Destiny
Bungie
Activision
September 9, 2014
PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360
4/5 Stars
I first heard about Destiny at E3 a couple of years back. The more I saw of the game the more interested I became. Then I played the Alpha and I was sure that this was the best game of all time. In fact, even after playing the Beta, which had unskippable cutscenes I was still pretty sure that Destiny was going to be my favorite game ever. Since Destiny’s release, I’ve played it around 31 hours or so. I didn’t, as most reviewers and journalists did, decide to play the game straight through until reaching the level cap of 30 or until they just couldn’t play anymore for at least 8 hours a day for almost a week. I can’t imagine doing that with any game and coming out with a positive view of the product. ANY GAME! Every one had about the same opinion and I can’t say I completely disagree. So here we go, what’s wrong with Destiny? A lot!
Destiny is a big game that takes at least around 14 hours to play the first time through. By this I mean, you will complete the story and probably be around level 18 or so; if you at least participated in a strike or some multiplayer. Up until this point, I would have expected things to be completely golden. A lovely story with a nice ending followed by a kind of new game plus effect; where we continue to level and do other stuff. Not so, because Destiny is just Part 1 of a longer story so the end of the game is like the end of a mission. It just ends… The story is practically non-existent and even reading the Grimoire Cards on Bungie.net(yes this is kind of dumb, I realize). You don’t get too much more story. The world is definitely seeded with some incredible possibilities; I just wish they had made use of them. Every mission, for the most part, boils down to wave based survival. Every strike is also about the same. With a boss added in for flavor. Who spawns, you guessed it, wave after wave of adds(lesser powerful enemies).
After finishing the story, you will have to grind until you hit level twenty which is where things change. You still gain abilities for both gear and yourself, but the only way to level is find gear with light on it. This means that the game you began where you just kill things and get stronger is a lot different. The entire game basically becomes a rep grind.
Anyone who has played an MMORPG knows exactly what this is like. Except, of course, in the endgame of an MMORPG you can play dungeons that you are pretty much guaranteed in getting what you went in there for. Another words, said boss drops said item. Not so in Destiny, bosses don’t really drop much of anything and there is a chance you will get a good reward and there is a chance you will get crap. Not cool, right? So your best bet is to grind rep with the Crucible(multiplayer matches) or the Vanguard(single player or strikes). There ARE other factions but I say this because it takes a LONG TIME to grind this rep and you have essentially been grinding a little rep with Vanguard and Crucible while you were playing your 1-20 game to begin with if you were doing bounties. So it’s just easier… Once you hit level 20 you also have a random chance of getting good stuff in the world. I think this is kind of a sliding scale, because I never really got anything until I was level 23 or so. I’m sure there is some backend metric for all this but I haven’t seen anyone even try to explain it. There are plenty of people using loot caves and other gear grinding methods but none of them have worked for me so far.
This would not be that important except that levels after 20 are even more important than they were before 20. Most strikes are not even doable for a group that is one level below the suggested level for it. Multiplayer is much harder when going up against people of higher level, except in modes where the levels are turned off or equalized. There is also quite a bit of locked content behind all these levels as well.. You cannot play NIghtfall Strikes or the Raid, Vault of Glass. Until you are at least level 26. In an MMO this boils down to what used to known as Attunements, the game would require you to gain faction rep with one or more factions in order to proceed into the dungeon. Usually only one person had to do this. Destiny takes this a step further by making everyone grind enough rep to not only be able to purchase enough gear from the vendors to do the dungeon but ALSO you must have either Vanguard or Crucible marks to buy the gear. For most people, I think this is a bit much and I don’t really think most people with play the Vault of Glass or the Nightfall Strikes. At least not this year. For the record, most MMORPGs no longer use attunement as most players complain about it and most developers realize that it locks players out of content for no good reason.
Judging by how much Bungie seems to be adding to Destiny, incrementally and through events. We may look back at this first game one day as most people look back at games like Call of Duty or Halo and say they were good for their time but the later versions were much better. But as someone who has a very love/hate relationship to Destiny this really can’t come soon enough for me. What is there to love about Destiny? Well quite a bit actually…
Destiny’s graphics and art design are probably the best I’ve seen on the PS4. And that is taking into consideration games like Second Son which has some mind blowing graphics in it’s own right. The sound design is wonderful and while I would really like to be able to shut off the announcer in multiplayer. In general, the sound design and music are first rate. The mechanics in Destiny are unrivaled by any first person shooter to ever exist. Shooting feels amazing, movement is amazing, and the minute to minute gameplay is probably the greatest I’ve ever experienced. I cannot think of a better experience I’ve ever had playing a game than Destiny. It’s problem is only the context of that gameplay, not the gameplay itself. If Destiny had been a movie game or perhaps based on an established franchise; I would say the game would be getting 9s and 10s across the board. Because the actual gameplay is incredible. The multiplayer in Destiny is far better than average and while there are still plenty of noticeable glitches and failed kill detection. I would say by and large I’ve never had a smoother online experience than with Destiny.
In the entire time I’ve played Destiny I’ve never been dropped from a multiplayer match and I’ve been kicked from around 3 Strikes. That’s it. The game lost connection to it’s main server once. Which means that in the entire time I’ve played the game I’ve had 4 problems. In more than 30 hours of gameplay. That is stunning, it’s Blizzard level amazing. Whatever Bungie is doing, I think the guys that run the Call of Duty servers could learn from them. Because it usually takes around 3 hours to rack up that kind of record in Call of Duty not 30.
While Destiny didn’t live up to the hype. It is probably the best FPS of the year and might even be in top ten for the best XBOX ONE and PS4 games this year. If you love FPSs then you will love Destiny. But with that said, just be ready to grind it out after level 18. Make sure to do lots of bounties and if you possibly can, grab some friends and either join a clan or create one. Because all of these will be serve you the best as you rise in levels. Destiny is a fun game, that needs a bit more content and probably A LOT more STORY to make it a five star affair. But the way things have been going the past couple of years, I’ll take that over what we usually get.
