Destiny Review

Follow your Destiny. Again and Again and Again.

Destiny is probably the most hyped game since GTA V and without a doubt of the current generation. When Bungie went under contract with Activision a lot of people became weary of what the future held in store for the developer that created the beloved "Halo" franchise. As the years went by and more information came out about this mysterious new game Bungie had been working on, people began to shrug off any concerns and become more and more excited by the idea of a new I.P that seemed to blend genres and promise something grand we had never played before.

 Destiny has been out for about two weeks now and has it lived up to greatness it seemed to set it up for? Honestly, no. I didn't get dragged into the hype surrounding the game before the launch, for many of the same reasons that I didn't get pulled into the "Watch_Dogs" hype, it all looked like stuff we had seen before. First post-launch gameplay impressions gave off heavy vibes of a straight up blend between "Borderlands 2" and "Halo" and in many ways that's exactly what we ended up with.

 When you first start your Destiny journey you are greeted by small floating machine called "Guiltyspa-... a Ghost", voiced by the famous Peter Dinklage. Unfortunately while Dinklage is a fine actor on screen, his voice acting leaves something to be desired.

 After being greeted you are sent on your first quest to recover a starship so you can escape Earth. One of the first things you will notice is how absolutely gorgeous this game looks, the enviroment shifts from bright outdoor areas to the dark indoors, a transition that can't help to bring on a small feeling of claustrophobia the first few times. As you make your way through the dark corridors, enemies start to dart around in the dark and soon enough you come up close to these glowing eyed monsters. You shoot them down and with the help of your ghost you are led to the final area which is being protected by the levels boss. After a short fight and maybe one or two deaths you leave victorious. And that's that. That first mission sets up the tone for every throughout the game, kill minions, wait for ghost, fight boss. All the other missions barely show any other variety to this formula and this is where Destiny starts to fall apart into a mindless repetitive grind. 

Even the bosses feel like a slow grind.

After the first quest you are able to visit "The Tower". Earths final city and the last bastion against an overwhelming coven-... dankness that threatens the last of mankind with extinction. The only hope is the mysterious Traveler who helped humanity explore the stars before being almost defeated by the enemy that pursues it. In it's final moments it created Cortan-... the ghosts which help the final defender of humanity the Spart-... Guardians. The story and surrounding lore is probably one of the main things that bug me about this game, I don't hate it, it just doesn't feel right. First off all the talk of darkness and light and the occasional reference to wolves make the script feel like it was at least co-written by an edgy teenager who just filled it with stuff they thought sounded cool. Secondly the naming in the game is all very fantasy based. You are a guardian in a tower going out to fight robots called 'Hobgoblins' and aliens called 'Wizards'. You could argue that they were named that because that's what they look like but that argument doesn't work for something where someone had to design them and then name them. The fantasy doesn't end at the names either. On one mission you are sent to the moon to stop the aliens conducting a 'ritual'. The fantasy influences just don't sit well in the game and in some instances hold it back. One of the biggest problems with Watch_Dogs was that it held on too much to the past which held back innovation. I got this feeling mainly from the character classses which are also fantasy based. You have the Tintan as the Warrior, the Warlock as the Mage and Hunter as the Ranger. It's very basic stuff that has been around for a lot longer than I've even been alive. I just felt there could of been more, or at least more to separate each class. They are all practically identical apart from a few special abilities. To the point where in the heat of battle it's difficult to distinguish each class from one another, which is not a good thing in PvP.

There's not much to make you feel unique.

 Speaking of PvP, it's probably the games greatest strength but also one of its most frustrating features as it comes so close to being great but falls short due to a small few oversights. On the smaller maps the combat is fast and frantic with victory often going to the team that sticks together. The larger maps however slow the action right down as it is only a 6 on 6 affair and sometimes it can be annoying just finding another player. The larger maps are easily the worst and often create sighs of disappointment over headsets when they show up. These maps might have been more enjoyable if a 'Capture the Flag' game type was present but quite oddly it is not. There seems to be a wide spread problem with Destiny servers as well causing a lot of people to be kicked from the game, this is very frustrating when you and your team are winning only to have half your team mates be booted by Destiny servers. It is also causing weird problems with death in the game. It if very, very common to punch an enemy, just to have them shoot you dead and then walk off before dying from your attack several seconds earlier. It's a problem that needs to be fixed quickly. The combat in game is basically halo with a thin veil of... err... well you can use special abilities? Which isn't necessarily a bad thing as the action is solid and great fun when it works. For a game that is majorly focused around PvP though there doesn't seem to be a big enbough map selection and you'll find yourself often repeating the same map at least two or three times in a short stint. The map design is honestly pretty good for most maps (excluding the two larger ones). Though there are a couple of areas in certain maps where I felt they would be better suited to a game like 'Titanfall' with it's greater variety of player movement. 

 One of the main reasons to play PvP (apart from the fun) is that you earn something called Crucible Marks which is used as a currency back at the tower to purchase some of the games more rare and powerful equipment. However you are limited to only earning 100 per week, a limitation that seems to exist only to pad out how long you have to play to earn enough to buy the goods you want. 

 Outside of the PvP you are able to explore one of the four maps available to you. Earth, the Moon, Venus and Mars. At first these maps feel vast, expansive and filled with countless things to do. Unfortunately by your third visit you've seen it all before and you're doing the same fetch quest again. There seems to be a lot of missed opportunity in the maps to make them more interesting and give them greater even if it was changing the amount of different quests there are. There are two. One being kill enemies and the other being, go over there and scan that. It's yet another part of the game that just ends up feeling too quickly like a mindless grind.

 You can also go on 'Strike' missions which is where you team up with two other players, preferably friends to take on a mission for the chance of getting an item you need. One of the biggest problems in this online only, multiplayer game is that is very limiting social wise when it comes to activities. The biggest offence being that you can only have three people on a fire team at a time, meaning if there are four of you, someone is going to be left out. It's a massive oversight on Bungie's part, especially given the fact they encourage you to play together with friends as groups. The later 'Raid' missions allow more, but at this time there is only one and given the time and effort that it takes to complete, it doesn't really scream "fun with friends". Sometimes even when you get your team of only three it can be difficult taking on a higher level mission as for some god damn stupid reason you can only reach level 20 by gaining experience, anything after that you have to level up by picking up random loot drops that grant enough 'Light' points. Meaning even if you and your friends have played the same amount of time, you will probably be all different levels due to it being random chance whether you can advance further. This can be quite frustrating as even at higher levels the vast amount of loot you will find is for the lowest level characters in the game. It feels like it's a game mechanic that was purely created to pad out the time it takes to level up. 

Chances are this is all useless.

 I'm not sure why Bungie made the level cap by experience 20 and then 30 with random drops, but it's far too low. Most people had reached high levels in the first few days of release and were already on the end game grind. Further reinforcing this game mains mechanic, grinding receptivity. Which is odd since the developer kept trying to avoid referring to it as an MMO genre game. 

 Destiny is a solid game and shouldn't be called a bad one, it's just not a great game. It's a game that feels like it's been glued together from various other franchises, it has a lot of their ideas and mechanics, it just doesn't do them as well. The open world feels like Borderlands 2, it's just not as fun. The combat feels like Halo, it's just not as tight. The social feels like an MMO, it's just very restrictive. The character customization feels like an RPG, it's just a lot more shallow. Destiny is a game that struggles and fails to feel unique which can be felt by the player as they try and fail to create a character that feels unique to them. In the end Destiny succeeds in doing something great, acting as background noise as you talk to your friends over a headset. Here's hoping Destiny 2 will greatly expand on we have been shown, since it will be free of the shackles of last gen.