I have no real interest in The Division 2, but I somehow got a key for the upcoming closed beta; I don't even remember signing up.
I quite liked the original, even if my interest did eventually just wane away, and despite its dodgy "kill 'em all" pseudo-politics. The sequel has not apparently improved in that regard, and the setting looks less interesting, but I just can't resist a beta, even if I think Anthem probably ticks more boxes in what I want from this kind of game.
I too have a beta key for this, though I do remember throwing my name into that particular hat.
I'm intrigued to see what, if anything, they've changed mechanically; the first game was pretty solid in that regard. The setting is a bit more "ordinary" than the highly-atmospheric snowbound New York (I'm gonna miss my big puffy coats and arctic camo gun cosmetics) but outside of the DZ I don't remember the snowstorms being all that, and I'm not a PVPer anyway.
Gave this a quick 20-minute look at lunchtime, and more or less enjoyed it. The politics is, somehow, even more Randian, especially in an opening CGI montage that refers to non-conforming parts of society as "hyenas".
So far the people I've mercilessly gunned down in the abandoned, overgrown streets of DC (for all the talk of looking after their communities, not one of 'em would ever think to do some weeding?) haven't been obviously-coded as poor, working-class or racial minority, but these skirmishes have mostly been long-range engagements in the evening, so they've been pretty indistinct.
Gunplay is punchier than I remember the original's being, mostly thanks (I think) to the sound design; the pistol I've started with in particular has a chunky, Dostovei pop that made me stick with it for most of the first mission, instead of swapping out immediately to a more versatile assault rifle. (Still no sign of a carbine, which were my favoured armaments in NYC.)
The special skills have gotten a bit of an overhaul, though weirdly the recon Pulse ability is marked as unavailable in the beta - perhaps to push people into trying out the new subtypes of turret (including a manually-targeted "sniper" variant that is extremely my bag), or the arial drone.
About my only outright complaint is the in-game menu UI, which feels really clunky. As most of the rest of it, this is basically unchanged from the first game, but I feel like they could have taken another pass over this bit. Swapping out gear is cumbersome, not helped by the fact that the "in-world" UI only takes up about half of the screen real estate; if it was a proper, full-screen menu it would feel less crowded and might give the designers more space to experiment and improve the readability of the whole thing.
I've only finished the first two missions so far – both of which were in the same "follow a waypoint and kill everyone you encounter on the way" mould; they were pretty soloable, and honestly my time with the original doesn't have me hankering to try out the co-op elements of this right away.
Oh! It's also got a Photo Mode, though it seems pretty limited and I only took one shot right at the end (I didn't think to look where on Earth it had been saved to, so I don't even know how it turned out).
Nope; hard pass.
Took three attempts to get through the first fight, which seemed unnecessarily punishing for a tutorial; combat yells from event NPCs somehow manage to be even worse than the first game, as does the rest of the dialogue. It's dripping in HOO-RAH, USA! USA! bullshit already - the first mission is called DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT, and the Base of Operations is the fucking White House - and the whole experience is just mildly irritating, as constant, too-small tutorial popups keep preventing me from doing things I already know how to do.
No thanks, Ubisoft.
I've done another three missions but I've had my fill. It's just more of the same, which wouldn't be so bad if the first game had been better than it was.
Wandering around anonymous DC locations (at least I could recognise parts of New York from TV), mowing down waves of anonymous nobodies, to rescue more anonymous nobodies, on the orders of yet still more anonymous nobodies.
It's a bit of a shame, considering how solid the shooting is.
Though the mission design is just as atrocious as the first game: go through a door, fight some guys, get a bit of radio chatter and maybe interact with some scenery, repeat that half a dozen times, do it again but with one bigger, yellow-bar enemy, and then once more on the way out.
And I still haven't seen a carbine.
It's dripping in HOO-RAH, USA! USA! bullshit already - the first mission is called DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT, and the Base of Operations is the fucking White House
One side mission I picked up – but didn't play – had some anonymous nobody in a safe house ask me to go pick up the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives museum.
If I thought it was going to turn into a ludicrous Nicholas Cage cameo I might've gone for it, but The Division really isn't a game with much of sense of fun.
The question, again, is: why?
Why is the declaration of independence still in the museum? Why hasn't it already been stolen in the, I'm guessing, months since everything went to shit? Why do I have to go get it? I'm the new guy.
I don't think it's necessarily a bad game - there's a decent mechanical core somewhere under all the "apolitical" patriotic bullshit; but there's just so much "apolitical" patriotic bullshit.
Why is the declaration of independence still in the museum? Why hasn't it already been stolen in the, I'm guessing, months since everything went to shit? Why do I have to go get it?
Also, what are you going to do with it, anonymous nobody?
I assume he's going to hang it on the wall and salute it until he dies of exhaustion, as all true Americans aspire to do.
salute it until he dies of exhaustion
Now there's a euphemism.
Yeah. S'alright, innit as a game. Politics are kind of fucked but no change there.
There's a fairly boring new trailer out for this that uses Masters of War by Bob Dylan as the soundtrack to its over-the-top, jingoistic urban warfare, in maybe the most tone-deaf videogame marketing move in years.
The launch day "patch" for The Division 2, if you get the physical disc version, will be a staggering 88-92GB.
videogames
Loved the first game, however have mentioned it here before that I got near the end of the campaign and had a break, and then struggled to get back into it as the game had changed drastically when I did return. Going to sit this one out.