Drizzlehell
Banned
Where it will be buried in a mass grave along with all the other Ubisoft live service games that ended up getting shut down, never to be played again.
Now, okay, I realize that this game may not have an universal appeal or that it's not exactly a critical darling. But it is one of my favorite games of all time that I just love in spite of its flaws. It's probably one of the few rare exceptions where the game is still enjoyable to me in spite of the much-despised Ubisoft formula, which I also personally hate for its cookie cutter, hollow design that prioritizes quantity over depth and it's just one of the most boring kinds of games I could imagine next to sports games and train simulators.
To me, what saves The Division from being just another Ubisoft game where you spend 90% of your time grinding meaningless content, is just how cozy it feels to play around Christmas season. The visuals? Incredible, with mind-blowing attention to detail and fantastic art direction which brings the snow covered, and christmas lights-illuminated streets of post-apocalyptic NYC to life like literally no other game I've ever seen. Everything about it from an audio visual standpoint - from the lush soundscape, to amazing weather effects - just makes me feel like there's nothing between me and the TV screen when I play this game. It's that immersive for me.
And then there's the gunplay and general character progression, which I also find really easy to get into. The guns just feel great to use and with my 5.1 DD sound system makes me feel like someone's ripping those bursts of machine gun fire in my own living room. I remember that the game used to have enemies that were kinda bullet sponges but idk, for a while now I didn't have this problem but maybe that's just because I comb through every district in search of collectibles and complete every side mission and encounter before I move on to the next area. Again, if this were any other Ubisoft game, this would likely be a bigger pet peeve but since these games are basically counting on you to grind absolutely everything, then the progression system doesn't feel like it's artificially slowing down your progress if you're being thorough. It's kinda ironic because I enjoy the gameplay loop so much that I don't mind the grind, and the game actually rewards me for it by making the combat not tedious.
Anyway, enough wanking off about why I love this game so much. My main point is that it's crushing to me that Ubisoft will eventually kill it because the player base will continue to dwindle, server upkeep will cost money, and there's absolutely no way that they will ever release an offline patch for this thing. It's just not gonna happen. What's gonna happen is servers will get shut down, and that'll be the last we'll ever see of The Division. A game that I routinely replay every year, and it became a bit of a Christmas tradition to me.
Thanks Ubisoft...
Now, okay, I realize that this game may not have an universal appeal or that it's not exactly a critical darling. But it is one of my favorite games of all time that I just love in spite of its flaws. It's probably one of the few rare exceptions where the game is still enjoyable to me in spite of the much-despised Ubisoft formula, which I also personally hate for its cookie cutter, hollow design that prioritizes quantity over depth and it's just one of the most boring kinds of games I could imagine next to sports games and train simulators.
To me, what saves The Division from being just another Ubisoft game where you spend 90% of your time grinding meaningless content, is just how cozy it feels to play around Christmas season. The visuals? Incredible, with mind-blowing attention to detail and fantastic art direction which brings the snow covered, and christmas lights-illuminated streets of post-apocalyptic NYC to life like literally no other game I've ever seen. Everything about it from an audio visual standpoint - from the lush soundscape, to amazing weather effects - just makes me feel like there's nothing between me and the TV screen when I play this game. It's that immersive for me.
And then there's the gunplay and general character progression, which I also find really easy to get into. The guns just feel great to use and with my 5.1 DD sound system makes me feel like someone's ripping those bursts of machine gun fire in my own living room. I remember that the game used to have enemies that were kinda bullet sponges but idk, for a while now I didn't have this problem but maybe that's just because I comb through every district in search of collectibles and complete every side mission and encounter before I move on to the next area. Again, if this were any other Ubisoft game, this would likely be a bigger pet peeve but since these games are basically counting on you to grind absolutely everything, then the progression system doesn't feel like it's artificially slowing down your progress if you're being thorough. It's kinda ironic because I enjoy the gameplay loop so much that I don't mind the grind, and the game actually rewards me for it by making the combat not tedious.
Anyway, enough wanking off about why I love this game so much. My main point is that it's crushing to me that Ubisoft will eventually kill it because the player base will continue to dwindle, server upkeep will cost money, and there's absolutely no way that they will ever release an offline patch for this thing. It's just not gonna happen. What's gonna happen is servers will get shut down, and that'll be the last we'll ever see of The Division. A game that I routinely replay every year, and it became a bit of a Christmas tradition to me.
Thanks Ubisoft...
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