{"id":8179,"date":"2016-03-17T20:12:49","date_gmt":"2016-03-18T03:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/tom-clancys-the-division-review-a-bodacious-highly-ballistic-bonanza\/"},"modified":"2024-01-24T16:46:23","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T00:46:23","slug":"tom-clancys-the-division-review-a-bodacious-highly-ballistic-bonanza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/tom-clancys-the-division-review-a-bodacious-highly-ballistic-bonanza\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Clancy\u2019s The Division Review \u2013 A Bodacious, Highly-Ballistic Bonanza"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Tom Clancy\u2019s The Division
\nUbisoft<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few gaming friends and I carefully navigated our way down a dilapidated avenue near Manhattan\u2019s once grand Grand Central Station, now a burned out shadow of its former glory. We\u2019d just emerged victorious from a harrowing firefight (literally) with a large contingent of Cleaners<\/em>\u2014flamethrower wielding paramilitary types who had tried to give us some up-close, extreme sunburns. We\u2019d divvied up the loot that we gained from the ordeal and had crafted a few new improvements for our weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, we were tasked with clearing out an aggressive band of newly armed Riker\u2019s Island escapee\u2019s, appropriately enough called Rikers<\/em>, from a nearby area. It wouldn\u2019t be easy, the Rikers were comprised of the worst of the gang populations and the most hardened of criminals, and had pledged themselves the new \u201ckings of the streets\u201d with a violent fervor that would make the gangs from Walter Hills\u2019s 1979 film The Warriors<\/em> bite their fists with envy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We encountered the Rikers soon enough, and soon enough we realized that these dangerous foes were far from the typical rioters and looters we\u2019d encountered previously. They actually fought with their own crude yet effective brand of urban combat. Not only that, but they\u2019d had time to collect some pretty impressive weaponry from just about anyone they\u2019d recently bushwhacked or otherwise caught slippin\u2019. The ensuing life-and-death battle played out like a scene from a good Hollywood blockbuster action film, and win or lose, we knew we were playing through one of the best open-world experiences that we\u2019d ever encountered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will try to keep this review as unbiased as I possibly can, since Ubisoft has long been one of my favorite game developers. They made the first tactical shooter that I\u2019d ever really gotten into with Tom Clancy\u2019s Rainbow Six<\/em>, which single-handedly revolutionized the shooter game genre. A few years later, following what Rainbow Six<\/em> had done for shooters set in urban settings, Ghost Recon<\/em> came along and set the bar for what tactical shooters should aspire to be in outdoors environments. I still remember playing the original Ghost Recon<\/em> for hours on end, sometimes even until the morning sunshine would begin to filter into my room. Its expansions were terrific too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, it\u2019s not surprising that when I\u2019d initially heard about Ubisoft\u2019s massive open-world extravaganza, Tom Clancy\u2019s The Division<\/em>, I got all giddy like a little school girl with anticipation. I\u2019m happy to report that all of that built up hype around the game has, for the most part, not been a load of hot garbage. Here are those goods\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tom Clancy\u2019s The Division<\/em> is set in an Apocalyptic, present-day Manhattan, where things have gone absolutely haywire. Terrorists have succeeded in distributed contaminated currency around on America\u2019s most hallowed of rabid consumerist holidays: Black Friday. As said bills passed around in a free-for-all frenzy of hyper-capitalism, millions upon millions of people have become ill or already died in increasingly exponential numbers. As society collapsed and the government was thrust into a state of ineffectiveness, people have either gone insane and rioted, or banded together into tribe-like factions in order to increase their chances of survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Players take the roles of sleeper cell operators that form The Division. This highly classified unit are ordinary-seeming people that you might come across every day; the grocery store clerk; the insurance salesman; the auto mechanic. There\u2019s just one thing different about them: They\u2019re complete badasses. Badassery aside, The Division\u2019s operatives are only called upon (via glowing watches) in such catastrophic events such as has happened on Black Friday, and modern society teeters on the brink of certain disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sound like something out of a Bruckheimer movie? Well, it should since it also plays very similar to one. The Division,<\/em> with its taut gameplay mechanics and brilliantly-articulated visuals (especially on higher end gaming PCs), is an absolute blast to play. Ubisoft has perfected its cover system in this game, and I haven\u2019t had this much fun dashing from cover to cover since playing one of the Rainbow Six Vegas titles. Popping up to blast away at similarly cover-swapping enemies, only to drop back down in order to refresh your gun\u2019s magazine is pure, unadulterated man-fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Division<\/em> isn\u2019t just all about being engaging in unabashedly hyper-violent exchanges of lead, however. It also features an addictive progression system that will have to saying to yourself \u201cjust have to get to that next level, and then I\u2019ll stop playing for the day.\u201d And then it\u2019s the next level\u2026and then the next\u2026you get the idea. It also includes a robust and easy-to-use crafting system that goes hand-in-hand with its admittedly shoot n\u2019 loot moorings. The Division<\/em> almost reminds me of a dungeon crawler with guns\u2014one which of course replaces a high fantasy setting for a contemporary one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many gamers and reviewers out there have complained about server issues and the like, but fortunately for me, I experienced nothing of the sort\u2014no hiccups, framerate drops (a smooth 60 FPS on my CyberpowerPC GTX 970 4G Gaming card), or server crashes. I\u2019m not disputing what others have experienced, and it\u2019s highly unfortunate that they have had issues, but my play-throughs have been hassle-free, at least so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Division<\/em> is mainly comprised of a bunch of main missions, ensconced by side-missions and a vast multitude of even smaller mini-missions. The larger, longer missions are more cinematic and immersive than the shorter ones, but that\u2019s not to say that the smaller ones are necessarily bad at all. I\u2019d even dare to say that the core gameplay mechanics and highly enthralling progression system (along with vast character perk system) are so good that you can keep playing the game for hours on end without getting bored. It\u2019s just that great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Manhattan has been faithfully recreated down to a 1:1 scale, meaning if it exists in real life there is a good chance that you\u2019ll see it rendered in the game. This extreme attention to detail must be seen to be believed, and as someone who has been to Manhattan I\u2019ve never seen a closer virtual representation of it in all my gaming years. The sounds complement those graphics quite nicely as well, and really pulls you into the action, struggle, and triumphs, as you navigate from location to location amid all the chaos and carnage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom Clancy\u2019s The Division<\/em> is an absolute must-buy for any fans of open-world games, tactical shooters, survival games, or action games in general. Its carefully constructed world will draw you in and its tight combat mechanics and looting will keep you hooked. I, for one, can see myself playing The Division<\/em> for a long time to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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SCORE: 86%<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom Clancy\u2019s The Division <\/em>has some real eye-popping graphics but will require a more muscular gaming PC or gaming laptop in order to enjoy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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CyberPowerPC Gaming PCs<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visit CyberpowerPC\u2019s website<\/a> to check out all of the other great deals as well!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Clancy\u2019s The Division Ubisoft A few gaming friends and I carefully navigated our way down a dilapidated avenue near Manhattan\u2019s once grand Grand Central Station, now a burned out shadow of its former glory. We\u2019d just emerged victorious from a harrowing firefight (literally) with a large contingent of Cleaners\u2014flamethrower wielding paramilitary types who had… Read More »Tom Clancy\u2019s The Division Review \u2013 A Bodacious, Highly-Ballistic Bonanza<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":5493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2732,2741,2742],"tags":[2520,741,2539,2488,2527,67,3067,2486,3068,2548,1791,2602],"class_list":["post-8179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-games","category-gaming-reviews-news","category-product-reviews","tag-4k-gaming","tag-cyberpower-pc","tag-fps-games","tag-game-review","tag-game-reviews-2","tag-gaming-pc","tag-ghost-games","tag-ian-kane","tag-need-for-speed","tag-open-world-games","tag-pc-games","tag-survival-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15613,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8179\/revisions\/15613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}