The Division 2 Beta
So, I ended up putting a fair bit of time into The Division before moving on (I think largely to Warframe at the time). It had ups and downs, but was entertaining and with a reasonable gameplay/loot loop through most of the time I played. So, naturally, I've been keeping some attention for the sequel. Over the weekend, they did their open beta - a first chance for me to take it out for a spin in any way.
As a consumer/player, this is the sort of "beta" I actually like. That is to say, it came across more as a preview than a beta test. A few early story missions were available for play, along with a few side missions. Then you get access to a pre-built max-level character and one endgame mission (which uses the same map from one of the earlier story missions with different enemies). I didn't sample everything. That was a given as I'm not much of a PVP player. The experience was a good slice of things, though - exactly the sort of thing a prospective player would want to see. And I had zero connection issues.
So, I think the beta itself was a solid win.
And the game? It's fine. It plays pretty much like the first one. There are additional endgame specializations that add a fourth weapon with limited ammo and some "flavoring" into other skills. An armor bar sort of replaces the healing effects from the first game (where you can replace armor plates rather than using a medkit to get health back). At least one enemy faction makes more use of robotic enemies like drones and guns-on-treads. It's still a roughly-realistic, third-person, cover-based looter/shooter. It has some story of securing and fighting for DC (though I haven't seen an explanation of exactly how things played out in the months since New York went to hell in the first game), but probably not as much actual narrative as I would like.
It feels a little... sharper, somehow, than the first game - some tiny bit more "realistic" than "game-y" compared to the last one in a way I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe it's me being out of practice, but that puts me off just a little bit. Likewise, I don't care for the static-like effect that's there for just a moment when calling up menus. I suppose that adds some flavor to the AR/holographic-style interface, but it is a brief bit of disorientation. And the endgame mission was hard solo - I died at least once on every elite enemy encounter in the mission, several times on the one that was timed.
Overall, I'm still interested and the game is still on my "probably will purchase" list, though this didn't bump it up to a "must buy on day one."
As a consumer/player, this is the sort of "beta" I actually like. That is to say, it came across more as a preview than a beta test. A few early story missions were available for play, along with a few side missions. Then you get access to a pre-built max-level character and one endgame mission (which uses the same map from one of the earlier story missions with different enemies). I didn't sample everything. That was a given as I'm not much of a PVP player. The experience was a good slice of things, though - exactly the sort of thing a prospective player would want to see. And I had zero connection issues.
So, I think the beta itself was a solid win.
And the game? It's fine. It plays pretty much like the first one. There are additional endgame specializations that add a fourth weapon with limited ammo and some "flavoring" into other skills. An armor bar sort of replaces the healing effects from the first game (where you can replace armor plates rather than using a medkit to get health back). At least one enemy faction makes more use of robotic enemies like drones and guns-on-treads. It's still a roughly-realistic, third-person, cover-based looter/shooter. It has some story of securing and fighting for DC (though I haven't seen an explanation of exactly how things played out in the months since New York went to hell in the first game), but probably not as much actual narrative as I would like.
It feels a little... sharper, somehow, than the first game - some tiny bit more "realistic" than "game-y" compared to the last one in a way I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe it's me being out of practice, but that puts me off just a little bit. Likewise, I don't care for the static-like effect that's there for just a moment when calling up menus. I suppose that adds some flavor to the AR/holographic-style interface, but it is a brief bit of disorientation. And the endgame mission was hard solo - I died at least once on every elite enemy encounter in the mission, several times on the one that was timed.
Overall, I'm still interested and the game is still on my "probably will purchase" list, though this didn't bump it up to a "must buy on day one."
Comments
Post a Comment