My spring break was spent in snowy post-apocalyptic Manhattan where I was in a constant fire-fight with cleaners, rikers, and the LMB. That’s right, gamers and readers, I’m talking about the brand new release from Ubisoft, “Tom Clancy’s: The Division.”

After beating the campaign and spending countless hours in the “Dark Zone,” I feel I can finally write an accurate review of the game. As a result, you may end up playing this game for hours on end or end up being another title that sits in your library collecting dust.

“Tom Clancy’s: The Division” takes place in quarantined Manhattan around Christmas time. You battle a smallpox epidemic while the city is consumed my criminals and poverty. The main character (your player), is a sleeper agent from the U.S Government’s Strategic Homeland Division. The agent is activated because the government lost contact with the first wave of Division agents inside Manhattan. The Division agents have four main goals: Set up a base camp inside Manhattan, sweep the streets of criminals that are inhabiting the city, find a cure for the smallpox virus, and find out what really happened to the first wave of Division agents (wink, wink).

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The game starts off with a familiar RPG look, by giving you the option to create a male or female character. You are allowed customization but not as much as other RPG games (“Fallout 4” or “Skyrim”). After the first couple of tutorial missions, you are thrown into the city that never sleeps (literally).  There are hours of side missions and plenty of trophies you can collect on the way. It’s easy to find yourself in sticky situations, like being bunkered down and praying that a cleaner (one of the factions inhabiting the city) doesn’t burn your body to a crisp with his flamethrower. Ubisoft held to a classic RPG but decided to spice it up by adding a brand new area called “The Dark Zone” (DZ) – where Manhattan meets hell. “The Dark Zone” is where the virus hit the worst and where nobody is saf e. In the DZ, Ubisoft incorporated a brand new loot system where you can only keep your DZ loot by calling for an extraction. To make it even harder, Ubisoft made “The Dark Zone” a PvP (Player Versus Player) district, making it much more challenging to gather loot.

The game is an exciting RPG, sandbox, third person shooter with hours of entertainment. But, the game does lack variety when it comes to appearance option and player hierarchy. There is no real way to show how good you are except for your level in the DZ. Still, the game is fun for any level of gamer, from the novice to the advanced, and that is why I give this game a 7/10. With plenty of updates on the way, only time will tell if “The Division” will be the game everyone was hoping for.