Tag Archives: The Division 2

Blog: Uncooperation – 04/17/19

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s a real pain trying to find a game to play with my friends. It’s difficult for a multitude of reasons, chief among them being our tastes, but platform differences and scheduling conflicts make it even harder. I’m not surprised though, as we’ve all gotten older, gaming has kind of faded to the background for a lot of people, as it probably should.

This isn’t me renouncing my love of games or anything, but as we get older, our priorities change. We all have such limited time to actually play anything together, and that’s probably the sign of a healthier lifestyle on all our parts. For me, it’s been tough to even write the blog some weeks because I’m just not playing new games as frequently as I used to. Once again, not an indication of me cancelling the only feature on this site that regularly updates.

But more to the point, the few friends I still do have that I talk to online all have vastly different tastes in games. We tried all sorts of things on both extremes of our preferences. I tried Divinity: Original Sin II, a game in which my friends love, but one that bores me to tears. We all tried Battlefield together, but that game did nothing but frustrate everyone involved. Hell, I even bought The Division 2 thinking that it would be a good middle ground for us, but alas, it wasn’t.

But that’s alright. The more I think about it, the more insular I’ve become in my gaming habits. I can’t recall the last time I’ve hopped into a multiplayer match of any game by myself. People talk about playing a couple of rounds of Apex or Overwatch or whatever, and I just don’t know how they bring themselves to do it. It just seems exhausting to compete with others after a day of work. What my friends and I seem to crave these days is more of a cooperative experience over a competitive one.

I don’t know, the more I type this, the more I think I’ve written this same exact blog before. But it’s one of those things that remains constant in my life and stands to become a bigger part of it as time goes on. Maybe Borderlands 3 will be that game, maybe that World War Z game will do it, or maybe we’ll spend the rest of our lives trying to find the perfect game for us.

We Watched The Ubisoft Press Briefing | E3 2018

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Beyond Good & Evil 2

After the annual Just Dance live performance, we got a trailer that served as a tone piece for what to expect from BG&E2. Lot’s of surly anthropomorphic animals flying ships as well as cooking were on display. Of course, tragedy strikes when the spaceship they’re on is under attack by a gigantic monster spaceship. This is when they reveal that the first game’s protagonist, Jade, is what looks to be the big bad villain here.

We then get some developers talking us through the basic setup of the game and introducing the characters that will be in this poorly titled prequel. That aside, it was time for some gameplay. A massive city is on display that you can fly through in your own spaceship and exit at anytime to go beat the shit out enemies. It was pretty ambiguous honestly, but it looked really cool. They also said there was coop, so that’s awesome.

Then Joseph Gordon Levitt came out on stage and asked people to submit their artwork, music and writing to be possibly put in the game. There was no mention of compensation on stage, but he clarified that there would be payment, on his Twitter.

Trials Rising

At long last, a new Trials game is upon us, and I could not be happier. In classic Trials style, it seems like it’s going to be just as frustrating and fun as the previous entries. There was a shot of what looked like 8 people riding bikes on the same screen at the same time. So that seems like it could be a chaotic blast.

Shortly after this trailer, we learned that there is a beta you can sign up for, and the full game is slated for release in February of 2019.

The Division 2

The Division 2 was shown again, but not before we got a really dour speech about how the events of The Division came to be. Nothing says fun like Small Pox.

But we got a new trailer, once again it’s a tone piece. We see shots of people living well inside compounds, then some less than friendly behavior outside the gates; people being robbed, in hiding, or being executed. Then we see 3 nondescript Division soldiers walking down a mountain. But suddenly it’s time for another dour speech that tries to be inspiring about hope and bringing the right equipment and tactical abilities to Washington D.C.

But let’s talk about the game structure. Raids are going to be in The Division 2 featuring up to 8 player coop to tackle these much more difficult missions. They also went ahead and plotted out their DLC structure, stating all three of the first year updates and content drops will be free.

Now a gameplay trailer that opens with some upside down American flags and people shooting at other people. Once again, nothing terribly new on display, but there’s a beta to sign up for, and it’ll be released March of 2019.

Skull & Bones

Skull & Bones was next game that was shown that followed the trend of showing a tone piece trailer, having a developer come out and explain things, and then showing some gameplay.

I never enjoyed the Assassins Creed boat stuff that this game is inspired by, it just never did anything for me. So it’s tough for me to muster any real excitement for this game. Looks like you’ll be heading to a hub area to buy upgrades for most of the equipment on your ship, then setting sail. We see the player pirate ship flying a fake flag to fool the sea cops before moving to intercept a convoy carrying some hot booty. Enough damage was done to the other ships that the player was able to board them and plunder them.

Oh no, a high level enemy is in the distance, luckily there’s multiplayer to help us out with that problem. Other players have joined the fray launching all forms of cannon fire at this large, evil galleon.

It’s right here that I realize we’ve spent way more time on this than I cared to see.

The big evil galleon is sunk, and unsurprisingly all the other pirate ships have turned on each other and attacked one another. Cut to black, and we’re done. You can sign up for the beta or wait for the 2019 release.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

As cool as AC: Odyssey looks, I’m genuinely disappointed that we’re back to getting another of these so quickly after Origins. While it isn’t like they just re-skinned Origins with a coat of Greek paint, it just feels a little soon in my opinion.

Aside from my personal feelings about the game, it looks actually pretty interesting. A large focus on RPG elements with dialogue options and choosing your player character. It seems like the natural progression of where Assassin’s Creed needs to go and I’m all for it. There also appeared to be a romantic options you could explore, at least that’s what I gathered from the “heart” icon next to one of the dialogue choices.

We didn’t shake the annoying “walk and talk” segments from previous AC games, but this one seems to have shortened it. They also kept the Phylakes style roaming mercenaries hunting you down on the map stuff from Origins. A feature I didn’t much care for, but others seemed to enjoy. There also are larger scale battles on display here which look like a nice change of pace.

All things considered it looks really neat and I’m curious in checking it out when it arrives on October 5th of this year.

There was no mention of Splinter Cell. I am the saddest man.