Games Played: Dota 2 (this will be here all yead long i think!), Mirror’s Edge, The Division (Beta)
Games Finished: The Division (Beta)?
I was invited to the TomClancy’s: The Division (closed Beta) this weekend. I have been so excited for this game, that when i found out the (beta) release date, I booked it off work. Don’t judge me!! I have no regrets about booking the day off either! I woke up at 6 am to see if i could start playing by 6:30am. I was able to stick true to that goal and was one of the early birds to get into the PC version of the game and start playing.
The beta didn’t have much content but i think that was a clever design by Ubisoft. If they were to give us too much, i think the game would be a let down when it came to the actual release date. Ubisoft provided 1 main story mission which involved breaking a medical person (staff) out of a stadium where she was being forced to treat the enemy characters. The feel i get from the start of the game is; you have a “main base” and you have missions spread out to try and upgrade sectors of your base as you progress through the game. Once you complete these main story missions there are sections from each “wing” of your main base that start unlocking to provide bigger and badder upgrades for your character.
I took some videos of my adventure but it looks like i didn’t take care of how the resolution was set when i was recording. The picture is zoomed in and doesn’t provide the experience the way it should be (the main story mission).
I found that the Person vs Environment (PVE) aspects of the game quite enjoyable but there were “quirks” that were glaring and kind of bugged me. The enemies that you were shooting seemed to look like normal characters in normal street clothing for -10 degrees (Celsius). When you shoot these enemies, they would seem to absorb a full round of bullets without thinking that it was a big deal.
What i mean is, there was very minimal displays of agony after you had just placed 8 bullets across the entire body of this “bad” guy. It felt like every enemy i was shooting was a giant bullet sponge. I understand that it’s the nature of the game being a 3rd person RPG shooter but it has a sense of unbelievably because of that 1 thing. The guns felt very underwhelming because of the “bullet sponge” effect.
Outside of that one aspect, the game is fantastic! I must have sunk about 9 hours into the game over the weekend. This was combined between PC and PlayStation 4. The controls are massively different between the 2 systems. The PC will always yield a more precise feel to game-play over the PlayStation but I felt that i played differently from one system to the next because of this control factor. I could get away with things on the PC that i couldn’t on the PS4 because of control (like cover mechanics being less forgiving on PS4).
I can’t wait for the release of the game in March. I am seriously thinking about taking a couple of more days (off work) when the game releases so that i can soak in every moment of this game. It’s going to be great. Like Emer said, The Actual Best. My overall sense of the game right now is 9.5 / 10 –The beta lived up to all of the hype and excitement that i was preparing for…it did not let me down!
If you wanted to see my experience in the PVP zones, you can check out one my VODs here:
http://www.twitch.tv/ch00/v/39659119
Highlights:
12:30 – I am dying and some random player revives me to finish killing some NPC bad guys!
14:45 – Waiting to extract some of my items, some random group asks if I want to join their group! So cool!
Before the beta was here, i started Mirror’s Edge. The tutorial and the first level were good…but I soon got frustrated with how fast your reactions had to be. I fired up the tutorial (again) and kept failing at timing a landing that your are supposed to roll out of. I re-watched the recording and let’s just say that i stopped counting at attempt #16! I am The Actual Worst…like what in the hell?
Anyways, I hope to fire up the tutorial again sometime this week and perfect this timing jump so that I don’t fail when I start playing the game for real.
I will also dabble in some Assassin’s Creed … to see if i can push the story further along.
I must say, Emer is out pacing me in this challenge of game playing but it’s no race…just super fun!!
Until next week Gamers!
The Actual Worst 