - useful for repelling the threat of small concentrations of unarmed enemies and is used when changing the location and moving between shelters in small dashes.
- Pistol - popular in PvP mode. When the ammo runs out, and the enemy is not yet defeated, it is wiser to get a pistol than to reload the main weapon. If the player uses a shield, the gun is carefully selected.
- The sniper rifle doesn't stand out except for long range shooting and extra points for headshots.
- The shotgun is indispensable in head-on collisions, but one bad shot can shift the chances of victory towards the enemy.
Weapon upgrades are a sure way to get the upper hand in PvP and PvE. High recoil weapons are used when an enemy approaches for blind shooting.
Inventory
It's impossible to play Tom Clancy's The Division, like any MMO project, without using the menu. Stocks are opened by holding the medpack button, there is food among the ammo:
- bars remove negative buffs;
- canned food speeds up he alth recovery by 40%;
- using water increases damage to special troops by 20%;
- soda reduces perk cooldown by 30%.
Chests
Secret boxes are found in different places: it is not easy to find even with knowledge of the location. Upon opening, a random item drops out depending on the level of the player: items of equipment, parts forweapon upgrades or credits.
Locations with secret boxes:
- Central Station. In the southern part of the map, there is a staircase at the Murray Hill sign leading to the upper floors. The chest lies behind the door with the sign "High Voltage".
- Consulate of Russia. Go through the library and find a room with surveillance monitors (the door next to the laptop). The cache lies under the flag.
- General Assembly. Inside the building (to the right of the entrance) there are many boxes. A secret is hidden in the center.
- Times Square substation. The ladder leading to the crate is by the statue on Broadway.
- Field hospital in MSG. In the stadium, to the left of the elevator, there is a door to the contaminated area with a chest.
- Checkpoint in the Lincoln Tunnel. After dismantling with the bandits, the player climbs the rope to the top floor, on the left is a cache.
- Shopping Center on Broadway. After destroying the enemies, the player goes to the basement to activate the fire extinguishing systems. To the left of the exit is a closed door that needs to be opened.
- Amherst's apartment. The assignment originates in the south of Clinton. First, the gamer eliminates enemies on the way to the building, then climbs the stairs to the roof.
- The Lexington Conference Room. To the left of the entrance to the building there is a main staircase that you need to go up, then turn to the fire entrance and go down to the room with the mannequins.
- Police Academy. To get to the location, you will need to respond to the signal for help and eliminate the threat in the parking lot, then take the elevator and open the white door with a lockpick.
- Repeater on the roof. Atreceiving the task "go to the antenna", get on the roof and inspect the place: the box is next to the dead soldier.
- Morgue in the subway. A side quest that requires the fuses to be reset will lead to a room with faulty lighting. The freight elevator will lead to a niche in the wall where the secret is hidden.
- Warrengate Power Plant. In the dispatcher's room, among the lockers and boxes, there is a chest with loot.
Some boxes require keys - you can find them at the guards of elite facilities.
Dark Zone
This is the name of the dangerous area of New York in Tom Clancy's The Division in Russian. In the English original - Dark Zone. The area on the map is marked in black and red tones, contains the best equipment, dangerous opponents (NPCs) and the danger of colliding with other players in the fight for loot.
The entrances are marked in purple on the map. You can climb over the fence, but then there is a risk of being in a difficult situation, and there will be no way back (you won’t be able to go back).
Chaos reigns in the Dark Zone, so you should thoroughly prepare for the trip there:
- pump at least to the seventh level;
- get better gear;
- take melee and ranged weapons;
- stock up on first aid kits and grenades.
Location points worth paying attention to:
- Safety Rooms - individual shelters within the zone, allocated to players and teams, where they replenish he alth, take a breath between street skirmishes and exchange with fences.
- Sights -places with valuable loot guarded by elite bots.
- Evacuation points - places in different areas of the Dark Zone, where a helicopter is called to transport the items found.
It's not easy to attack players: the first to open fire is marked on the map with a red glyph as a criminal, and bounty hunters immediately react to it, flocking like moths to the light. Eliminating the violator promises high rewards.
Gamers go for tricks: shoot a potential victim under the feet or carefully above the head. Beginners tend to panic and shoot back. When hit back, the victim is marked as a criminal, and the fighter who started the mess is already considered to be on the defensive and, if the criminal is eliminated, he receives points and enemy loot.
Thugs stray into criminal gangs: difficult to eliminate, and the "criminal scale" is growing. Upon reaching the maximum performance as an intruder, bonuses are awarded and the red glyph disappears.
It's easy to make a gang with online friends. Otherwise, you have to rely on luck.
Positive Feedback
Tom Clancy's The Division attracts graphics, gameplay and atmosphere. A third-person shooter with a dynamic open world and the ability to play alone, periodically colliding with other gamers. According to feedback, the game is based on a concept from Destiny.
You can play with friends, while they can run in different parts of the map. Having united in a detachment, they will become a strong combat unit, but this is not at allrequired.
Clings detailed study of the atmosphere of an abandoned city. Singleplayer fans complete all missions in a couple of weeks: tasks like searching for missing agents, dossiers and telephone records are easy to complete.
Some side missions are more interesting than the main ones, but there are tasks that require the efforts of the team. If friends are unavailable, the player search system is used.
Negative opinions
According to reviews, Tom Clancy's The Division is considered a failed project among fans of the genre. When the enthusiasm for the graphics fades, the monotony of the gameplay opens up to the eye: quests are reduced to killing and gathering for the sake of more killing and gathering.
In the Dark Zone, advanced PvP players take the path of least resistance and ambush evacuation points, which saddens honest players as all hard-earned loot disappears.
The system requirements of Tom Clancy's The Division scare away gamers: it draws on powerful i5 generation processors, and bugs and friezes force you to reduce graphics settings to a minimum.
The abundance of cheaters, who showed themselves even in the early stages after the release, scared away many players, and paid add-ons added fuel to the fire.
Cheating
The headache of developers and the reason for the dissatisfaction of fans of third-person shooters is cheats. Tom Clancy's The Division is no exception - there are freely available programs that edit various gameplay parameters: recoil, aiming and accuracy.
From macros on the mouse to auto aiming at the enemy's head - everything is used in the name ofunfairly gaining dominance.
System Requirements
Tom Clancy's The Division on PC has minimum and recommended requirements, which is not surprising for games with detailed graphics.
Minimum configs you can play with on low settings:
- Operating system: Windows 7 SP1/8/8, 1/10.
- 3.1GHz Intel Core i5 2400 processor or 3.3GHz AMD equivalent.6GB RAM.
- Video card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 or equivalent from AMD Radeon HD 7770.
- 40 GB free hard disk space.
Recommended system requirements for Tom Clancy's The Division:
- i7-3770 generation processor @ 3.5GHz or AMD FX-8350 @ 3GHz.
- 8 GB RAM or higher.
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX graphics card with 4 GB or more memory. An analogue may be AMD Radeon R9.
Otherwise, everything is the same as at the minimum. The game is adapted for two monitors for greater immersion. The display is configured in the user interface. With the latest graphics cards, you can enjoy a comfortable experience with NVIDIA's Surround and AMD's Eyefinity technology.
Bugs
Connoisseurs unwittingly encounter incorrect work almost after deciding to install Tom Clancy's The Division. Both minor freezes and freezes, and crashes from the game at the wrong time, upset the players.
There are also"fun" bugs like gaps in textures, walking through the air, disappearing guns and characters sliding on the ground (like on a skating rink).
Everything is fixed by updating the drivers to the latest version, reinstalling the game and lowering the settings in favor of performance.
If Tom Clancy's The Division won't start, reinstalling will help: there were errors during the installation or a crash occurred that damaged the game files.
Verdict
Summarizing, it should be said that the game is designed for an amateur. According to reviews, Tom Clancy's The Division does not keep the gamer long and turns into a shooter for an after-work evening to relax and chat with friends.
The project should be given credit for the graphics: every brick, graffiti stains on the walls and plaster chips in the room have been worked out. The project appealed to those who like to wander through the recently bustling buildings, covered with snow and abandoned by a man.
Mechanics ruin a great idea and disappoint customers: under a bright wrapper in the form of a graphic component, there was a perishable product that got bored after two or three trips to the Dark Zone.
Armed clashes with bots are monotonous: they come down to hide-and-seek with skirmishes. Large NPCs periodically come to the rear and inspire fear, but with a cooperative game, the danger factor is minimized, because someone is constantly covering.
Malignant enemies outwardly do not differ from less dangerous ones: they are distinguished only by the amount spent on killingammunition.
The release of the sequel - Tom Clancy's The Division 2 - is scheduled for March 15, 2019. The squad will have to restore order in Washington, where a full-scale civil war has begun between the surviving civilians and close-knit mafia groups.
According to Ubisoft, during the development of the game, the mistakes of the first part were taken into account, the new product will be better. Gamers will be able to team up in raids of 8 people and complete difficult quests.
New storylines and game modes announced, as well as three edition formats:
- Standard Edition.
- Gold Edition.
- Ultimate Edition.
The Annual Pass is only available in the last two editions, and all bonus items will only be available to Ultimate Edition owners.
It is not known how developed the storyline of the project will be. BioWare also made it clear with the Dragon Age and Mass Effect trilogy projects that gamers like a non-linear plot, when every action affects subsequent events. In such conditions, every step and phrase in the dialogue is thought out.
The existence of such products overshadows the monotonous "kill for the sake of killing" shooting games. Sometimes with cheats. Tom Clancy's The Division does not present a new gaming experience: weapons do not differ fundamentally from guns in other projects.
The essence is the same: a shotgun for close combat, a sniper rifle for long-range combat, an assault rifle for medium ranges, a submachine gun for something in between, a regular pistol for emergencies. Nothing new.
A question arisesabout the goal pursued by the developers, other than earning enough money.
Creative people hunt for such releases to get ideas from abandoned cities and feel the atmosphere of the End of the World. However, after a couple of dozens of successful screenshots of high-quality locations, the toy is abandoned. Coming back to get a couple of new ones.
Jumping gamers who jump from one shooting game to another are bound to stumble upon Tom Clancy's The Division for its colorful graphics and stunning trailers. They are delayed for a short time: they return to another project, and then back to the "Division".
This is absolutely normal given the evolving gaming industry around the world. The novelty of the product is doubtful, as is the usefulness, but in view of the positive reviews, someone still likes it.
Recommended for gamers to check out due to the colorful graphics and the atmosphere of desolation. It is not worth getting stuck in the game for a long time: you will quickly get bored and there will be a temptation to donate more, which is not very good for a mediocre project.
Better spend money on something useful.
