So I have been waiting for this for sometime. I have kept myself amused if not also frustrated with The Division. As much as The Division is asethetically pleasing it lacks gameplay.

Wildlands is the polar opposite.

No firing magazine after magazine into the targets head in the vain hope you may dent the armour. Wildlands if you hit your target in the head it goes down. Is that not really how it should be.

Observations

  1. Graphics - Graphically it looks great. The vegetation looks great the character models are good and the overall immersion pretty good. It has been said before the FPS is lacking. High end machines only achieving low-mid fps is poor in this day and age. Changing settings with in the graphics also made little to no difference on the fps.
  2. Weather system - The god rays look great and lighting is used well. However the heavy downpour rain needs work on the splash effects. Its bright and not immersive more cartoon like.
  3. Gun mechanics - Seems pretty good . Hip fire though still seems to be a little too accurate or I must be good off the hip. Modelling of the guns looks good and although we only got a brief look at the guns the scope for gunsmith could be huge.
  4. Characters - These look pretty good not a vast amount of customization. A few build styles and faces but its a leap ahead of the division if not ground breaking. My only slight gripe on this is that there is no multinational ghosts. Would be nice to be able to choose different nationals.
  5. Vehicles - Are relatively good graphically. Nice touches of interior lighting when opening the doors. The vast number of driveables. Although I think I will try not to use the tractor as a getaway vehicle next time. However, every vehicle in the game is capable of going offroad with little if no damage taken. This is kind of poor, I would like to see vehicles take more damage when travelling offroad dependent on their type. Eg Camper Vans do not fair well going up the hills where 4x4 should fair better. Helicopters (yes its been said before) The helicopter flight system is really poor and lacks any reality. They are slow, they do not move correctly and the control system sadly needs some changes. There is still time to do this though.
  6. Parachuting. - Has to be one of the great looking things in the game. It works great looks great and alot of fun even for base jumping.
  7. AI Enemy - The AI of the enemy is somewhat intriguing at times it can be quite good and at others they walk in one after the other like lemmings even though they saw their buddy die round that corner.
  8. AI Team - This is something that again needs some revision to make the teamates more useful. At present you can only issue orders to the whole team at once. Surely it could be broken down so that the team can be sent to do certain things. I do not mean it needs full overhaul but your sniper you do not really want to be walking in the front door with you. You want to send him to the high ground, either a tower or on the hillside to watch for incoming. This could be achieved with simpler 5 commands for each member. EG F1-F4 is for each person and you use the wheel as with commanding the full group. Would give us more control and make tactical deployment much better.


BUGS

  1. Using laptop has caused numerous lock ups.
  2. Going prone sometimes sticks u through the floor so you cannot move until you come out of it.
  3. Vehicles going all over the place when you get in. This seems to be a placement bug.
  4. Bots failing to parachute properly and then landing stuck on the landscape with the parachute still attached.
  5. Nightvision - Er... where are the goggles or has the eyesight been surgically enhanced. I know its aesthetic, but it ads to the immersion.
  6. Binoculars - Again when using the binoculars he does not actually get any out. I thought a team mate had gone AFK but he was actually looking through binoculars. Lets fix this if we are using binoculars then put them in their hand on against their eyes.
  7. Graphic Memory issue on second machine. Yes its a laptop, yes it meets minimum specs but like many Ubisoft games sadly it claims graphics are not up to minimum. They are and therefore needs better checking of hardware on launch.


IMPROVEMENTS

The game can be improved in a number of ways but with the number of bugs and given the limited time now before release I cannot see anything else being implemented that is new. However, there are improvements to the AI team in order to fully immerse in a tactical solo experience cannot happen without the ability to issue single orders to the team. If you try and do things stealth it is normally broken by one AI member thinking the best route to you is through the camp, instead of going around it.

The cars really need to deteriorate faster depending on the type of car. You should not have no penalty for travellng route 1 to the targets. I am pretty sure if I roll my car down a hill and it lands on the roof. A) I may not survive, B) the car will not self right itself and keep on going. All these lovely roads around the hillsides are just not going to be used when u can just crash your way down the hillside to the target. This is really top of my list on improvement as it really does take away the realism when i can roll my campervan down the hill and land on the roof, wait for it to right itself then carry on my merry way.

I am sure I have more but the post is already long !!

Already purchased but needs improvements to be truly great. The Division will sadly disappear from my playlist. I wish it was like Wildlands. The scenery would be great.