Chances are that this is because he tends to implant his own plot whenever the game isn't providing enough of a plot itself, like his brain pitches in for the part of the experience that he feels he isn't getting enough of.
@@СергейМалышев-ю8щ Writing script for a game means working within a much greater process where you are one of the most easily fixed parts. It's like a whole lot of teams working on their bit simultanously. You can't write a full script and hand it over to the studio, a certain scene or mechanic or setpiece might be reworked in the process and force adjustments.
I give big credit to Ubisoft for making a game about sleeper FEMA agents enforcing martial law in the midst of an emergency, seemingly without realising that this exact premise has been conspiracy fodder for decades
It's interesting playing from the perspective of some faceless goon working for the authoritarian regime vying for control over post-apocalypse New York
You know, a guy on the radio in safehouses calls out the division as faceless government endorsed death squads. Which.... yeah, that's exactly what they fucking are.
That whole "we're sleeper agents that get called to become armed militias at any time, and we could be your friends and neighbors" part at the beginning reaaaaaaly didn't sound all that reassuring at the beginning. I'm not going crazy, that's some KGB shit right?
On the flamerthrower guy, it didn't occur to me to shoot his tanks since things were dark and I didn't really notice them + I found headshots on the other flamethrower guys were about as effective as hitting the tanks. I can testify another non-flamethrower boss had a bunch of hitpoints too. The hitpoints started becoming a blur. If a guy only takes 120 shots instead of 200, it's still kind of the same thing to me.
I think part of the problem is that the game is designed for co-op play. It's been a while since I played it, so I don't really remember if enemy health scales based on team size, but I distinctly remember having an easier time with a lot of the bullet-spongey bosses with at least a second player.
As someone who has played The Division long enough to hit endgame content, your assessment of the weak spots vs mobs is spot on, but I promise you that shooting the weak spots on any boss is going to chunk off way more health than you'd expect.
Did you find any of the mobile phones? Or some of the holographic stories? Maybe you could not use them for the challenge for some reason? If you revisit this game fine the holographic stories, I found them the best part of the game and they filled in so much of the story, and the stuff I was interested to find in the story.
I remember TotalBiscuit also complaining about the bullet sponges in the game, when it came out. Especially the "guy in a hoodie takes 10 bullets before he dies" aspect.
The problem is that this isn't immersive sim, hence why it can't replace DX1 UNATCO path and maaan, it's a shame they never finished that path, they even wanted to make player play in White House, how cool is that?
@@slavkei Half... Life? Is that that new Resident Evil game with the Master Chief where they go and fly an airplane into an island and shoot everyone they see? Or is it that new fangled Zeldo game where the princess is kidnapped by Bowser again? I must be getting old, all these video games look the same to me.
I haven't played the game, but the way Ross portrays it it seems like a kind of intelligent critique on what the story is about. But maybe if I play the whole thing it'll become clear that it isn't.
I feel like The Division and Destiny are cut from the same cloth in that way of Looter shooter's where the entire story is hidden in collectible documents.
I love how in these sorts of games, Ross's persona becomes the Ideal Soldier: Good natured, affable, and happy to commit whatever war crimes he's ordered to
"When I was still new to the royal palace, I looked out the window and saw a guard standing in the middle of a courtyard, nothing to protect, nothing to guard, no doors. I couldn't figure out what he was guarding so I asked around. No one knew, not even the emperor. "Finally, they searched through the old records and found the truth, that 200 years before as winter came to an end, the emperor's daughter saw the first flower growing up through the snow. To keep anyone from walking on it she assigned a guard to stand watch over it every day. After that she never gave it much thought, and thus never countermanded the order. "As a result, every day for 200 years a guard would stand in that place long after the flower was gone. Long after the reason had been forgotten. Long after the princess was gone." --Londo Mollari
I remember a similar story, but it was a Christmas ham recipe. Basically the recipe that was passed down supposedly called for trimming the front and back end of the ham. When the daughter asked her mother why she's trimming the meat... she couldn't answer exactly why. Only when the mother asked her mother did she learn that trimming the ham was never part of the recipe. She originally just did it because her roasting pan was too small and the entire piece didn't fit.
Man Babylon 5 was so good... can't believe they're going to -ruin- remake it next... I felt like Londo looking out at the mass drivers when I first heard the news. Call me cynical but I _DO NOT_ trust modern Hollywood to do it justice at all even with JMS involved.
"We've always done it this way." Or another one I hear sometimes: "it's the industry standard." Both often translate to nobody actually knows why something is being done, it just is, and there's probably not actually a good reason to keep doing it.
Given that Massive has made Ground Control and a 15-year gap later made their second ever military-based IP, I'm surr if they're not pigeon-holed into making a live-service RPG this is their exact intentions
This is entirely intended. All the collectables talk about how the JTF are woefully incompetent and corrupt, and how giving undercover government agents carte blanche with no oversight is a TERRIBLE idea and leads to disaster.
Well Ross massively overthinking what the devs might've meant while writing a game (and designing its gameplay) is hardly anything new. But I'm a sucker for this kind of stuff.
@@Butts666 in fairness it's not necessarily "overthinking" in this case so much as "applying the smallest amount of real world logic to a pseudo-realistic video game". They literally open saying "we have no rules". I mean, could you imagine having a completely unaccountable militarized police force who could just kill anyone they want without facing any serious consequences for it? That would be... well okay, it wouldn't be too different from what we have now, but it's still a terrible idea.
Christmas Decoration Count (in order of appearance) 04:06 - Snowflakes x10 07:05 - Christmas Tree x1 07:28 - White Lights on Normal Tree x1 & Green Lights on Normal Tree x1 07:33 - Snowflakes x2 07:37 - Green Lights on Normal Tree x1 08:07 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1 12:59 - White/Yellow Lights on Street Lamps x4 & Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1 13:22 - White/Yellow lights on Street Lamp x1 & Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1 14:01 - White/Yellow Lights on Street Lamps x3 & Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1 14:07 - Christmas Tree x1 & Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1 14:25 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x2 14:45 - Christmas Tree x1 & Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x4 15:51 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x2 16:45 - Wreath x1 & Ribbon/Bows x4 23:41 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x4 30:21 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x2 33:07 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x2 43:13 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x3 43:17 - Christmas Tree x1 (but -1 because Somebody didn't pay attention to Louie the Lightning Bug I guess) 43:18 - Snowflake (Stars) x7 and Strung Lights x1? 44:55 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1 47:07 - White/Yellow lights on Street Lamp x1 47:10 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1 48:14 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1 (might be a repeat) 50:38 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1 51:24 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x2 51:31 - Strung Lights x1 52:17 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x4 & Blue Lights on Normal Tree x1 & Green Lights on Normal Tree x1 White Lights on Normal Tree x2 & Red Lights on Normal Tree x1 & Blinking Lights on Street Lamp x3 & Star Lights x1 & Strung Lights x1 & Happy Holiday's Sign x1 52:21 - Santa! x1 52:26 - Blinking Lights on Street Lamp x4 & Strung Lights x1 Total Count Strung Lights x63 Snowflakes x19 Christmas Trees x(4-1) Happy Holiday's Sign x1 Santa x1
yeah i feel like the fact that the game has the grapichal fidelity to have readable text on the posters on the walls but the text is just placeholder text is pretty representative of this game as a whole
Lorem ipsum is literally a text used as a placeholder text. It's latin if I'm correct, I don't remember the actual meaning of it. But it's used for texts showcases. Which is kinda funny to me.
@@Yotrymp Technically it has a meaning. It's used as a text placeholder. If we think about it as purpose being meaning to something then it IS serving it's purpose.
My take is this whole 'Activated' thing is just a rationalization to shoot people. I mean, who would use some CIA-type sleeper agents to rescue hostages and getting supplies, if he doesn't even know the looters and not integrated with them? Half of these cutscenes is 'Joker' all over again.
You know, usually when you do these 'alternate interpretations' bits, they definitely feel tongue in cheek, but in this one, the disconnect between the narrative and what you see in the game is real. It's like they did 'Spec-Ops: The Line' but played it straight.
Government handing out blankets in a mostly empty city full of billions of abandoned blankets. The government is so enlightened and always thinking 28 steps ahead of the common trash.
"We are your coworkers. We are your neighbors. We might even be your friends." - that line, said with heroic music playing in the background, genuinely gave me the creeps. Might be because I have older relatives who lived in East Germany who actually had that legitimate experience with state police. Sorry if this is spoiling the Christmas mood for some, but I'm seriously a little freaked out at how this is portrayed. This is not meant to be a good thing.
I imagine that this is how things would go in the East side of Berlin if the DDR had faced a similar crisis. There's not really a plan and shit's not working, but by god will the current approach be continued with in perpetuity.
Man, I think that context helped reinforced why this skeezed me out so bad, on top of the whole killing trapped looters/rioters. The only thing people have ever required to do evil things is to just get to a place in their heads where they genuinely believe they are right to do so.
This game explains itself at the start as essentially having you play as Blackwatch from Prototype, considering the whole "no rules" and "no limits" thing, but without being nearly as cool or well written as Blackwatch because they don't even try to play on the controversial aspects of such a group. And that alone really sets the tone for this game, having some basic idea of what they could do, without ever having the balls to actually do it. Actually that might just summarize Ubisoft as a whole, now that I think about it.
Yeah, the terms "no rules" and "no limits" are usually things that EVIL governments give to their super-elite military divisons and the Divison has you playing as them. You would expect that a city falling into chaos would require the National Guard in the USA and they activate The Divison sleeper agents because... why again?
@@AdamWhistle1 Ignoring even that, how the hell am I supposed to get into being a US Government sleeper agent? The premise of this game is that the government is hiding a bunch of trained killers among us, and we're supposed to be on THAT side? Not against it?
"When we hunt, we kill! No one is safe! Nothing is sacred! We are Blackwatch! We are the last line of defense! We will burn our own to hold the red line, it is the last line to ever hold!" - Blackwatch creed
Yeah, I feel like Blackwatch leaned way more heavily into them being psychopaths who could laugh about gunning people down in the street...but Blackwatch actually seems to be right that letting the virus escape containment in Manhattan and spread would be world-ending. They are both shadier and on much firmer ground for the necessity of their job.
This is probably the best example of all time of a game failing to establish proper context. The Division feels unique in that it sets up something that is clearly supposed to be the real world, and then stuffs it full of MMO-style genocide quests, but instead of killing 6 Cave Monsters you're shooting people with the bare minimal understanding of what they're doing and why. Its like if someone made a videogame that was basically "Pokemon but with real animals" and changed nothing about how the underlying mechanics work, and you have to order your Grizzley bear to maul some kids poodle a few dozen times because he locked eyes with you on the side of the road.
i actually was able to understand perfectly the motivations of the last man battalion,cleaners and rikers respectively.what the hell are you on about they did a admittedly minimal explanation on them but you can get them just by their appearances in some cases
@@zzurge1173 I think the issue is that most of the backstory is delivered through collectibles. That can only work if the answers aren't essential to understand the motivations of everyone. In JC3, the collectibles are mostly about Di Ravello's rise to power. That's really neat to know about, but we can understand him without them. He's a sociopathic dictator with an isolationist streak. That's basic, but it's characterized well enough that it holds. And in this game, the thing is that while we know the immediate motivations of most of the factions, we don't get any information as to why they're operating as a unified faction. Like, they call a group rioters. I'd barely call the people in a single riot a unified faction. Dozens of riots spread across the city? No way they're all coordinated enough to make a faction. The Cleaners? Ross makes a good point, if we were explicitly told that the Cleaners were the result of Municipal Sanitation workers getting more and more desperate to control the virus, maybe they could hang together as a faction. But without those collectibles, they look like something that should be scattered nutcases, not an organized faction.
Which is weird, because nobody in the division covers their face, and most of the enemies are decentralized citizens who don't use any large digital databases...and everyone seems to know who The Division is anyway.
yeah, but a) that style is completely and utterly useless for this. CV could instanly recognize you with digicamo like that b) style that would work is really jarring and would draw ALL the attention from everyone on the street the stuff that works the best is generic surgical mask/respirator (which in retrospect are missing in this game)
oh so you set up an unaccountable and unregulated secret military force to crack down on civilians during times of crisis and suddenly you're "an authoritarian police state" typical snowflakes 🙄
@c0ya1 They tried, actually. Extra Creditz said some of the violent, armed Rioters wore hoodies, like Trayvon Martin, therefore the game might encourage IRL racial violence. I am not kidding. There's also the people who say you're 'unaccountable', which isn't true outside of the Dark Zone, and one article which said you shoot minorities and poor people just trying to 'protect themselves'.
@@Graknorke Wow, such trigger-ness to a line rip from some British comedy show. No matter who or what you work for, anyone who is not a complete psychopath will probably feel weird about gunning down serval dozen people with little to no context except orders. That is how PTSD started, it has nothing to do with your belief of how the government can just shoot the disenfranchised, dipshit. Because to be honest, both sides are fucked. As mentioned by Ross, one side just takes blind orders, while the other side is just generic "bad guys" that the game tells you are bad...it is a prime state for the not completely stupid to think about if they are doing the right thing.
"We are your coworkers. We are your neighbors. We might even be your friends." Anyone you know could be a government sleeper agent with a license to kill, just waiting for their little smart watch to light up so they can start shooting "rioters". You're welcome, citizen.
I figured it was more like the national guard or reserve. Super secret sleeper agents don't usually wear an otherwise pointless, highly identifying watch out in the open.
@@weneedaladder8384 that's what it was, after some unspecified catastrophe, the division agents, recruited from various civil and military services, would be granted access to experimental technologies, armed and equipped to protect whatever remained of the US citizenry and attempt to restore order by whatever means where necessary
With the IRS hiring 87,000 (?) new agents and training them to deal with life or death situations and arming them, this is a little...on the nose maybe? The figure of speech evades me, but it's goddamn terrifying.
I love that Ross is not-so-subtly hitting on the problem with stories like The Division. The moral of the story in Division is "Civilians are absolutely fucking insane when given the slightest motivation. Secret government sleeper cells that are exempt from the law, except when they turn against the country, are totally okay because something something terrorists." The thing is, secret government sleeper cells don't get activated because of 'terrorists'. That's what the armed forces are for. Secret government sleeper cells are made so they can get used on the civilian populace. The entire idea is that the system is going to fail because people recognize that the system is shit and is only in place to keep people in line. When that system fails they have to have something to fall back on. That's what the sleeper cells are for. To enforce compliance.
The Division isn't a sleeper cell, they're just a different version of a national guard. They wouldn't wear the telltale watch if they were trying to be secret. The lack of a uniform isn't great, but as long as the game doesn't have enemies that won't shoot you first, I think it's a tough argument that it's a secret police simulator.
46:00 I've heard it said that games like the Division appeal to a similar demographic as those that like the show Law and Order: the sort of people that work hard all day, come home exhausted, and just want to watch something where they can largely shut their brain off, and they know every installment is going to be something they'll enjoy. They like one episode, so they know they'll like every other episode, because every episode is more of the same, but with just enough different between episodes to still keep things fresh over time. The Division is the Law and Order of gaming, in a way. The grind is actually a feature for its intended demographic, because it stretches out the content to last longer.
I can see it. "Welcome to Ross's News Dungeon. To start things off, the apocalypse is happening, but at the same time it's not, we're in a weird lovecraftian greyzone that's borderline incomprehensible and defies all rational to speak of." (I suck at impressions sadly)
One of my favourite parts of the Game Dungeon is when Ross comes up with his own theories about the games he's playing (like Trackmania 2 being a post-apocalyptic game). So I approve of this challenge of his, trying to figure out the game's story!
I find his theory about the "secret genius" really amusing. If there actually was a genius working on the game, Ross is completely right about the main story of the game actually only being a tiny veneer hiding a massive twist that may or may not actually exist. But in reality, the writers just came up with a basic concept, then just put in the minimum amount of effort to string encounters together. Most of the moral ambiguity and mystery about the outside world not being the work of someone with vision, but just the result of people not really giving a shit and just creating something people can zone out to.
Oh my god, now I want the whole 'Freeman's mind but its other shooters' thing even more. Ross's roleplay is as good as his thought-provoking video essays masquerading as videogame reviews.
I think this was 90% thought provoking questions/roleplaying and 10% actual review lol. It made it even funnier with the fact he said he failed on the figuring out the story thing. He only played till like level seven and I have no problem with it.
@@MxPokirby And all the sexual abuse that they never did anything about. Honestly, among the two I'd count that as worse..... Which is why, like Activision, I'll only ever buy their stuff used physical now.
@@warzIbanez At least with Beth, as far as I know, there's not systematic rape. ONLY time I'll buy a Ubi or Activ game new now is for pennies on the dollar. Full priced game for five to ten dollars? Okay, you may get my chump change. Otherwise used only.
Or any game that relies on RNG whilst being a roguelike. Like Noita (Yeah get mad I don't like your fav genre IDGAF) Playing the same thing ad nasuea just to get "a good start" is not good game design.
I played the sequel to this game after a friend bought it for me and I could recall at the time thinking "Why am I doing these things? If the government is no longer the prevailing force then why are we trying to maintain the status quo?" Like there are looters trying to get medicine, and food, and the basic necessities to survive but like no one is attempting to reach out and find common ground, you just shoot them and that's that? Food and medicine is only for the people who follow the law and the rest of the people can just die? It's a real "Are we the baddies" situation the whole way through.
It sounds like the typical gameplay loop in a lot of modern military shooters. It's the generic bandit gang or village mob you can gun down in game after game. I like the cleaners, just for the surprise. Every game can toss in a shady mercenary group, but how many have militarized municipal workers?
Also, if a major chunk of the country is now in open support of a new form of government, and literally the only people who believe in the Old Order are a couple of refugees and thugs with guns, then the millions of "rioters" you murder in this game are probably more legitimate a voice than any remnants of government.
@@fnhatic6694 I thought it just looked like any old shooter, where you gun down the generic filler bandits. Players do the same over and over in eastern european villages, generic medinas and tropical islands.
Well the Hyena's like to kill people for shits an giggles an even do the same to each other from time to time The True Sons believe themselves to be the new government an kill anyone that doesn't conform The Outcasts are too hell bent on burning down DC an killing everyone for "abandoning" them even though there was very little anyone could have done at the time anyway. Black Tusk I could sorta get behind if they didn't start by shooting people an then come in acting like they're the real heroes when in reality they're little better then the Division.
Apparently you can't use government agency logos without their express consent. They probably could've mentioned FEMA without being allowed to show the logo the way Deus Ex Human Revolution did for the Highland Park mission, but to give it a more "official" look, they had to create a suspiciously similar substitute to FEMA the way GTA does with FIB JTF probably means Joint Task Force, meaning a multi-branch unit that operates under one umbrella
That's exactly what it means. They're made up of NYPD, FDNY, and National Guard personnel. You can actually tell them apart in-game as some will wear blue under the vests while others will be wearing camo.
To me the strangest quirk is Ubisoft around this time were releasing Rainbow Six Siege (both Division and Siege developed in-house) which includes FBI as a base game group. They also had Navy Seals as 2nd season operators. Soooo... Permission to use FBI granted, maybe Seals too depending how far back they were asking for permission, but, FEMA said no.
@@Graknorke exactly. the problem with those nerds complaining about politics in the media they consume is they don't realize it's always there, regardless of intent.
@@voltcorp The problem has never been that fiction can't be thought provoking or have some kind of political message. The problem is in the modern day with high budget, mainstream projects it is ham fisted and fucking terrible. Look at something like Lord of the Rings, its an allegory about war, specifically about World War 1, but it was subtle and not constantly haranguing the reader with self righteous moralizing. If you want something more recent, A Dance with Dragons (2011) had a pretty obvious reference to modern wars in the Middle East, but it was underneath a layer of legitimately good storytelling and affected the plot in an important way. It creates conflict. Even something that's expressly hyperpolitical and concurrent can be compelling and justified, like Hunter S. Thompson's work. He actually had something to say, and was able to weave it into his stories in intelligent and interesting ways so that even if you disagree with his thesis, the work he does with it can be appreciated and used for self reflection. Compare this to, say, Star Wars where its clearly trying to do a thing about female empowerment but is just executed as some of the female characters competent with no buildup on why they're strong, and thus no catharsis. They simply solve problems in the plot because it wants to show that women can be strong individuals. That's just dogshit writing and morals, political or otherwise. Nice strawman, tho.
JTF does indeed stand for Joint Task Force. The term is normally used when multiple branches/agencies are organized into a single command structure for a specific purpose.
Yup, I legit went 'OH NO' out loud when he mentioned that and the DHS/FEMA counterpart being part of this. An unnamed JTF with sleeper agent militia forces gunning down civilians trying to survive a situation that really would have been resolved with actual, yaknow, infrastructure responses FROM the DHS/FEMA and aid rather than bullets was...not a fun thing to see in the tail end of 2021, but I did get more laughs outta Ross reacting to it at least.
@@tomisabum "An unnamed JTF with sleeper agent militia forces gunning down civilians was...not a fun thing to see in the tail end of 2021" ...I'm sorry; am I missing something? Did a massacre occur in the US very recently that I'm not aware of or something?
Lemme tell y'all a story about The Division. There's a book that came with it, New York Collapse: An Urban Catastrophe Survival Guide. Great book, has *actual, legit* urban survival tips in he event of a catastrophe. Thing is, there's a puzzle element woven throughout he book. a bunch of feelies, too. you were doing things like matching punched holes in a bus ticket to paragraphs in the book, all sorts of cool things. After solving all the puzzles, you got two things: A passcode to say to a particular person (who is an NPC in the game), and a Location in New York. Presuming you got a cool bonus item for doing so, I checked both things. The NPC doesn't respond to anything, and just stands there. Even on the PC version, saying the passcode in chat next to them, nothing. And The location? *two blocks off the edge of the map and inaccessible.* Case in point: never buy any secondary material from Ubisoft again. Oh, and since you're still reading, A quick reminder that Ubisoft has aided, protected, and condoned Sexual abuse within the company for years.
@@SusCalvin not really? It's a standard urban survival tips book with a bunch of stuff written in the margins that add some minor story context and are puzzle clues.
Don't forget that after this death-squad game about shooting looters, Ubisoft released Elite Squad, ANOTHER game where you play as a death-squad shooting rioters, but this time the rioters have antifa and blm iconografy.
I definitely agree with the Purge point you mentioned People would probably barricade their homes and protect their families, maybe people with less to lose would do small crimes, or openly do stuff they already do under cover of night. Looting would be big, but I never considered stores paying top dollar for 24 hours of airtight security Personal crimes would also be very common I guess But people going on a homicidal frenzy wouldn't be really common, and any wannabe mass murderer would probably be swiftly dealt with by a population that would be probably packing heat
For every weirdo mass murder there would be like 10 LARPing military types with Punisher patches and skull bandana masks who want a license to shoot looters.
The Purge movies realistically would be more like Halloween. You'd have some psychos trying to pick off a neighborhood serial killer style and a town of drunks basically half-ass hunting the psychos but mostly vandalizing businesses and stealing shit.
Iirc this is actually what happened in The First Purge, the prequel to the movie series. People commit petty crime or have mass drunken orgies at most, while the rest would just sit tight at home. And while violent crime does happen, it is mostly due to personal grudges. But the government interfered with the Purge by sending in mercenaries to start killing people to artificially increase the level of violence.
"Our games aren't political". Then they make a game about a pandemic that breaks down society and you play as sleeper agents for a secret police to restore order by massacring defenceless rioters, lmao.
@@augustokonrad3572 none of the rioters in that game are defenseless considered they are all armed with automatic weapons and actively attempt to kill you.
The "magic radar" is one of the more disturbing elements of this game if you think about it. Like what even is that? Some kind of AI that scans people's brains and decides who gets to live and who needs to die? And you're just carrying out the decisions of this thing without question?
Ross, ever since “The Crew,” I am terrified that none of our games will be replayable in the future. Thanks for calling this out. -Long term Morrowind and Deus Ex player
@@SavageGreywolf I wouldn't miss this specifically either, but it's the principle of not artificially creating a best-before date on something that doesn't need one.
@@SavageGreywolf How could this game be propaganda? At worst it's completely unintentional, And at best the moral ambiguity is literally political commentary *against* indiscriminate lethal force.
This comment makes me wonder if Ross would ever cover Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death, if only because I'm wondering what he'd say about the world of Judge Dredd and how that all works. Also, Judge Ross fanart when?
I'm in complete agreement regarding the map. I have a friend who works in NYC, and when I showed her the game, she remarked that, while it was fairly compressed and scaled-down, it was a fantastic recreation of that section of the city. At one point while I was playing the survival portion of the game they added later, I was caught in thick snowfall by a streetlight at night, and the effect was so stunningly realistic that I just stood there watching it for a whole minute.
I love Ross's approach to the political/social elements of this game's story. There are some very obvious parallels to draw to real life events that postdate the game's release in early 2016, but they're so obvious and the issues are already so talked about that actually exploring those parallels would risk being tedious and/or preachy. Instead Ross sort of lets the game speak for itself, inviting the viewer to draw their own conclusions about its present relevance or lack thereof. I'm kind of reminded of his Wolfenstein review where the game was modded so that everyone had pumpkin heads but he just never acknowledged it. It feels like the same kind of elephant in the room, but more serious this time. But that doesn't mean this video strives to be apolitical. Far from it, it eagerly engages with the confusing, troubling, thought-provoking implications of the game's premise. I think it's a nice middle ground.
Exactly!! The first half kinda reminded me of the cult simulator video too for that reason! I'm kinda blown away how he managed to keep that delicate balance right where it kinda needed to be.
His attention to detail was nice to. Through a lot of it I was thinking "Ross, they are trying to keep the virus in containment, keeping supplies flowing in but harshly enforcing quarantine." Then he brought up the map of it on all continents and it was like "oh...yeah, what the fuck are we doing keeping everyone trapped in this starving prison? Who's in charge? What the fuck is happening?"
Yeah, this is one of the few channels I feel I can trust not to peddle me some low-brow "social commentary". I can't believe Ross is the most professional video games kahntent creator out there. These videos are timeless, just like the art he's trying to preserve.
@@Rendo86 it being fresh dollars seems to make it a lot harder. Some terrorist attacks have involved trying to contaminate goods like produce in shops...with limited effectiveness. Dollars wouldn't be the worst, if you had a fairly durable strain of virus, and it wouldn't be hard to get a lot of small currency that is likely to be exchanged as change and passing it to cashiers. If it can incubate quickly and can infect them all the better. But the fresh currency and huge scale do kinda fuck up the simplicity of the plan.
Funnily enough, the Purge prequel pretty much confirms that Ross was right and the reason why the purges are like that now is because in the first one, the government was constantly sending mercs to stir up the public and make it seem like going masked maniac was the only way to survive the night. They even execute the woman that was in charge of the project, so she doesn't snitch.
God these videos are so well written. You're so comfortable writing in your own voice that it feels like an off the cuff conversation without any filler words.
@@tomisabum Alex Jones has been right about quite a few things, even if I don't always agree with him. Most of the people decrying Alex Jones are also the kinda people to say, "don't think for yourself you don't have enough qualifications to do that"
@@mattheweakin6802 If you still believe in that shit it's purely because you're choosing to at this point. There's so many things so far off about that supposed incident it makes columbine conspiracy theories look desperate to portray it as being as fishy.
@@einzelfeuer_2855 It has been determined by the courts multiple times, and is demonstrated by overwhelming evidence. If you continue to deny it, it's only because you're choosing to.
Ross, it's not supposed to be a morally ambiguous game. It's supposed to be a morally black and white game. It was just made by morally bankrupt people, so good and evil are defined by obeying authority or not.
I think my biggest issue with this game was how detailed its world was in terms of each area and place you could go in felt so well detailed and lived in, and yet the combat and encounters were just typical Ubisoft copy paste blandness.
The extended DLC of the sequel confirms a great deal of most people's theories about the Division- the Division really is not that different from any other group using force to maintain order, and part of why there's traitors and renegades is because its not just that it's easy for agents to go too far, but also for some agents to seriously wonder if they're part of the "good guys", because from the civilian perspective, we're not that different- we've just got elite killing teams. While the PC characters and the JTF obviously have the people's interest at their heart, the player's actually can't do much to impose law and order other than shooting down nails that stick out- the bog standard hoarders and gangs,special interest groups using their knowledge to try to protect themselves, and the obvious hoard of chaotic evil Orcs from RIker's Island, who soly exist to be bad and evil, and yet also somehow work together. in a cohesive unit.- something The Division itself has trouble with- what with FIrst and Second Waves shooting at each other! The only way the Division's world works is if the villains, Rioters, Cleaning specialists, and Rikers Island inmates are so cartoonishly evil that us running around shooting people is the only and best response- but we see that the three groups are managing to have manpower, leadership, supplies and carving out fiefdoms within NY to remain capable threats- threats that continue to persist well into the sequel, despite Hero McGee and friends killing several thousand enemies by the end of the campaign alone- what, are they breeding like Zerg in their hideouts? Or are they actively recruiting the citizens you're trying to 'save'. So why isn't our mission to broker peace between these rising factions to establish a new "normal" and ensure the chaos of conflict doesn't claim innocent lives? Nope, it's to run in guns blazing and kill chaotic evil douchebags who are bad for no other reason than to make a bad situation worse. If the plot was perhaps that our heroes were just the defenders of a fairly mild organisation running a singular shelter, and were constantly under attack from other survivors, yes, I could understand the gameplay and narrative- Perhaps Airforce One went down in NY, and using his leadership and authority he was able to make a proper settlement to hold onto until America at large recovers, and us, as recruited Secret Service agents, are just protecting The President and last cohesive unit of an increasingly fragmented America. But instead, we're just running around shooting every dick in New York that moves, and probably getting shot at because everyone else is shooting very other dick in New York. The Last Man Battalion in particular, they should have honestly just Co-Opted us- we have similar goals, similar armed forces, mutual enemies, and the plot should have ended with a ceasefire with the repeatable missions just showing that here are dangerous holdouts. The plot brings to mind a section of World War Z (the book) that I hated, where the army gets together to "reclaim" the US- after a clear strategy of leaving major population centers to die so as to distract the zombies while MVPS were moved to a safer location. Cue the Army having to open fire on "Lamoes" (Last Man on Earth survivalists) and then actively attacking thriving, but uncooperative human settlements for "Sedition"...and then just sweeping it under the rug as "The president had a big, big, loving heart and felt really bad about it." and the book doesn't go into detail or description about it, just expects the viewer to agree it was a "lesser evil necessary for America to survive" and unwittingly makes the reader tacitly complicit in crimes against humanity.
Oh, good connection; one of the few books I actually tossed across my room when reading, didn't even think of the connection but you're dead on. It's that same vibe of weirdly focused nationalistic greater good take that really creeps me out. Dunno if the film handled that any better/worse. I kinda like your Airforce One take better; at least that'd give a sense of threat, rather than the cringe of 'people are rioting in response to being abandoned/not getting care they need in a crisis/being shot by the fed groups that they thought were here to protect them by high powered rifles when they have a baseball bat and no food/painkillers for the plague' take.
@@tomisabum Me and a friend were talking about this a minute ago and we actually figured a Metal Gear solid V esque gameplay set in "Escape from New York" was what the plot of this game was begging for- You're locked in a quarantined New York full of lawlessness? You answer directly to the president? Our character should be Snake Plissken, not secret service boy scouts!
I kinda like the direction this game goes if at any point it's self-aware of how badshit evil it actually truly is, even if the characters don't. I'm always okay with "then the army did BAD stuff cause ORDERS" plots cause honestly, it's not that far off.
I thought the military in WWZ only fought the LaMoEs who attacked them when the army arrived? There's only one particular reference made to them fighting secessionists that I can think of, and even then it's implied the narrator thinks they may have had a point about wanting to go it alone after the government basically abandoned them.
Really the entire setup for this game never made sense. How in the world is the absolute most elite fighting force the US has made up of sleeper cell agents? How would they ever train without anyone noticing? How did they get recruited? Why in the world would the government set up sleeper cells *inside their own country*? The idea sounds cool, but would make infinitely more sense as just a bog standard elite military force than as sleeper agents.
That really is the sad part about Division. It has an interesting morally grey theme going on very very deep beneath the surface, but the meat of the thing doesnt want you to think and just wants you to shoot the 'terrorists'. And lord, between the enemies being called Rioters and the global virus, it's... certainly aged.
When I saw it first, it felt like another modern military shooter story. A bit of a word salad that just serves to tie cool setpieces, boss fights, submissions and maybe some crafting together. With the same village mob/generic bandits to gun down, but now with photorealistic NYC residents filling that role.
The Division showcases a rule of storytelling when it comes to having grey/evil protagonists. Which is that having a scene where somebody goes "hey, you're the bad guy" really just deflates the situation. It's a lot more of a punch when the viewer starts feeling questionable about the morality of the situation only to have a character go "Great job! You're a hero!"
You're assuming the viewer having enough self-reflection/awareness to question, especially if it isn't laid out in an overt manner. I wouldn't take that bet.
I think it wouldn't have hit me so bad as it did if they just didn't straight up call the majority of the enemies in this game rioters/looters; you're in a pandemic island with literally no visible infrastructure or major aid going on, what the hell else are people trapped there going to do? Just hit different. Historical lens, probably, but damn.
@@tomisabum It looks like any other modern shooter with a generic word salad story tying the action sequences together. You're shooting the generic villager mob/bandit gang, but set in a photorealistic NYC.
Honestly I've never liked Spec Ops: The Line for how 'in your face' it is about it's message but reading most of these comments makes me think that they had the right approach. You have to treat gamers like idiots and sit them down and tell them "This is bad and you should feel upset ok" all subtlety is lost on the average gamer.
@@klaykid117 That, and quite frankly, writing is for shit in most games. You've got this whole tradition in film of essentially manipulating the viewer, and making it interesting enough so that people may not get the subtleties (it over a decade before I started picking up on the sexual subtext of Alien), but it's interesting enough to revisit. For games, you have most of the money in creating a hyper-reality, with story and plot as an afterthought (and as it should since gameplay is the most important aspect).
@@Ronin11111111 Naw don't be worried, real talk, my 2021 American self was cringing over this video EXACTLY due to that. Ross' joke about this actually made me unclench, p good about this.
I mean, they kinda are, but it's too risky to take a political stance and say "maybe it's not a good idea the US has sleeper agents" corporations, ESPECIALLY UBISOFT, will not take a hardline stance on politics
To go along with what No Way said, the early parts of The Division are really the only times that SHD gets super glorified. By the end of The Division 1, you're actively fighting a super authoritarian PMC that has taken over eastern Manhattan and has had a large portion of the original wave of surviving Agents join them. And by the time The Division 2 comes around a few months later, the vast majority of the people involved in SHD have gone rogue and are throwing their lots in with a bunch of death cults or oppressive PMCs trying to start their own warlord fiefdoms on the rubbles of the US. They still don't say a bunch about it since its political and that would turn into a shitshow. But they really don't glorify it as hard as you'd expect. Shit. The entirety of the Div2 expansion in New York has one of the NPCs from this game actually yelling at you the entire time about how SHD basically just fucks everything up and is making life for everyone trying to survive worse.
@@InsaneReaper961 Yeah, but so few players get to that point. The beginning is basically porn for extremists that wish they could go vigilante and rescue the statue of liberty from homeless ppl.
The disconnect between story and gameplay is something that I also felt in Modern Warfare 2. A lot of the gameplay and a few of the points raised by the villain in that game are well reasoned and make you think about the nature of war and why you're fighting. Specifically the story and context around the controversial "No Russian" scene. And each time you die you see quotes from various people that are usually very anti-war. It made me feel the whole time like the game was going to pull a third act twist relevant to those themes but it never really did; you reach the end and that's it, you stopped the bad guy, you're a hero! Your violence was stronger and somewhat more righteous I guess, good work soldier! It was very strange, it made me wonder if they ran out of time/budget to do multiple endings or if their publisher made them change the ending cause they thought it would sell better. EDIT: I just remembered that I misremembered. The game *DID* pull a third act twist, with one of your higher-ups being so corrupt that he shoots his own soldiers in the face. Then you make a shaky parley with the villain to go hunt him down instead. But then in the sequel, you go hunt the villain down anyway, so the point somewhat stands. Either way, the twist with your commanding officer doesn't play on those themes as much as it could have, it just kind of happens and doesn't really acknowledge the plot threads that came before it.
Development in the "triple-A" space involves creating the mechanics and scenarios first and then having the writers work within the constraints of the design, rather than writing a narrative and then building levels and models around it.
@@boarfaceswinejaw4516 a seemingly inescapable fate when the pentagon's all too willing to help out w your high profile game/movie's depiction of the US military, just so long as you let them sign off on the script first
@@HAL-iv2kd By stealing it from people that also need it an killing JTF officers that are just doing their job? The officers you gunned down were probably hungry as well, might of have had families to.
@@49mozzer I really wish the game actually showed the player character, yaknow, helping and delivering stuff to those that need it rather than militarybros, because it really just feels like the military/fed orgs in this game turned creepy anti-protest/anti-riot horders and are experiencing the consequences of abandoning/betraying the people they were supposed to HELP during a pandemic. Which, uh. Feels bad in 2021.
I love how one of the factions lore in this game is "well, all the sanitation workers went crazy and decided burning everything to the ground was the best course of action" Honestly its very believable
@@ShaggyToad1 yeah and the range would just suck due to using propane. I have a theory that the "roiters" might be other "activited" agents in the ploy. think about it
@@Rendo86 IIRC, when you clear out the Cleaners HQ there's an area with recipes for bathtub napalm scribbled up on the walls. I'm not sure how well it would work in real life but I'm guessing their flamethrowers are probably just gas cans under air pressure, kind of like the gasoline flamethrowers you can buy online nowadays.
Ive known about your channel for a long time, but only recently started watching Game Dungeon, and I’m totally hooked. You really know your shit, and you go into detail like nobody else. And your sense of humor is awesome.
I knew about Ross since the early 2010s yet I never watched a single one of his videos until the late 2010s, and boy did I feel stupid for not checking him out earlier.
You're not the law, Ross. You're above the law. The game literally tells you that. You're fucking judge Dredd before that was incorporated into the law.
Ross probably won't see this but the core of combat in the Division once you get past the Rioter faction is attacking enemy weakpoints if you want to do actual noticeable damage. The Big Burner bosses are actually super easy and go down the quickest of the big boss enemies if you shoot the propane tanks they have hanging off their hips.
I'm at 35:56 right now, and I just want to say that Ross's perspective on a sleeper cell agent that works with a group that seems to lack direction, has no limitations, and is self-righteous in their actions trying to establish order in an environment with desperate good-faithed people, zero parley, and no orders to begin with is a story I'd love to read/watch/play. I'd help pay for it.
If you start this game, and something rubs you the wrong way. If something feels very off. Congratulations. you are a citizen, worthy of living in a democratic society.
I mean I kind of always felt like I wasn't the hero in any of the Tom Clancy games I played. I played Ghost Recon 2 as a kid and while the gameplay was fun the shooting wasn't bad, but the story really didn't make me feel like a hero, more like I was invading a country and killing a bunch of foreign military personnel for no reason? I don't know. It also had Lone Wolf mode where you essentially get a full one man army load out with an experimental rifle/grenade launcher combo and an airstrike marker, then you're sent to be the Terminator. Literally, you just get told to eliminate all hostiles all your own
Apart from the lack of context, the other thing that feels wrong is how some agents fill in the gaps with assumptions. "Probability going to sell it or use it." For example.
One more thing. There are exploration parts and "collectables" that show some VERY VAGUE snippets for "story". It's usually stuff like some guy shoots an NPC, or what a kid was doing right before the crisis started. That's as much story as you're going to get from the game itself. Story was clearly not in the design focus; it was put into the grinding looter-shooter gameplay. I guess those kinds of digital treadmills are still a hot selling item.
I can respect the digial treadmill appeal, but MAN, I wish they'd had a little more well rounded writing staff tackle this even a little. Or is this stuff on par with Tom Clancy, know he died before it released and all?
@@tomisabum tbh I have zero clue because even though I've read Clancy novels, it was only a couple of the Jack Ryan novels where he's dealing with covert ops against obviously evil non-state actors, mustache twirling ex-KGB masterminds, or secretly evil high ranking military traitors, that sort of thing. What Clancy's stance was on desperate looters during a societal breakdown is unclear
@@z-beeblebrox I suppose you could estimate it based on who he tends to depict as heroes, but back during the Cold War his books tended to get actual attention from the military in a "who the fuck told you about this?!" sort of way.
I wish there was a plot twist in a middle of a game where you find out that Division is exactly what it seems to be - a cult. But that would be way to ambitious for Ubisoft drones.
He said “im a hero” the exact way he said it in freeman’s mind in the one episode. That’s brilliant, I can’t tell if he did it intentionally or not though lol
The people waiting in snow to be processed by no one was a great subtle detail to Ross's view of the game. Is it wonder people try to survive by themselves when trusting the government is more likely to get you frozen or starved through mismanagement? They don't even have more food or medicine than the city they're looting them from in the first place.
I wanted to know if any government branch except the Division still function. Or is there some place where Mexican army people and the UNHCR are desperately trying to send aid in.
Finally, someone who has the similar views on this game as I have. I think the flamethrower guys were a great idea too - but they needed to make the set pieces on fire rather than just throwing people in with flamethrowers. The morally grey "civilians versus looters" sort of thing was suuuuch a good idea too. It feels like they went the cowardly way and backed out of making something really memorable and interesting. Whoever that random, nameless employee at Ubisoft trying to fit this sort of thing in... I salute you. We need more of it.
The weird flash in the cutscenes is the 'symbol' for when you are getting talked to via radio. Seems like they use that same thing for the cutscene dialogue, but don't hide the symbol correctly.
When this game first came out, I almost immediately started thinking, "Yeah, shoot everyone, that'll solve everything", then I thought the cultist garbage men with the flamethrowers were stupid. Didn't play much more.
If you draped a WW2 skin over this game and changed up the custcenes it could easily be about the Warsaw ghetto uprising from the perspective of the Wehrmacht.
Also this video low-key makes me want to make a game about being in urban planning/city government and or emergency management during a pandemic or other disaster.
There's a game I heard about called "Frostpunk" that seems to be that kind of way, where the world is plunged into an apocalyptic volcanic winter and humanity finds themselves migrated to "generators". You have to build a city while managing labor, the morale of the people, and the threat of an impending storm.
@@doomyman108 It's a game with a great aesthetic but one that I also suck at. Or otherwise I was trying too hard to save as many people as I could and put too much stress on my city and everything collapsed after a while due to not being able to support a large population.
Well, there's the German "Emergency" series, which is a strategy game where you direct first responders to crisis situations. Be warned though - it's serious Eurojank.
The way you describe the story, halfway through i thought there was going to be a twist where command was feeding you false intel to get you to do their missions.
The reason why it feels so unbalanced at times (like getting overwhelmed when staying under cover, etc) is because the game was specifically meant to be played with a team or at least one other person. I don’t think that’s “official” or anything, but it’s definitely how it was meant to be. So you’d theoretically have at least a medic and a tank, and you’re almost meant to go down and be revived by your teammates. Obviously that’s a pretty huge flaw because now that the game is essentially dead, very few people will have anyone to play it with.
Thing is the AI doesn't act like someone realistically would in these situations. You telling me some looter after seeing three of his friends get gunned down by some dude with an M4 an a fancy sentry gun would jump out of cover an start marching towards said enemy in a straight line while firing his little pocket pistol gangster style?
There's also the issue of the game not doing a good job of explaining exactly how the cover system works: staying in cover is important, but so is moving between cover by using the built-in systems rather than leaving it, getting lit up, and scrambling again. If you select another piece of cover and move to it via spacebar, you take reduced damage and *usually* have a smaller profile as you're crouching behind other things or sliding past open spaces on the way there. If you know what you're doing you can circle around most fights and pick people off as they're trying to reorient to you. Unfortunately, you kinda just have to figure that out on your own, because Ubisoft are shit at explaining their mechanics in-depth.
The amount of detail in this game blew me away. I explored the entire city, but after that I saw no reason to keep grinding. As far as game stories go, I like the "if you can't remember a name single character then its probably not a good story" standard which this game is a textbook example of. Its not about what kind of story you tell, its about how you tell it. However, its so impressive when the snowstorm comes at night and you can barely see during firefights. I can't think of a single other game that does it so well. Its so atmospheric.
I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs when Ross got the part about how Ubisoft should live up to the standards of Tom Clancy's novels. I'm gonna say this right now, people might not agree with me, but I said the exact same thing about Siege. I feel so much pain hearing Ross say that, but also, a degree of relief that I'm not the only one who believe it.
Tom Clancy was a paranoid right wing nut but he did at least have a considered worldview about it you know. it might not be agreeable but it's something to engage with, compared to the Ubisoft style of saying nothing as loudly as possible
@@Graknorke how was he paranoid? If you've got to have a crazy crisis every couple years you're going to have more bad stuff happen than reality just coming up with plots, but he always wrote the other side as humans, with most of the actual harm done by a couple individual bad actors. He even wrote the Soviets to mostly be chill buds by the end of his run.
@@yaoiboi60 there were all kinds of Soviet characters in those books. Even some of the KGB guys, who you'd expect would be probably the most evil Soviets, were honorable. Both Hunt for Red October and Cardinal of the Kremlin had huge chunks of the story told from the perspective of different Soviet characters, some of which were genuine good guys. There's plenty of criticism of the Soviet system, but the characters were all just people, some good, some bad. If anything Clancy was unrealistically optimistic about the character and intentions of people in authority on both sides.
Coming back to this video after Ross has gone full throttle on stopping companies from killing games, it's neat to see the quick moments and mentions in his earlier videos where he'd bring it up. Truly some real-time foreshadowing.
This game's story reminds me of the "Grapist" skit by wkuk Agent:"IM GOING TO TAKE ALL OF YOUR BELONGINGS AND FORCE YOU INTO OUR BASE WE WONT LET A SINGLE ONE OF YOU LEAVE!!!!" Ross: Well im not sure about this moral wise Ubi Dev: What do you mean your the hero? Ubi Exec: I like it Agent:"IF YOU'RE NOT WITH US YOU'RE AGAINST US AND NO MERCY SHALL BE SHOWN TO YOU OR YOU LOVED ONES IF YOU RESIST!" Ross: No mercy?? Ubi Dev: Yes the bad guys deserve no mercy I don't understand your affacuation with the evil Ubi Exec: love it get that John Rambo first blood kinda vibe Agent:"YOU WILL KNEEL TO OUR REGIEM OR BE A FOOT NOTE IN OUR HISTORY BOOKS"
Pretty sure civs aren't forced to stay inside the base an they have to get their themselves so they aren't herding people in either. Besides considering Manhattan is suddenly overflowing with violent sociopaths they probably don't wanna leave either once they are there. Yes there are supply shortages an it's crowded but atleast you won't freeze to death or get shot
I think this is one of the games that must've really inspired Ross to start the 'Stop Killing Games' thing due to how BEAUTIFUL this world is and how he mentions several times that once it stops being supported it's just gone forever, which is really unfortunate.
I've played The Division 2, and it definitely reinforces the idea that all of the interesting parts of Division's worldbuilding were all done by accident. The basic premise is that Ross was right about the virus causing civilization to collapse in the background, and now The Division, JTF, and a few other organizations are trying to glue together whatever's left of the US Government in DC. Meanwhile, all the bad guys are much more obvious villains, and apparently everyone has forgiven The Division for mercilessly executing anyone trying to survive. The story somehow became worse by fixing all of the problems with its predecessor.
Every night before I go to sleep, I put on the Game Dungeon playlist. I don't really use YT for much else. I usually catch at least one before I fall asleep, but I always go back and rewatch them over and over. Ross, merry christmas. You're one of the only people who can make me relax. Thank you.
I swear, almost every time that Ross get his own plot, usually it's a lot better that the canonical plot.
The joy of Freeman's Mind
Because he uses the thing game scriptwriters forbade long ago.
His BRAIN!
I mean he’s pretty close with this one.
Chances are that this is because he tends to implant his own plot whenever the game isn't providing enough of a plot itself, like his brain pitches in for the part of the experience that he feels he isn't getting enough of.
@@СергейМалышев-ю8щ Writing script for a game means working within a much greater process where you are one of the most easily fixed parts. It's like a whole lot of teams working on their bit simultanously. You can't write a full script and hand it over to the studio, a certain scene or mechanic or setpiece might be reworked in the process and force adjustments.
I give big credit to Ubisoft for making a game about sleeper FEMA agents enforcing martial law in the midst of an emergency, seemingly without realising that this exact premise has been conspiracy fodder for decades
It's interesting playing from the perspective of some faceless goon working for the authoritarian regime vying for control over post-apocalypse New York
"Your appointment to FEMA should be finalized within the week. I've already discussed the matter with the senator..."
I wanna be a jackboot of the new world order. :(
Love they announced new one! 🤗
@@MrKazbit That's exactly what crossed my mind when Ross mentioned whether it's illegal to put FEMA in fiction
You know, a guy on the radio in safehouses calls out the division as faceless government endorsed death squads. Which.... yeah, that's exactly what they fucking are.
Really wish he covered rick
That whole "we're sleeper agents that get called to become armed militias at any time, and we could be your friends and neighbors" part at the beginning reaaaaaaly didn't sound all that reassuring at the beginning. I'm not going crazy, that's some KGB shit right?
@@Moonhermit-KGB, Stasi, FBI, ETC
Imagine having the worst day of your life, and then some random hobo shoves a gun into your face saying "I've been activated, hell yeah!"
That happens all the time. There are a ton of crazy hobos. Most of them in fact from what I remember.
This game might not have been in the best taste, even by Ubisoft standards.
@@GeorgeMonet it happened to me just yesterday! And the day before that, too!
Well, the last time it happened to me, it wasn't a gun that got shoved into my mouth... :(
@@roadent217 lollipop? red pill maybe? virtue signaling perhaps?
On the flamerthrower guy, it didn't occur to me to shoot his tanks since things were dark and I didn't really notice them + I found headshots on the other flamethrower guys were about as effective as hitting the tanks. I can testify another non-flamethrower boss had a bunch of hitpoints too. The hitpoints started becoming a blur. If a guy only takes 120 shots instead of 200, it's still kind of the same thing to me.
I think part of the problem is that the game is designed for co-op play. It's been a while since I played it, so I don't really remember if enemy health scales based on team size, but I distinctly remember having an easier time with a lot of the bullet-spongey bosses with at least a second player.
As someone who has played The Division long enough to hit endgame content, your assessment of the weak spots vs mobs is spot on, but I promise you that shooting the weak spots on any boss is going to chunk off way more health than you'd expect.
@@ExpendableSith it still was a lengthy mess, but i suppose it must be only slightly quicker than a single player
Did you find any of the mobile phones? Or some of the holographic stories? Maybe you could not use them for the challenge for some reason?
If you revisit this game fine the holographic stories, I found them the best part of the game and they filled in so much of the story, and the stuff I was interested to find in the story.
I remember TotalBiscuit also complaining about the bullet sponges in the game, when it came out. Especially the "guy in a hoodie takes 10 bullets before he dies" aspect.
This game is just the cut option to stay with UNATCO in Deus ex. Don't question orders, kill the "Rioters" , and maintain peace. You're the good guys!
The problem is that this isn't immersive sim, hence why it can't replace DX1 UNATCO path and maaan, it's a shame they never finished that path, they even wanted to make player play in White House, how cool is that?
This might be the most mainstream thing Ross has ever played and yet it still feels like a perfect fit for Game Dungeon
He could actually cover Fortnite and he'd still somehow make it fit Game Dungeon
You know, except for half life and half life 2...
@@slavkei Half... Life? Is that that new Resident Evil game with the Master Chief where they go and fly an airplane into an island and shoot everyone they see? Or is it that new fangled Zeldo game where the princess is kidnapped by Bowser again? I must be getting old, all these video games look the same to me.
Freeman's Mind isn't the same thing as game dungeon you dummy.
@@shaddowtheninja103 You replied to the wrong person, dummy
"I'm a hero!" *opens fire on some random guy*
yeah that sums it up, and the game isn't even being sarcastic when it tells you to feel that way
the most american game possible
I haven't played the game, but the way Ross portrays it it seems like a kind of intelligent critique on what the story is about. But maybe if I play the whole thing it'll become clear that it isn't.
I could watch a whole series of Ross doing this exact challenge. “What the hell is going on? A AAA Game Challenge by Ross Scott”
Why are you screaming?
@@bruhSaintJohn The Screaming DLC is only $9.99
@@daemonofdecay Knowing Ross, he bought it on sale for $1.99
I feel like The Division and Destiny are cut from the same cloth in that way of Looter shooter's where the entire story is hidden in collectible documents.
"We know nothing. The Division."
I can’t believe the AI recreated “Door’s stuck” with ross
Machine learning has come a long way.
It's the Spoony One & SWAT...3? 4?... all over again.
"You're in my way, sir"
I BEG YOU
"You're in my spot sir."
@@kncotton85 SWAT 4. Weirdly enough, the missions as he played them were out of order.
I honestly love Ross running around with a gun going "I've been activated" to him casually shaking hands with another agent with a quick "Activated"
Like homer simpson eating donuts.
"You've been activated"
Ross: "mmmmmm.... Activated.."
I think everytime I shake someone's hand now I'm going go go "Activated" and see their reaction
"Mr.Dalliard we've been activated!"
I love how in these sorts of games, Ross's persona becomes the Ideal Soldier: Good natured, affable, and happy to commit whatever war crimes he's ordered to
Got to get him to do a Rimworld stream sometime, modded or otherwise.
They aren't war crimes if you win.
i hope he does a Spec Ops the line video
@@MangasColoradas941 Or an Arma 2 or 3 episode.
Hey, do you know what movie the clip of Kurt Russell talking about shooting looters is from? Around 33 minutes.
"When I was still new to the royal palace, I looked out the window and saw a guard standing in the middle of a courtyard, nothing to protect, nothing to guard, no doors. I couldn't figure out what he was guarding so I asked around. No one knew, not even the emperor.
"Finally, they searched through the old records and found the truth, that 200 years before as winter came to an end, the emperor's daughter saw the first flower growing up through the snow. To keep anyone from walking on it she assigned a guard to stand watch over it every day. After that she never gave it much thought, and thus never countermanded the order.
"As a result, every day for 200 years a guard would stand in that place long after the flower was gone. Long after the reason had been forgotten. Long after the princess was gone." --Londo Mollari
Tradition!
I remember a similar story, but it was a Christmas ham recipe.
Basically the recipe that was passed down supposedly called for trimming the front and back end of the ham.
When the daughter asked her mother why she's trimming the meat... she couldn't answer exactly why.
Only when the mother asked her mother did she learn that trimming the ham was never part of the recipe.
She originally just did it because her roasting pan was too small and the entire piece didn't fit.
Sounds much like our healthy future.
Man Babylon 5 was so good... can't believe they're going to -ruin- remake it next...
I felt like Londo looking out at the mass drivers when I first heard the news. Call me cynical but I _DO NOT_ trust modern Hollywood to do it justice at all even with JMS involved.
"We've always done it this way." Or another one I hear sometimes: "it's the industry standard."
Both often translate to nobody actually knows why something is being done, it just is, and there's probably not actually a good reason to keep doing it.
Ross made this game's setting seem a lot more interesting and morally ambiguous than what Ubisoft had likely ever intended or considered.
Given that Massive has made Ground Control and a 15-year gap later made their second ever military-based IP, I'm surr if they're not pigeon-holed into making a live-service RPG this is their exact intentions
This is entirely intended. All the collectables talk about how the JTF are woefully incompetent and corrupt, and how giving undercover government agents carte blanche with no oversight is a TERRIBLE idea and leads to disaster.
You know what you're right, recently finished collecting all Intel and that's also the reason Keener turned antagonistic
Well Ross massively overthinking what the devs might've meant while writing a game (and designing its gameplay) is hardly anything new. But I'm a sucker for this kind of stuff.
@@Butts666 in fairness it's not necessarily "overthinking" in this case so much as "applying the smallest amount of real world logic to a pseudo-realistic video game".
They literally open saying "we have no rules". I mean, could you imagine having a completely unaccountable militarized police force who could just kill anyone they want without facing any serious consequences for it? That would be... well okay, it wouldn't be too different from what we have now, but it's still a terrible idea.
Christmas Decoration Count (in order of appearance)
04:06 - Snowflakes x10
07:05 - Christmas Tree x1
07:28 - White Lights on Normal Tree x1 & Green Lights on Normal Tree x1
07:33 - Snowflakes x2
07:37 - Green Lights on Normal Tree x1
08:07 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1
12:59 - White/Yellow Lights on Street Lamps x4 & Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1
13:22 - White/Yellow lights on Street Lamp x1 & Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1
14:01 - White/Yellow Lights on Street Lamps x3 & Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1
14:07 - Christmas Tree x1 & Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1
14:25 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x2
14:45 - Christmas Tree x1 & Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x4
15:51 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x2
16:45 - Wreath x1 & Ribbon/Bows x4
23:41 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x4
30:21 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x2
33:07 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x2
43:13 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x3
43:17 - Christmas Tree x1 (but -1 because Somebody didn't pay attention to Louie the Lightning Bug I guess)
43:18 - Snowflake (Stars) x7 and Strung Lights x1?
44:55 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1
47:07 - White/Yellow lights on Street Lamp x1
47:10 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1
48:14 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1 (might be a repeat)
50:38 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x1
51:24 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x2
51:31 - Strung Lights x1
52:17 - Yellow Lights on Normal Tree x4 & Blue Lights on Normal Tree x1 & Green Lights on Normal Tree x1 White Lights on Normal Tree x2 & Red Lights on Normal Tree x1 & Blinking Lights on Street Lamp x3 & Star Lights x1 & Strung Lights x1 & Happy Holiday's Sign x1
52:21 - Santa! x1
52:26 - Blinking Lights on Street Lamp x4 & Strung Lights x1
Total Count
Strung Lights x63
Snowflakes x19
Christmas Trees x(4-1)
Happy Holiday's Sign x1
Santa x1
Thank you for your service.
*Everybody was kneeling out of respect*
Jesus Christ. I can't believe anyone actually did this.
What an awesome comment!
Personification of true love for christmas!
"Wow, you can even read the text on the walls"
"Lorem ipsum..."
Pretty much describes the story of this game.
yeah i feel like the fact that the game has the grapichal fidelity to have readable text on the posters on the walls but the text is just placeholder text is pretty representative of this game as a whole
Lorem ipsum is literally a text used as a placeholder text. It's latin if I'm correct, I don't remember the actual meaning of it. But it's used for texts showcases. Which is kinda funny to me.
@@RottenHeretic It has no meaning. Just like The Division!
@@Yotrymp Technically it has a meaning. It's used as a text placeholder. If we think about it as purpose being meaning to something then it IS serving it's purpose.
@@RottenHeretic It's not latin, it's a made-up language
In HL2 you take down "civil protection" teams.
In The Division you are the "civil protection" team 🤣
I chuckled warmly when Ross said, "I'm a hero"
That morphine really did its work
*Starts firing full auto at starving people
They were wearing hoodies!
"Are we the baddies?"
My take is this whole 'Activated' thing is just a rationalization to shoot people. I mean, who would use some CIA-type sleeper agents to rescue hostages and getting supplies, if he doesn't even know the looters and not integrated with them? Half of these cutscenes is 'Joker' all over again.
Ah, a Christmas game dungeon. Now things are starting to make sense. Happy Holidays from the Admiral to you!
You are always here to lift my spirits, Admiral. Have a good Christmas!
you're a real brother, admiral, enjoy your holidays man!
More on that later.
Enjoy your Christmas with your family
Will you take leave to be with your family?
You know, usually when you do these 'alternate interpretations' bits, they definitely feel tongue in cheek, but in this one, the disconnect between the narrative and what you see in the game is real. It's like they did 'Spec-Ops: The Line' but played it straight.
Yeah exactly, like someone bumbled their way into making Spec-Ops: The Line by cowardly attempting to say nothing so as to sell their product.
At least you don’t go dumping white phosphorus on people. That’s not exactly reassuring, though.
Government handing out blankets in a mostly empty city full of billions of abandoned blankets. The government is so enlightened and always thinking 28 steps ahead of the common trash.
"We are your coworkers. We are your neighbors. We might even be your friends." - that line, said with heroic music playing in the background, genuinely gave me the creeps. Might be because I have older relatives who lived in East Germany who actually had that legitimate experience with state police.
Sorry if this is spoiling the Christmas mood for some, but I'm seriously a little freaked out at how this is portrayed. This is not meant to be a good thing.
That line sounds more like the line the alien shapeshifters in a horror movie say when revealing how the invasion has already started.
I imagine that this is how things would go in the East side of Berlin if the DDR had faced a similar crisis. There's not really a plan and shit's not working, but by god will the current approach be continued with in perpetuity.
Yeah, they act like it is a good thing, when in reality, it is kinda terrifying. I really don't feel like you're the "good guy" in this game...
The government is not your friend.
Man, I think that context helped reinforced why this skeezed me out so bad, on top of the whole killing trapped looters/rioters. The only thing people have ever required to do evil things is to just get to a place in their heads where they genuinely believe they are right to do so.
This game explains itself at the start as essentially having you play as Blackwatch from Prototype, considering the whole "no rules" and "no limits" thing, but without being nearly as cool or well written as Blackwatch because they don't even try to play on the controversial aspects of such a group. And that alone really sets the tone for this game, having some basic idea of what they could do, without ever having the balls to actually do it. Actually that might just summarize Ubisoft as a whole, now that I think about it.
Yeah, the terms "no rules" and "no limits" are usually things that EVIL governments give to their super-elite military divisons and the Divison has you playing as them. You would expect that a city falling into chaos would require the National Guard in the USA and they activate The Divison sleeper agents because... why again?
@@AdamWhistle1 Ignoring even that, how the hell am I supposed to get into being a US Government sleeper agent? The premise of this game is that the government is hiding a bunch of trained killers among us, and we're supposed to be on THAT side? Not against it?
@@AdamWhistle1 Kind of feels like it's just Crackdown but poorly thought out, wit a dose of Infamous in there too, big one.
"When we hunt, we kill!
No one is safe!
Nothing is sacred!
We are Blackwatch!
We are the last line of defense!
We will burn our own to hold the red line,
it is the last line to ever hold!"
- Blackwatch creed
Yeah, I feel like Blackwatch leaned way more heavily into them being psychopaths who could laugh about gunning people down in the street...but Blackwatch actually seems to be right that letting the virus escape containment in Manhattan and spread would be world-ending. They are both shadier and on much firmer ground for the necessity of their job.
This is probably the best example of all time of a game failing to establish proper context. The Division feels unique in that it sets up something that is clearly supposed to be the real world, and then stuffs it full of MMO-style genocide quests, but instead of killing 6 Cave Monsters you're shooting people with the bare minimal understanding of what they're doing and why.
Its like if someone made a videogame that was basically "Pokemon but with real animals" and changed nothing about how the underlying mechanics work, and you have to order your Grizzley bear to maul some kids poodle a few dozen times because he locked eyes with you on the side of the road.
i actually was able to understand perfectly the motivations of the last man battalion,cleaners and rikers respectively.what the hell are you on about they did a admittedly minimal explanation on them but you can get them just by their appearances in some cases
This metaphor is going to stay in my head, and I will steal it when trying to describe games with similar problems.
That comparison example of what The Division is was perfect.
@@zzurge1173 I think the issue is that most of the backstory is delivered through collectibles. That can only work if the answers aren't essential to understand the motivations of everyone. In JC3, the collectibles are mostly about Di Ravello's rise to power. That's really neat to know about, but we can understand him without them. He's a sociopathic dictator with an isolationist streak. That's basic, but it's characterized well enough that it holds. And in this game, the thing is that while we know the immediate motivations of most of the factions, we don't get any information as to why they're operating as a unified faction. Like, they call a group rioters. I'd barely call the people in a single riot a unified faction. Dozens of riots spread across the city? No way they're all coordinated enough to make a faction. The Cleaners? Ross makes a good point, if we were explicitly told that the Cleaners were the result of Municipal Sanitation workers getting more and more desperate to control the virus, maybe they could hang together as a faction. But without those collectibles, they look like something that should be scattered nutcases, not an organized faction.
We have fruit themed Pokemon ROMhack. Now I want real animal themed one.
"digital camo face paint", Ross, is called CV-Dazzle. It's intended to foil computer vision and facial recognition algorithms.
That's super interesting to me.. Thanks for sharing
Oh so its like Juggalo face paint? Got it
Which is weird, because nobody in the division covers their face, and most of the enemies are decentralized citizens who don't use any large digital databases...and everyone seems to know who The Division is anyway.
yeah, but
a) that style is completely and utterly useless for this. CV could instanly recognize you with digicamo like that
b) style that would work is really jarring and would draw ALL the attention from everyone on the street
the stuff that works the best is generic surgical mask/respirator (which in retrospect are missing in this game)
@@tomisabum this statement is really funny to me because almost everyone that's reached level 30 is wearing a mask
“are we the baddies?” -The Division agent after killing 100 civilians
eh...not enough skulls on your uniform
oh so you set up an unaccountable and unregulated secret military force to crack down on civilians during times of crisis and suddenly you're "an authoritarian police state"
typical snowflakes 🙄
@c0ya1 They tried, actually. Extra Creditz said some of the violent, armed Rioters wore hoodies, like Trayvon Martin, therefore the game might encourage IRL racial violence.
I am not kidding.
There's also the people who say you're 'unaccountable', which isn't true outside of the Dark Zone, and one article which said you shoot minorities and poor people just trying to 'protect themselves'.
@@Graknorke Wow, such trigger-ness to a line rip from some British comedy show.
No matter who or what you work for, anyone who is not a complete psychopath will probably feel weird about gunning down serval dozen people with little to no context except orders.
That is how PTSD started, it has nothing to do with your belief of how the government can just shoot the disenfranchised, dipshit.
Because to be honest, both sides are fucked.
As mentioned by Ross, one side just takes blind orders, while the other side is just generic "bad guys" that the game tells you are bad...it is a prime state for the not completely stupid to think about if they are doing the right thing.
Funny, I don't remember shooting any civilians when I played
"We are your coworkers. We are your neighbors. We might even be your friends."
Anyone you know could be a government sleeper agent with a license to kill, just waiting for their little smart watch to light up so they can start shooting "rioters". You're welcome, citizen.
"They are the last line of defense to defend the government from you!"
I figured it was more like the national guard or reserve. Super secret sleeper agents don't usually wear an otherwise pointless, highly identifying watch out in the open.
@@weneedaladder8384 you've never met born rich white people with no taste
@@weneedaladder8384 that's what it was, after some unspecified catastrophe, the division agents, recruited from various civil and military services, would be granted access to experimental technologies, armed and equipped to protect whatever remained of the US citizenry and attempt to restore order by whatever means where necessary
With the IRS hiring 87,000 (?) new agents and training them to deal with life or death situations and arming them, this is a little...on the nose maybe? The figure of speech evades me, but it's goddamn terrifying.
I love that Ross is not-so-subtly hitting on the problem with stories like The Division. The moral of the story in Division is "Civilians are absolutely fucking insane when given the slightest motivation. Secret government sleeper cells that are exempt from the law, except when they turn against the country, are totally okay because something something terrorists." The thing is, secret government sleeper cells don't get activated because of 'terrorists'. That's what the armed forces are for. Secret government sleeper cells are made so they can get used on the civilian populace. The entire idea is that the system is going to fail because people recognize that the system is shit and is only in place to keep people in line. When that system fails they have to have something to fall back on. That's what the sleeper cells are for. To enforce compliance.
Welcome to the world of Tom Clancy!
The Division isn't a sleeper cell, they're just a different version of a national guard. They wouldn't wear the telltale watch if they were trying to be secret.
The lack of a uniform isn't great, but as long as the game doesn't have enemies that won't shoot you first, I think it's a tough argument that it's a secret police simulator.
46:00
I've heard it said that games like the Division appeal to a similar demographic as those that like the show Law and Order: the sort of people that work hard all day, come home exhausted, and just want to watch something where they can largely shut their brain off, and they know every installment is going to be something they'll enjoy. They like one episode, so they know they'll like every other episode, because every episode is more of the same, but with just enough different between episodes to still keep things fresh over time.
The Division is the Law and Order of gaming, in a way. The grind is actually a feature for its intended demographic, because it stretches out the content to last longer.
That and it's completely uncritical of extrajudicial murder
@@synthgal1090 It's not murder if they're "Rioters!"
Well, since most people seem to ignore dialogue and cutscenes, any shooter game can become a Law and Order equivalent.
@@Explodington it's not murder if thay shoot at you
Crime shows and looter shooters replaced sitcoms basically.
I could listen to Ross talk about the implications of fictional disasters all day.
I can see it. "Welcome to Ross's News Dungeon. To start things off, the apocalypse is happening, but at the same time it's not, we're in a weird lovecraftian greyzone that's borderline incomprehensible and defies all rational to speak of." (I suck at impressions sadly)
@@lupusmacbeth8784 Dead Space series would be good for this; it was a highlight of the video.
His take on that Star Trek Next Generation episode was golden.
1:37 "We knew the situation was bad. Worse than anyone knew."
10/10 writing!
Yeah I wanted to roll up a newspaper and smack the shit out of their editor when I heard that.
After the character creation, all I could think was “Ross made the Last Stand guy!”
Still waiting for that Last Stand Union City episode follow-up
@@DeadPollo
@@DeadPollo isn't there a new game called last stand aftermath.
My head went Fallout NV 'Easy Pete', but I see it; it's that type of beard.
One of my favourite parts of the Game Dungeon is when Ross comes up with his own theories about the games he's playing (like Trackmania 2 being a post-apocalyptic game). So I approve of this challenge of his, trying to figure out the game's story!
My favourite was dungeon siege when he mention that “this game may as well not have a story I’m serious”
I find his theory about the "secret genius" really amusing. If there actually was a genius working on the game, Ross is completely right about the main story of the game actually only being a tiny veneer hiding a massive twist that may or may not actually exist.
But in reality, the writers just came up with a basic concept, then just put in the minimum amount of effort to string encounters together. Most of the moral ambiguity and mystery about the outside world not being the work of someone with vision, but just the result of people not really giving a shit and just creating something people can zone out to.
@@kaybe9797
There was a guy in far cry 2 dev team who *REALLY* wanted it to be about the ambiguity of war...
I 100% agree, his ideas are always entertaining. But my favorite is probably the snow racer game.
It is a true thing of beauty and entertainment.
“Wouldn’t that be like officially naming your military The Military?”
Well, they *did* call their division The Division, so…
Going to be the "Um, actuallu" guy here, the division the player character is in is actually named the Stategic Homeland Division (SHD)
After all these years I finally realize that when they say "The Division" they mean an organization and not a schism.
@@counterhitasmr9196it's meant to be both, quite obviously.
Oh my god, now I want the whole 'Freeman's mind but its other shooters' thing even more. Ross's roleplay is as good as his thought-provoking video essays masquerading as videogame reviews.
Right? I got that vibe within the first minutes of this video
The Division would be a great one since the protagonist never speaks in either game!
I think this was 90% thought provoking questions/roleplaying and 10% actual review lol.
It made it even funnier with the fact he said he failed on the figuring out the story thing. He only played till like level seven and I have no problem with it.
This game would be perfect, since theres 0 input from you’re character. Also touches on some good relevant topics
I honestly feel like most of this dialogue could just be casually thrown into a Freeman's Mind season 2 episode and it wouldn't sound out of place.
"This is just busywork, and doesn't respect the player's time." Congrats, you just described every game by Ubisoft of the last generation.
Ubisoft also doesn't respect their employee's basic human rights. :]
@@MxPokirby And all the sexual abuse that they never did anything about. Honestly, among the two I'd count that as worse..... Which is why, like Activision, I'll only ever buy their stuff used physical now.
@@tyrongkojy I felt the same way as I bought a used copy of fallout 76 on eBay for $8. Glad not a penny went to Bethesda.
@@warzIbanez At least with Beth, as far as I know, there's not systematic rape. ONLY time I'll buy a Ubi or Activ game new now is for pennies on the dollar. Full priced game for five to ten dollars? Okay, you may get my chump change. Otherwise used only.
Or any game that relies on RNG whilst being a roguelike. Like Noita (Yeah get mad I don't like your fav genre IDGAF) Playing the same thing ad nasuea just to get "a good start" is not good game design.
I played the sequel to this game after a friend bought it for me and I could recall at the time thinking "Why am I doing these things? If the government is no longer the prevailing force then why are we trying to maintain the status quo?" Like there are looters trying to get medicine, and food, and the basic necessities to survive but like no one is attempting to reach out and find common ground, you just shoot them and that's that? Food and medicine is only for the people who follow the law and the rest of the people can just die?
It's a real "Are we the baddies" situation the whole way through.
It sounds like the typical gameplay loop in a lot of modern military shooters. It's the generic bandit gang or village mob you can gun down in game after game.
I like the cleaners, just for the surprise. Every game can toss in a shady mercenary group, but how many have militarized municipal workers?
@@SusCalvin Just think of all the actual drudgery they get up to when not being shot at by Payne.
Also, if a major chunk of the country is now in open support of a new form of government, and literally the only people who believe in the Old Order are a couple of refugees and thugs with guns, then the millions of "rioters" you murder in this game are probably more legitimate a voice than any remnants of government.
@@fnhatic6694 I thought it just looked like any old shooter, where you gun down the generic filler bandits. Players do the same over and over in eastern european villages, generic medinas and tropical islands.
Well the Hyena's like to kill people for shits an giggles an even do the same to each other from time to time
The True Sons believe themselves to be the new government an kill anyone that doesn't conform
The Outcasts are too hell bent on burning down DC an killing everyone for "abandoning" them even though there was very little anyone could have done at the time anyway.
Black Tusk I could sorta get behind if they didn't start by shooting people an then come in acting like they're the real heroes when in reality they're little better then the Division.
Apparently you can't use government agency logos without their express consent. They probably could've mentioned FEMA without being allowed to show the logo the way Deus Ex Human Revolution did for the Highland Park mission, but to give it a more "official" look, they had to create a suspiciously similar substitute to FEMA the way GTA does with FIB
JTF probably means Joint Task Force, meaning a multi-branch unit that operates under one umbrella
That's exactly what it means. They're made up of NYPD, FDNY, and National Guard personnel. You can actually tell them apart in-game as some will wear blue under the vests while others will be wearing camo.
Well... Ross said it himself: "Land of the free"...
To me the strangest quirk is Ubisoft around this time were releasing Rainbow Six Siege (both Division and Siege developed in-house) which includes FBI as a base game group. They also had Navy Seals as 2nd season operators. Soooo... Permission to use FBI granted, maybe Seals too depending how far back they were asking for permission, but, FEMA said no.
@@rickrollerdude There are much worse insults to the concept of freedom in USA than not being allowed to use official government logos.
I don't believe the developers of GTA ever intended to use the official FBI. FIB is a clever word play since people don't trust the real FBI.
I love Ross’s ability to turn any generic looter shooter review into an introspective journey
the game raises the questions just fine itself, even if it doesn't recognise they're there
@@Graknorke exactly. the problem with those nerds complaining about politics in the media they consume is they don't realize it's always there, regardless of intent.
@@voltcorp The problem has never been that fiction can't be thought provoking or have some kind of political message. The problem is in the modern day with high budget, mainstream projects it is ham fisted and fucking terrible. Look at something like Lord of the Rings, its an allegory about war, specifically about World War 1, but it was subtle and not constantly haranguing the reader with self righteous moralizing. If you want something more recent, A Dance with Dragons (2011) had a pretty obvious reference to modern wars in the Middle East, but it was underneath a layer of legitimately good storytelling and affected the plot in an important way. It creates conflict. Even something that's expressly hyperpolitical and concurrent can be compelling and justified, like Hunter S. Thompson's work. He actually had something to say, and was able to weave it into his stories in intelligent and interesting ways so that even if you disagree with his thesis, the work he does with it can be appreciated and used for self reflection.
Compare this to, say, Star Wars where its clearly trying to do a thing about female empowerment but is just executed as some of the female characters competent with no buildup on why they're strong, and thus no catharsis. They simply solve problems in the plot because it wants to show that women can be strong individuals. That's just dogshit writing and morals, political or otherwise.
Nice strawman, tho.
@@lurksnitchtongue8986 there he is
@@dirtfriend Are you actually illiterate?
"Busywork and doesn't really respect the player's time" a good definition of every Ubisoft game ever made
JTF does indeed stand for Joint Task Force. The term is normally used when multiple branches/agencies are organized into a single command structure for a specific purpose.
Not to be confused with Canada's elite JTF2.
@@tartrazine5
"If the JTF is so great, then why not make a JTF2?"
-Canada, probably.
Yup, I legit went 'OH NO' out loud when he mentioned that and the DHS/FEMA counterpart being part of this. An unnamed JTF with sleeper agent militia forces gunning down civilians trying to survive a situation that really would have been resolved with actual, yaknow, infrastructure responses FROM the DHS/FEMA and aid rather than bullets was...not a fun thing to see in the tail end of 2021, but I did get more laughs outta Ross reacting to it at least.
@@tomisabum "An unnamed JTF with sleeper agent militia forces gunning down civilians was...not a fun thing to see in the tail end of 2021"
...I'm sorry; am I missing something? Did a massacre occur in the US very recently that I'm not aware of or something?
@@roadent217 Referring to events portrayed by our family-friendly fictional escapism here.
Lemme tell y'all a story about The Division.
There's a book that came with it, New York Collapse: An Urban Catastrophe Survival Guide. Great book, has *actual, legit* urban survival tips in he event of a catastrophe.
Thing is, there's a puzzle element woven throughout he book. a bunch of feelies, too. you were doing things like matching punched holes in a bus ticket to paragraphs in the book, all sorts of cool things.
After solving all the puzzles, you got two things: A passcode to say to a particular person (who is an NPC in the game), and a Location in New York. Presuming you got a cool bonus item for doing so, I checked both things.
The NPC doesn't respond to anything, and just stands there. Even on the PC version, saying the passcode in chat next to them, nothing.
And The location? *two blocks off the edge of the map and inaccessible.*
Case in point: never buy any secondary material from Ubisoft again.
Oh, and since you're still reading, A quick reminder that Ubisoft has aided, protected, and condoned Sexual abuse within the company for years.
amazing
Was the book itself any good? Did the urban crisis make any more sense when reading it?
@@SusCalvin not really? It's a standard urban survival tips book with a bunch of stuff written in the margins that add some minor story context and are puzzle clues.
Don't forget that after this death-squad game about shooting looters, Ubisoft released Elite Squad, ANOTHER game where you play as a death-squad shooting rioters, but this time the rioters have antifa and blm iconografy.
@@SusCalvin It's ok. Most of the Division related books and such are of mediocre quality to be honest.
I definitely agree with the Purge point you mentioned
People would probably barricade their homes and protect their families, maybe people with less to lose would do small crimes, or openly do stuff they already do under cover of night.
Looting would be big, but I never considered stores paying top dollar for 24 hours of airtight security
Personal crimes would also be very common I guess
But people going on a homicidal frenzy wouldn't be really common, and any wannabe mass murderer would probably be swiftly dealt with by a population that would be probably packing heat
For every weirdo mass murder there would be like 10 LARPing military types with Punisher patches and skull bandana masks who want a license to shoot looters.
They tried to tell a story what support their agenda and they failed to use a great idea to make a good movie.
The Purge movies realistically would be more like Halloween. You'd have some psychos trying to pick off a neighborhood serial killer style and a town of drunks basically half-ass hunting the psychos but mostly vandalizing businesses and stealing shit.
Iirc this is actually what happened in The First Purge, the prequel to the movie series. People commit petty crime or have mass drunken orgies at most, while the rest would just sit tight at home. And while violent crime does happen, it is mostly due to personal grudges. But the government interfered with the Purge by sending in mercenaries to start killing people to artificially increase the level of violence.
The main thing that would happen is tax evasion and white glove crime. All CEOs get payed, all mergers, monopolies, and so on; not a cent in taxes.
I love how Ubisoft's cageyness toward taking any actual side to their seemingly political games has enhanced Ross' experience with the setting.
"Our games aren't political". Then they make a game about a pandemic that breaks down society and you play as sleeper agents for a secret police to restore order by massacring defenceless rioters, lmao.
@@augustokonrad3572 trying to make Tom Clancy games non-political seems kinda odd tbh
@@iug5672 Politics might get in the way of profit. Even when their games are actively political they say it isn't.
@@augustokonrad3572 none of the rioters in that game are defenseless considered they are all armed with automatic weapons and actively attempt to kill you.
"We don't do politics. We just inject everything with right-wing extremist fantasies."
Obey the HUD, don't question the HUD,
Red bar will tell you who's naughty, who's good
(Hint: It's whoever is wearing a hood)
My vision is augmented
A true Xmas game
Santa Clause is coming to town
The "magic radar" is one of the more disturbing elements of this game if you think about it. Like what even is that? Some kind of AI that scans people's brains and decides who gets to live and who needs to die? And you're just carrying out the decisions of this thing without question?
@@Gear3k oh, god. True.
The feeling of just knowing what content comes next without being able to explain why resonates very strongly with me. Love your craft Ross.
Love you too Huggbees, hope TH-cam's copyright-striking your vids lesser now
Real recognizes real
Can we get Ross on the Official Podcast?
This explains the existence of How It’s Actually Made on infinite levels.
I love you too!
Ross, ever since “The Crew,” I am terrified that none of our games will be replayable in the future. Thanks for calling this out. -Long term Morrowind and Deus Ex player
I'm kind of okay with this fascist propaganda being unplayable in the future. >_>
thats my biggest worry with path of exile and world of warcraft honestly.
@@SavageGreywolf I wouldn't miss this specifically either, but it's the principle of not artificially creating a best-before date on something that doesn't need one.
@@SavageGreywolf How could this game be propaganda? At worst it's completely unintentional, And at best the moral ambiguity is literally political commentary *against* indiscriminate lethal force.
@@sceerane8662 some people seem to think that having something bad be in a game means that you're endorsing it, somehow.
*Ross gunning down enemy*
“RIOTING’S AGAINST THE LAW! I AM THE LAW”
*empty’s entire clip*
“anywho, I’m still a lil lost on what I should be doing”
😭😂
This comment makes me wonder if Ross would ever cover Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death, if only because I'm wondering what he'd say about the world of Judge Dredd and how that all works.
Also, Judge Ross fanart when?
I'm in complete agreement regarding the map. I have a friend who works in NYC, and when I showed her the game, she remarked that, while it was fairly compressed and scaled-down, it was a fantastic recreation of that section of the city.
At one point while I was playing the survival portion of the game they added later, I was caught in thick snowfall by a streetlight at night, and the effect was so stunningly realistic that I just stood there watching it for a whole minute.
“Whats next, a mech?”
Yes ross, thats exactly what happens, and its just as dumb as it sounds
I love Ross's approach to the political/social elements of this game's story. There are some very obvious parallels to draw to real life events that postdate the game's release in early 2016, but they're so obvious and the issues are already so talked about that actually exploring those parallels would risk being tedious and/or preachy. Instead Ross sort of lets the game speak for itself, inviting the viewer to draw their own conclusions about its present relevance or lack thereof. I'm kind of reminded of his Wolfenstein review where the game was modded so that everyone had pumpkin heads but he just never acknowledged it. It feels like the same kind of elephant in the room, but more serious this time. But that doesn't mean this video strives to be apolitical. Far from it, it eagerly engages with the confusing, troubling, thought-provoking implications of the game's premise. I think it's a nice middle ground.
Exactly!! The first half kinda reminded me of the cult simulator video too for that reason! I'm kinda blown away how he managed to keep that delicate balance right where it kinda needed to be.
His attention to detail was nice to. Through a lot of it I was thinking "Ross, they are trying to keep the virus in containment, keeping supplies flowing in but harshly enforcing quarantine." Then he brought up the map of it on all continents and it was like "oh...yeah, what the fuck are we doing keeping everyone trapped in this starving prison? Who's in charge? What the fuck is happening?"
Yeah, this is one of the few channels I feel I can trust not to peddle me some low-brow "social commentary". I can't believe Ross is the most professional video games kahntent creator out there. These videos are timeless, just like the art he's trying to preserve.
@@lonewolfM16 yeah the logistics to carry out an attack of this magnitude would be nothing short of madness.
@@Rendo86 it being fresh dollars seems to make it a lot harder. Some terrorist attacks have involved trying to contaminate goods like produce in shops...with limited effectiveness. Dollars wouldn't be the worst, if you had a fairly durable strain of virus, and it wouldn't be hard to get a lot of small currency that is likely to be exchanged as change and passing it to cashiers. If it can incubate quickly and can infect them all the better. But the fresh currency and huge scale do kinda fuck up the simplicity of the plan.
Funnily enough, the Purge prequel pretty much confirms that Ross was right and the reason why the purges are like that now is because in the first one, the government was constantly sending mercs to stir up the public and make it seem like going masked maniac was the only way to survive the night.
They even execute the woman that was in charge of the project, so she doesn't snitch.
God these videos are so well written. You're so comfortable writing in your own voice that it feels like an off the cuff conversation without any filler words.
For a game that’s harping on pseudorealism, you’d think they’d come up with a cult more believable than the guy from the opening of Lethal Weapon 4.
You say that, but Alex Jones is RIGHT THERE.
@@tomisabum
Alex Jones has been right about quite a few things, even if I don't always agree with him.
Most of the people decrying Alex Jones are also the kinda people to say, "don't think for yourself you don't have enough qualifications to do that"
@@iwatchyoutubealot No, most of the people decrying him are people who don't appreciate harassing the families of mass shooting victims.
@@mattheweakin6802 If you still believe in that shit it's purely because you're choosing to at this point. There's so many things so far off about that supposed incident it makes columbine conspiracy theories look desperate to portray it as being as fishy.
@@einzelfeuer_2855 It has been determined by the courts multiple times, and is demonstrated by overwhelming evidence. If you continue to deny it, it's only because you're choosing to.
"We are your coworkers, your neighbors, your friends, " Can't believe the Division reinvented the Stasi damn Ubisoft.
This almost felt like a “The Division’s Mind series part 1” for a sec. Oh lord if it could.
dumb idea
Getting “activated” is giving me flash backs to gordon’s hero trip or morphine.
Ross, it's not supposed to be a morally ambiguous game. It's supposed to be a morally black and white game. It was just made by morally bankrupt people, so good and evil are defined by obeying authority or not.
I think my biggest issue with this game was how detailed its world was in terms of each area and place you could go in felt so well detailed and lived in, and yet the combat and encounters were just typical Ubisoft copy paste blandness.
I would not be shocked at this point if it turns out that every Ubisoft game was recycling the exact same code with different visuals slapped over it.
@@revolutionstudios5052 They care for the planet, so naturally they will recycle.
To play devil's advocate kinda hard to make an MMOTPS with mobs and bosses that die in like one or two shots and make it not boring.
@@corsaircarl9582 so don't make one
@@aprofondir Would you play an MMO that let's you just kill bosses in one-or-two shots? How would it keep you engaged?
The extended DLC of the sequel confirms a great deal of most people's theories about the Division- the Division really is not that different from any other group using force to maintain order, and part of why there's traitors and renegades is because its not just that it's easy for agents to go too far, but also for some agents to seriously wonder if they're part of the "good guys", because from the civilian perspective, we're not that different- we've just got elite killing teams.
While the PC characters and the JTF obviously have the people's interest at their heart, the player's actually can't do much to impose law and order other than shooting down nails that stick out- the bog standard hoarders and gangs,special interest groups using their knowledge to try to protect themselves, and the obvious hoard of chaotic evil Orcs from RIker's Island, who soly exist to be bad and evil, and yet also somehow work together. in a cohesive unit.- something The Division itself has trouble with- what with FIrst and Second Waves shooting at each other!
The only way the Division's world works is if the villains, Rioters, Cleaning specialists, and Rikers Island inmates are so cartoonishly evil that us running around shooting people is the only and best response- but we see that the three groups are managing to have manpower, leadership, supplies and carving out fiefdoms within NY to remain capable threats- threats that continue to persist well into the sequel, despite Hero McGee and friends killing several thousand enemies by the end of the campaign alone- what, are they breeding like Zerg in their hideouts? Or are they actively recruiting the citizens you're trying to 'save'. So why isn't our mission to broker peace between these rising factions to establish a new "normal" and ensure the chaos of conflict doesn't claim innocent lives? Nope, it's to run in guns blazing and kill chaotic evil douchebags who are bad for no other reason than to make a bad situation worse.
If the plot was perhaps that our heroes were just the defenders of a fairly mild organisation running a singular shelter, and were constantly under attack from other survivors, yes, I could understand the gameplay and narrative- Perhaps Airforce One went down in NY, and using his leadership and authority he was able to make a proper settlement to hold onto until America at large recovers, and us, as recruited Secret Service agents, are just protecting The President and last cohesive unit of an increasingly fragmented America.
But instead, we're just running around shooting every dick in New York that moves, and probably getting shot at because everyone else is shooting very other dick in New York. The Last Man Battalion in particular, they should have honestly just Co-Opted us- we have similar goals, similar armed forces, mutual enemies, and the plot should have ended with a ceasefire with the repeatable missions just showing that here are dangerous holdouts.
The plot brings to mind a section of World War Z (the book) that I hated, where the army gets together to "reclaim" the US- after a clear strategy of leaving major population centers to die so as to distract the zombies while MVPS were moved to a safer location. Cue the Army having to open fire on "Lamoes" (Last Man on Earth survivalists) and then actively attacking thriving, but uncooperative human settlements for "Sedition"...and then just sweeping it under the rug as "The president had a big, big, loving heart and felt really bad about it." and the book doesn't go into detail or description about it, just expects the viewer to agree it was a "lesser evil necessary for America to survive" and unwittingly makes the reader tacitly complicit in crimes against humanity.
Oh, good connection; one of the few books I actually tossed across my room when reading, didn't even think of the connection but you're dead on. It's that same vibe of weirdly focused nationalistic greater good take that really creeps me out. Dunno if the film handled that any better/worse. I kinda like your Airforce One take better; at least that'd give a sense of threat, rather than the cringe of 'people are rioting in response to being abandoned/not getting care they need in a crisis/being shot by the fed groups that they thought were here to protect them by high powered rifles when they have a baseball bat and no food/painkillers for the plague' take.
@@tomisabum Me and a friend were talking about this a minute ago and we actually figured a Metal Gear solid V esque gameplay set in "Escape from New York" was what the plot of this game was begging for- You're locked in a quarantined New York full of lawlessness? You answer directly to the president? Our character should be Snake Plissken, not secret service boy scouts!
I kinda like the direction this game goes if at any point it's self-aware of how badshit evil it actually truly is, even if the characters don't.
I'm always okay with "then the army did BAD stuff cause ORDERS" plots cause honestly, it's not that far off.
I thought the military in WWZ only fought the LaMoEs who attacked them when the army arrived? There's only one particular reference made to them fighting secessionists that I can think of, and even then it's implied the narrator thinks they may have had a point about wanting to go it alone after the government basically abandoned them.
Really the entire setup for this game never made sense. How in the world is the absolute most elite fighting force the US has made up of sleeper cell agents? How would they ever train without anyone noticing? How did they get recruited? Why in the world would the government set up sleeper cells *inside their own country*?
The idea sounds cool, but would make infinitely more sense as just a bog standard elite military force than as sleeper agents.
That really is the sad part about Division. It has an interesting morally grey theme going on very very deep beneath the surface, but the meat of the thing doesnt want you to think and just wants you to shoot the 'terrorists'. And lord, between the enemies being called Rioters and the global virus, it's... certainly aged.
When I saw it first, it felt like another modern military shooter story. A bit of a word salad that just serves to tie cool setpieces, boss fights, submissions and maybe some crafting together. With the same village mob/generic bandits to gun down, but now with photorealistic NYC residents filling that role.
it's not deep beneath the surface at all, it's very plain but it's just that the game also doesn't seem to be aware of it, or doesn't want to be
I wonder if a more daring studio made it today if the main character would have a scanner for your vaccination card.
@@fnhatic6694 Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated. It would definetelly work.
They're peaceful protestors, don't call them the R word, you bigot...
The Division showcases a rule of storytelling when it comes to having grey/evil protagonists. Which is that having a scene where somebody goes "hey, you're the bad guy" really just deflates the situation. It's a lot more of a punch when the viewer starts feeling questionable about the morality of the situation only to have a character go "Great job! You're a hero!"
You're assuming the viewer having enough self-reflection/awareness to question, especially if it isn't laid out in an overt manner.
I wouldn't take that bet.
I think it wouldn't have hit me so bad as it did if they just didn't straight up call the majority of the enemies in this game rioters/looters; you're in a pandemic island with literally no visible infrastructure or major aid going on, what the hell else are people trapped there going to do? Just hit different. Historical lens, probably, but damn.
@@tomisabum It looks like any other modern shooter with a generic word salad story tying the action sequences together. You're shooting the generic villager mob/bandit gang, but set in a photorealistic NYC.
Honestly I've never liked Spec Ops: The Line for how 'in your face' it is about it's message but reading most of these comments makes me think that they had the right approach. You have to treat gamers like idiots and sit them down and tell them "This is bad and you should feel upset ok" all subtlety is lost on the average gamer.
@@klaykid117 That, and quite frankly, writing is for shit in most games.
You've got this whole tradition in film of essentially manipulating the viewer, and making it interesting enough so that people may not get the subtleties (it over a decade before I started picking up on the sexual subtext of Alien), but it's interesting enough to revisit.
For games, you have most of the money in creating a hyper-reality, with story and plot as an afterthought (and as it should since gameplay is the most important aspect).
"...maybe they have a lot of people in pain, with gunshot wounds" I can't stop laughing Ross, thank you and Merry Christmas!
FEMA features pretty heavily in the Deus Ex series, so there's definitely no issues with putting them in games.
>I will save the day
> *indiscriminate gunfire*
Perfect summary of this game
perfect summary of the US in general
@@franciscobrisolladeoliveir9596 I mean yeah, but I didn't want to be too inflamatory.
@@Ronin11111111 Naw don't be worried, real talk, my 2021 American self was cringing over this video EXACTLY due to that. Ross' joke about this actually made me unclench, p good about this.
Imagine if the Division did a Twist and showed the Division as the Evil ones.
Imagine. If.
I mean, they kinda are, but it's too risky to take a political stance and say "maybe it's not a good idea the US has sleeper agents"
corporations, ESPECIALLY UBISOFT, will not take a hardline stance on politics
To go along with what No Way said, the early parts of The Division are really the only times that SHD gets super glorified. By the end of The Division 1, you're actively fighting a super authoritarian PMC that has taken over eastern Manhattan and has had a large portion of the original wave of surviving Agents join them. And by the time The Division 2 comes around a few months later, the vast majority of the people involved in SHD have gone rogue and are throwing their lots in with a bunch of death cults or oppressive PMCs trying to start their own warlord fiefdoms on the rubbles of the US.
They still don't say a bunch about it since its political and that would turn into a shitshow. But they really don't glorify it as hard as you'd expect. Shit. The entirety of the Div2 expansion in New York has one of the NPCs from this game actually yelling at you the entire time about how SHD basically just fucks everything up and is making life for everyone trying to survive worse.
this game was already too similar to spec ops the line, there was no way they were gonna go as far as that game did
@@InsaneReaper961 Yeah, but so few players get to that point. The beginning is basically porn for extremists that wish they could go vigilante and rescue the statue of liberty from homeless ppl.
Corporations will absolutely take a hardline stance on politcs. If you think otherwise you have some pretty heavy blinders on.
On another notice: Hobo with a Shotgun is a masterpiece and deserve much more.
More what?
@@gabrieljohnson41 More.
Please never stop with the awards, Ross! They're one of the best part of Game Dungeon!
Activated.
Activated.
I wouldn't call them the best part, but they're definitely a cherry on top
Shaaaa
The disconnect between story and gameplay is something that I also felt in Modern Warfare 2. A lot of the gameplay and a few of the points raised by the villain in that game are well reasoned and make you think about the nature of war and why you're fighting. Specifically the story and context around the controversial "No Russian" scene. And each time you die you see quotes from various people that are usually very anti-war. It made me feel the whole time like the game was going to pull a third act twist relevant to those themes but it never really did; you reach the end and that's it, you stopped the bad guy, you're a hero! Your violence was stronger and somewhat more righteous I guess, good work soldier! It was very strange, it made me wonder if they ran out of time/budget to do multiple endings or if their publisher made them change the ending cause they thought it would sell better.
EDIT: I just remembered that I misremembered. The game *DID* pull a third act twist, with one of your higher-ups being so corrupt that he shoots his own soldiers in the face. Then you make a shaky parley with the villain to go hunt him down instead. But then in the sequel, you go hunt the villain down anyway, so the point somewhat stands. Either way, the twist with your commanding officer doesn't play on those themes as much as it could have, it just kind of happens and doesn't really acknowledge the plot threads that came before it.
Development in the "triple-A" space involves creating the mechanics and scenarios first and then having the writers work within the constraints of the design, rather than writing a narrative and then building levels and models around it.
after world at war call of duty rapidly went down the route of american jingoism.
@@boarfaceswinejaw4516 a seemingly inescapable fate when the pentagon's all too willing to help out w your high profile game/movie's depiction of the US military, just so long as you let them sign off on the script first
@@boarfaceswinejaw4516
COD was pro-Murikah jingoistic from the very first title. It just got more blatant from Modern Warfare 1 and on.
...And that's why Spec Ops: The Line is still considered a masterpiece.
"We are your coworkers, your neighbors, and we may even be your friends" So step out of line and the gestapo will come and un-person you.
>We might just be shooting the desperate people and making things worse
This sounds like the Opposing Force of another game
Oh barnacle gun, we're really in it now.
Cop: "We need to stop the crime"
Criminals: "Please Sir can I have some food or medicine I'm dying"
We'd be more then willing to help if you stop shooting at us
@@49mozzer "We will stop shooting at you when you help us to get food or medicine, or at least not fucking with us when we do."
@@HAL-iv2kd By stealing it from people that also need it an killing JTF officers that are just doing their job? The officers you gunned down were probably hungry as well, might of have had families to.
@@49mozzer I really wish the game actually showed the player character, yaknow, helping and delivering stuff to those that need it rather than militarybros, because it really just feels like the military/fed orgs in this game turned creepy anti-protest/anti-riot horders and are experiencing the consequences of abandoning/betraying the people they were supposed to HELP during a pandemic. Which, uh. Feels bad in 2021.
@@49mozzer fash detected
"If _I_ was trying to spread a virus,"
new favorite out of context ross scott line
I love how one of the factions lore in this game is "well, all the sanitation workers went crazy and decided burning everything to the ground was the best course of action"
Honestly its very believable
I mean yeah, but my question is where are they getting the Flamethrowers? You can't just get one of those.
@@Rendo86 You could make homemade one but I'd doubt it would be as effective, or even not blow up in your face, 6 times out of 10.
@@ShaggyToad1 yeah and the range would just suck due to using propane. I have a theory that the "roiters" might be other "activited" agents in the ploy. think about it
I have seen some things in my life and I found the Cleaners in the game very believable. Sadly.
@@Rendo86 IIRC, when you clear out the Cleaners HQ there's an area with recipes for bathtub napalm scribbled up on the walls. I'm not sure how well it would work in real life but I'm guessing their flamethrowers are probably just gas cans under air pressure, kind of like the gasoline flamethrowers you can buy online nowadays.
Ive known about your channel for a long time, but only recently started watching Game Dungeon, and I’m totally hooked. You really know your shit, and you go into detail like nobody else. And your sense of humor is awesome.
Welcome to the rabbit hole, friend
The Armed and Delirious episodes are my all time favorite. Enjoy the journey.
I knew about Ross since the early 2010s yet I never watched a single one of his videos until the late 2010s, and boy did I feel stupid for not checking him out earlier.
You're not the law, Ross. You're above the law. The game literally tells you that. You're fucking judge Dredd before that was incorporated into the law.
This is how Mega City 01 is born.
Ross probably won't see this but the core of combat in the Division once you get past the Rioter faction is attacking enemy weakpoints if you want to do actual noticeable damage. The Big Burner bosses are actually super easy and go down the quickest of the big boss enemies if you shoot the propane tanks they have hanging off their hips.
An then you get bosses with weakpoints so small they might as well not exist
still doesnt change the fact that the game went from semi-realistic "dead in 5 shots" affair to "200 bullets to kill a *boss*"
I'm at 35:56 right now, and I just want to say that Ross's perspective on a sleeper cell agent that works with a group that seems to lack direction, has no limitations, and is self-righteous in their actions trying to establish order in an environment with desperate good-faithed people, zero parley, and no orders to begin with is a story I'd love to read/watch/play. I'd help pay for it.
That's basically the story of The Division game :)
@@Riva1000 no?
If you start this game, and something rubs you the wrong way. If something feels very off. Congratulations. you are a citizen, worthy of living in a democratic society.
I mean, the opening makes me think the Stasi crossed with Seal Team 6.
Service. Guarantees. Citizenship
I mean I kind of always felt like I wasn't the hero in any of the Tom Clancy games I played. I played Ghost Recon 2 as a kid and while the gameplay was fun the shooting wasn't bad, but the story really didn't make me feel like a hero, more like I was invading a country and killing a bunch of foreign military personnel for no reason? I don't know. It also had Lone Wolf mode where you essentially get a full one man army load out with an experimental rifle/grenade launcher combo and an airstrike marker, then you're sent to be the Terminator. Literally, you just get told to eliminate all hostiles all your own
Apart from the lack of context, the other thing that feels wrong is how some agents fill in the gaps with assumptions. "Probability going to sell it or use it." For example.
One more thing. There are exploration parts and "collectables" that show some VERY VAGUE snippets for "story". It's usually stuff like some guy shoots an NPC, or what a kid was doing right before the crisis started. That's as much story as you're going to get from the game itself. Story was clearly not in the design focus; it was put into the grinding looter-shooter gameplay. I guess those kinds of digital treadmills are still a hot selling item.
I can respect the digial treadmill appeal, but MAN, I wish they'd had a little more well rounded writing staff tackle this even a little. Or is this stuff on par with Tom Clancy, know he died before it released and all?
@@tomisabum tbh I have zero clue because even though I've read Clancy novels, it was only a couple of the Jack Ryan novels where he's dealing with covert ops against obviously evil non-state actors, mustache twirling ex-KGB masterminds, or secretly evil high ranking military traitors, that sort of thing. What Clancy's stance was on desperate looters during a societal breakdown is unclear
@@z-beeblebrox I suppose you could estimate it based on who he tends to depict as heroes, but back during the Cold War his books tended to get actual attention from the military in a "who the fuck told you about this?!" sort of way.
Digital-treadmills lol
Ahhh to be 17 and have abundant free time again...
there's also a story about one guy that jumped off a building and discovered he's literally invincible
This is not the type of game I'd expect featured in the game dungeon, but I'll gladly take it, any ross content is great.
Initally I felt the same, but in the end it made for a great episode.
@@mfitzger99 Given that its a server dependent game, does fit the internet historian aspect! When Ubi pulls that plug, it's toooast.
This is like Spec Ops: The Line and Deus Ex rolled into one except entirely on accident somehow.
"You wanted to feel like something you’re not… a hero"
@@ihategoo8907"What a shame"
I wish there was a plot twist in a middle of a game where you find out that Division is exactly what it seems to be - a cult. But that would be way to ambitious for Ubisoft drones.
He said “im a hero” the exact way he said it in freeman’s mind in the one episode. That’s brilliant, I can’t tell if he did it intentionally or not though lol
The people waiting in snow to be processed by no one was a great subtle detail to Ross's view of the game. Is it wonder people try to survive by themselves when trusting the government is more likely to get you frozen or starved through mismanagement? They don't even have more food or medicine than the city they're looting them from in the first place.
It took them three days to bring water to the superdome.
@@Zodroo_TintThe government here says we should have a few days to a weeks personal readiness.
I wanted to know if any government branch except the Division still function. Or is there some place where Mexican army people and the UNHCR are desperately trying to send aid in.
Finally, someone who has the similar views on this game as I have. I think the flamethrower guys were a great idea too - but they needed to make the set pieces on fire rather than just throwing people in with flamethrowers. The morally grey "civilians versus looters" sort of thing was suuuuch a good idea too. It feels like they went the cowardly way and backed out of making something really memorable and interesting. Whoever that random, nameless employee at Ubisoft trying to fit this sort of thing in... I salute you. We need more of it.
The weird flash in the cutscenes is the 'symbol' for when you are getting talked to via radio. Seems like they use that same thing for the cutscene dialogue, but don't hide the symbol correctly.
Through his musings on the logic of the story, Ross makes the game even more interesting than it actually is.
Just like a real operator, pointing his weapon at civilians.
well if the game doesn't allow them to NOT shoot you, you can't really argue they're simply civilians anymore
I went through almost the exact same thought processes playing this game. I don't even think I got halfway through it before I stopped.
When this game first came out, I almost immediately started thinking, "Yeah, shoot everyone, that'll solve everything", then I thought the cultist garbage men with the flamethrowers were stupid. Didn't play much more.
If you draped a WW2 skin over this game and changed up the custcenes it could easily be about the Warsaw ghetto uprising from the perspective of the Wehrmacht.
Please god, I know you're up there. Make it happen.
Spot on.
Well at least you're still a good guy in your version.
@@disgoyknows88 >fumbled unbelievable headstart >leader commits sudoku
sounds pretty cucked
Wtf
Also this video low-key makes me want to make a game about being in urban planning/city government and or emergency management during a pandemic or other disaster.
There's a game I heard about called "Frostpunk" that seems to be that kind of way, where the world is plunged into an apocalyptic volcanic winter and humanity finds themselves migrated to "generators". You have to build a city while managing labor, the morale of the people, and the threat of an impending storm.
@@doomyman108 It's a game with a great aesthetic but one that I also suck at. Or otherwise I was trying too hard to save as many people as I could and put too much stress on my city and everything collapsed after a while due to not being able to support a large population.
Well, there's the German "Emergency" series, which is a strategy game where you direct first responders to crisis situations. Be warned though - it's serious Eurojank.
After watching a video game that shows how NOT TO DO THAT, I think you've got plenty of inspiration to work with.
The way you describe the story, halfway through i thought there was going to be a twist where command was feeding you false intel to get you to do their missions.
The reason why it feels so unbalanced at times (like getting overwhelmed when staying under cover, etc) is because the game was specifically meant to be played with a team or at least one other person. I don’t think that’s “official” or anything, but it’s definitely how it was meant to be. So you’d theoretically have at least a medic and a tank, and you’re almost meant to go down and be revived by your teammates.
Obviously that’s a pretty huge flaw because now that the game is essentially dead, very few people will have anyone to play it with.
Thing is the AI doesn't act like someone realistically would in these situations. You telling me some looter after seeing three of his friends get gunned down by some dude with an M4 an a fancy sentry gun would jump out of cover an start marching towards said enemy in a straight line while firing his little pocket pistol gangster style?
And you have to say: "Brace for PVP!"
There's also the issue of the game not doing a good job of explaining exactly how the cover system works: staying in cover is important, but so is moving between cover by using the built-in systems rather than leaving it, getting lit up, and scrambling again. If you select another piece of cover and move to it via spacebar, you take reduced damage and *usually* have a smaller profile as you're crouching behind other things or sliding past open spaces on the way there. If you know what you're doing you can circle around most fights and pick people off as they're trying to reorient to you. Unfortunately, you kinda just have to figure that out on your own, because Ubisoft are shit at explaining their mechanics in-depth.
The amount of detail in this game blew me away. I explored the entire city, but after that I saw no reason to keep grinding. As far as game stories go, I like the "if you can't remember a name single character then its probably not a good story" standard which this game is a textbook example of. Its not about what kind of story you tell, its about how you tell it.
However, its so impressive when the snowstorm comes at night and you can barely see during firefights. I can't think of a single other game that does it so well. Its so atmospheric.
If only it didn't have a million HUD elements blocking the whole screen. God I hate the HUDs in almost every game
@@himalayantongue Its not Deus Ex reboot bad, but seemed pretty close. A hud toggle off to just enjoy how nice the game looks would be nice.
I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs when Ross got the part about how Ubisoft should live up to the standards of Tom Clancy's novels. I'm gonna say this right now, people might not agree with me, but I said the exact same thing about Siege. I feel so much pain hearing Ross say that, but also, a degree of relief that I'm not the only one who believe it.
Tom Clancy was a paranoid right wing nut but he did at least have a considered worldview about it you know. it might not be agreeable but it's something to engage with, compared to the Ubisoft style of saying nothing as loudly as possible
@@Graknorke how was he paranoid? If you've got to have a crazy crisis every couple years you're going to have more bad stuff happen than reality just coming up with plots, but he always wrote the other side as humans, with most of the actual harm done by a couple individual bad actors. He even wrote the Soviets to mostly be chill buds by the end of his run.
@@73rmin8r "Viewers we assure you that the *evil* soviets arent like most soviet people, who we will not talk about or show in any way."
@@yaoiboi60 there were all kinds of Soviet characters in those books. Even some of the KGB guys, who you'd expect would be probably the most evil Soviets, were honorable. Both Hunt for Red October and Cardinal of the Kremlin had huge chunks of the story told from the perspective of different Soviet characters, some of which were genuine good guys. There's plenty of criticism of the Soviet system, but the characters were all just people, some good, some bad.
If anything Clancy was unrealistically optimistic about the character and intentions of people in authority on both sides.
Coming back to this video after Ross has gone full throttle on stopping companies from killing games, it's neat to see the quick moments and mentions in his earlier videos where he'd bring it up. Truly some real-time foreshadowing.
This game's story reminds me of the "Grapist" skit by wkuk
Agent:"IM GOING TO TAKE ALL OF YOUR BELONGINGS AND FORCE YOU INTO OUR BASE WE WONT LET A SINGLE ONE OF YOU LEAVE!!!!"
Ross: Well im not sure about this moral wise
Ubi Dev: What do you mean your the hero?
Ubi Exec: I like it
Agent:"IF YOU'RE NOT WITH US YOU'RE AGAINST US AND NO MERCY SHALL BE SHOWN TO YOU OR YOU LOVED ONES IF YOU RESIST!"
Ross: No mercy??
Ubi Dev: Yes the bad guys deserve no mercy I don't understand your affacuation with the evil
Ubi Exec: love it get that John Rambo first blood kinda vibe
Agent:"YOU WILL KNEEL TO OUR REGIEM OR BE A FOOT NOTE IN OUR HISTORY BOOKS"
Pretty sure civs aren't forced to stay inside the base an they have to get their themselves so they aren't herding people in either. Besides considering Manhattan is suddenly overflowing with violent sociopaths they probably don't wanna leave either once they are there. Yes there are supply shortages an it's crowded but atleast you won't freeze to death or get shot
I think this is one of the games that must've really inspired Ross to start the 'Stop Killing Games' thing due to how BEAUTIFUL this world is and how he mentions several times that once it stops being supported it's just gone forever, which is really unfortunate.
I've played The Division 2, and it definitely reinforces the idea that all of the interesting parts of Division's worldbuilding were all done by accident. The basic premise is that Ross was right about the virus causing civilization to collapse in the background, and now The Division, JTF, and a few other organizations are trying to glue together whatever's left of the US Government in DC.
Meanwhile, all the bad guys are much more obvious villains, and apparently everyone has forgiven The Division for mercilessly executing anyone trying to survive. The story somehow became worse by fixing all of the problems with its predecessor.
Every night before I go to sleep, I put on the Game Dungeon playlist. I don't really use YT for much else.
I usually catch at least one before I fall asleep, but I always go back and rewatch them over and over.
Ross, merry christmas. You're one of the only people who can make me relax. Thank you.
I do the same thing, I’m glad I’m not the only one
I also use these videos as a sleeping aid
Me too, weird, but cool
Yeah Ross is one of several creators I put on as I go to bed.