Monday, September 22, 2014

Destiny Review



If you've been around the internet for the past couple of weeks you have probably heard a decent amount about Bungie's new game Destiny. The game has been a commercial success bringing in $325 million in its first five days and earning the title of the best-selling new video game franchise in history. But while the game has been commercially well received, the reviews from both critics and fans have been somewhat mixed. I've spent an inordinate amount of time playing it recently so I figured I'd weigh in on the game myself.

The very first thing that I noticed about Destiny when I booted it up is that both the visuals and the gameplay are tremendously impressive. The game provides a cornucopia of fantastic visual backdrops and locations from the swamps of Venus to the craters and caverns of the moon. All of the weaponry, characters, projectiles and other environmental graphics are rendered beautifully on the PlayStation 4 and Destiny is one of the best looking games I've played.

Similarly, the gameplay is as fluid and dynamic as you would expect from the creators of one of the best first-person shooters of all time: Halo. Bungie knows how to make you feel comfortable using your weapons and balance the enemies so that you never feel totally overwhelmed or like you are about to breeze through the level. The challenge amps up very well over the course of the game and you will not become bored with the gameplay (assuming you enjoy shooters in the first place).


While Destiny is not a first-person shooter game only, that is definitely the best aspect of the game at large and I believe is one of the main reasons why this game has done so well commercially and has so many people playing it. The game is great to look at, even better to control and a ton of fun to play.

But we can't leave it there or else we'd have a near perfect game and that certainly isn't what Destiny is. While the actual mechanics of the combat are fantastic, the game also incorporates MMO and RPG elements that are not nearly as fleshed out and are definitely not explained well enough in game.

Players can use either the online multiplayer (called the Crucible) or story-based missions to rank up their experience and get to the level cap of 20. This first portion of the game will take a decent amount of time (depending on how well you can manipulate the system) and basically serves as an incredibly long introduction to the game world.

After level 20 players can continue to rank up but now experience no longer means anything and you need to find equipment that has a high amount of "light." How do you get this equipment? You can buy advanced equipment from vendors in the Tower (the social hub for the game) or you can do random strike missions or regular missions hoping to pick up some good loot from enemies along the way.

This would all be fine if the way of buying the equipment wasn't so difficult. Throughout the 20 level "intro" to the game you utilize a currency called "glimmer." Once you reach level 20, you can only buy advanced equipment with different types of currency like Vanguard and Crucible marks. You also need a certain reputation level with those vendors (which you get through missions, multiplayer matches and bounties) to buy some of the equipment.

It isn't the most complicated system but it is frustrating because of how long the strike missions take to complete and how few marks and how little reputation you earn. I will routinely do 30+ minute strike missions only to get 2 Vanguard Marks (for reference, most of the good armor requires 120+ marks).

While you aren't given the greatest rewards for completing activities, it is fun to play the game and that is one of the reasons why Destiny is doing so well; it is flat out fun to play. Even when you are grinding through the same strike missions over and over or doing patrol missions on the different planets, killing the same enemies constantly, the gameplay is so smooth and fun that it is addicting.



Destiny does a very good job of balancing the PvP with the PvE elements to create a complete package of gameplay but the other major gripe that I have with Destiny (aside from the complicated and frustrating leveling system) is the fact that the storytelling is not very good.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of the people who is blasting this game for "not having a story" or "having a crappy story" because the story itself is intriguing and fun. The problem that Destiny has is in the actual way that is explains the story. Huge story elements are glossed over in the beginning to bring players into the gameplay early. To appease fans that don't want to sit and watch cut scenes all day, the story throughout the game is haphazardly told through almost non-related story-based encounters with various enemies with a few cut scenes sprinkled in.

The world that Bungie has created is exceptionally vibrant with tons of rich story elements and great characters to explore, but none of them are explored well in the game. Much of the backstory is told via Grimoire cards on Bungie's website and that just isn't an effective way to tell a video game's story.

Destiny spans several different genres of video games but doesn't really get any of them totally right. Its storytelling is not good enough for a story-based first-person shooter, its dialogue, class options and leveling systems are too streamlined for a good MMORPG and the game just doesn't have a handle on all that it is trying to be.

This review could go on forever as I would continue to explain more good and more bad about the experience but in the interest of everyone's time I'm going to wrap it up here. Destiny is an ambitious project that attempts to put a ton of different genres of games together and appease everyone. While it doesn't work on all fronts, it does deliver an addictive single player and multiplayer experience that will keep fans coming back for more. Even though the game has a bit of an identity crisis, it is still a phenomenally fun game and one that I am looking forward to playing a lot more of in the future.

8.5/10

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