The good, the bad, and the brilliant of Destiny
First of all I apologise if you’ve had a Destiny overload recently, but the game has been out about a week and I want to share some of my opinions about what makes the game great, but also what holds it back.
Become a Legend
Starting with what makes the game brilliant; co-op. It’s the games’ main strength, as exploring the solar system with friends while shooting aliens and gaining glimmer and gear is not only the main point of the game, but it’s also really fun.
Your Destiny
You play as a revived Guardian and must aid in pushing back ‘The Darkness’ with help from other players.
Many generations ago (shortly after present day), the emergence of a gargantuan construct known only as “the Traveler” ignited a Golden Age of technology and exploration for humanity. Initially the Traveler settled on Mars, where it shared its knowledge and technology with humanity, and a city grew around it. With the assistance of the Traveler and its enigmatic technology, humanity tripled its lifespan, terraformed planets and moons, and expanded its civilization beyond Earth and throughout much of the solar system.
The Golden Age would last for centuries, but human civilization fell victim to a cataclysm of extraordinary magnitude, known as the Collapse. A malicious entity known as The Darkness, an ancient enemy of the Traveler, waged a campaign of destruction against civilization. Few managed to survive the devastation. Forced to withdraw to Earth, mankind’s homeworld, the embattled sphere made its final stand, where it sacrificed itself to save the remnants of humanity.The Traveler is now silent and dormant, while those who survived united to build The City beneath it, establishing the last bastion of civilization in the solar system. A powerful defensive aura remains projected over the City by the Traveler.
Good Work, Guardians
So why is Destiny a good game? Well there’s quite a lot to choose from. The social aspects are really cool in that you can interact with strangers in ‘The Tower’ and see what weapons and armour they’ve gathered from their adventures, or you could just simply dance with them.
This leads onto the next point which is storytelling. The game does this fantastically, even if you’re uncertain on the actual plot, you can always forge your own.
For example: Your Hunter, Titan or Warlock might be a former member of royalty, cruelly cast aside during the Collapse, now you’re back for revenge and to restore order as a member of New Monarchy (a clan dedicated to bringing back the Golden Age).
The game modes are a nice inclusion into the variety Destiny has to offer, as I enjoyed playing Strikes and The Crucible almost as much as I did the story. Your character has a decent amount of customisation too, from weapons and armour to Guardian abilities and upgrades.
The worlds are also deeply fleshed out, whether you’re exploring the Hive infested Moon, or struggling through the jungles of Venus, there is always something to do, or shoot. This can however get repetitive so here’s hoping that Bungie add to the game to eliminate monotonous sections, be it free or paid DLC.
The Darkness
This brings me to what unfortunately lets the game down. I really hope that Activision and Bungie don’t decide that two or three planets is enough. It’s a further hope that future planets aren’t to be held as DLC hostages. Destiny was marketed as being a massive exploration game, and while that is true in some senses, Venus and Mars have nowhere near the level of exploration I was thinking.
The problem then is that once you reach the level cap you’ll find yourself repeating events, just at a harder difficulty.
The last thing that needs changing is the player limits on Strikes; three players is not enough and someone in your friend group is bound to be left out, so even if they upped it to just 5 that would be significantly better.
Conclusion
Overall my first impressions with Destiny are good and I hope that Activision and Bungie give it the respect it deserves, however I don’t think that the game will keep players interested for anything longer than a year.
Destiny is currently available on Xbox One and Playstation 4 via Amazon and Play-Asia. Have fun
What do you think of Destiny so far? Is it living up to the hype? Let us know in the comments.
Join Non-Fiction Gaming on Google+
I myself am disappointed with the games short story and cliff hanger. It is like I paid 60 bucks for a fraction of the story. I guess I did not fully understand what the game was all about. The fact that it requires Internet connection is bogus because I do go back and play an old game now and then. This game will only be around as long as the servers are running. I am not an online competitive person so the fact that you only get the good powerful weapons by playing multiplayer online is lame plus the repetitive missions are very distracting. The levels look great and the game play is smooth and fast, but I wanted more story so I am let down in that area unless I pay more for two preplanned expansions. Well you know what they say about first impressions. It takes more than a pretty face for this gamer.
This was a sort of ‘what I thought half way through’ the game. It IS good which makes saying this harder; its an overall disappointment, and left me wondering where the rest of the story was being hidden. I mean an entire area (The Reef) is a cut-scene! I agree that it won’t last as long as Activision and Bungie are hoping anyway.
Personally, I do not always agree with the majority, Destiny is a triple output A as they are called, but hey we are not expecting so if you are against this principle … is boycotting … short truce controversy
Talking about the game, I find it more than nice! When I bought a PS4 my only regret was Borderland 2 Grace destiny I find the joy of FPS / RPG that me as most in Borderland 2.
Now whether you are a fan or not of the universe Bungie, Halo genre inspiration is not to please! In short, a fabulous blend of two monster FPS (one for gamepley and one for the style of the universe)
I LOVE this game I still spent long hours to finish bottom this game 🙂
In my previous comment I mentioned that I actually really do like the game, and everything that I’ve said still stands but there is no denying that in terms of story, we only got a bit more than we did in the Beta. I was expecting more from Bungie, but hey we might see some more in DLC. The gameplay is fantastic and has kept me grinding away for cool loot (with next to no success) but its the story that I feel lets the game down ultimately. I think that this was due to the lead writer, Joe Staten leaving during development, because scenes that featured in early trailers were cut from the final game, and don’t even get me started on Grimoire Cards!
I’d suggest reading: http://www.psu.com/news/24793/Destinys-cut-storyline–Bungie-insider-claims-everything-just-fell-apart-in-development
It explains why we didn’t really get what we were all expecting.