Destiny Review

Release Date - September 9th, 2014

Developer - Bungie

Publisher - Activision

Genre - MMORPG

 

Premise:

     Destiny takes place years after the darkness was destroyed by the traveler. Now with only one last city left on Earth the traveler can still protect, the darkness has returned. You as a guardian set out with your ghost in order to fend off the darkness so the traveler can heal and once again fully protect the world.

 

Prologue

     NO game has been hyped more than Destiny. None in the history of video games as it became the most preordered new game of all time. Over $500 million was spent on Destiny and it becomes obvious what portion of it was marketing compared to development. Remember back when you were in school, or still are for some of you, and there was always that one kid who's parents were told at back to school night that they "have so much potential?" Well, enter Destiny. There was so much opportunity for Destiny to be a game changer. The FPS that's really an MMO (and yes, it IS an MMO), the storyline and exploration all could've made Destiny the must have game for the next ten years. They don't. Instead, after all the waiting and hype, we got Defiance 2.0, just with a worse weapon system. My biggest regret is cancelling my physical copy for digital as now I can't trade it in for credit. It's the first time I didn't follow my gut and purchased the game anyway despite my previous concerns. I was wrong.

Review

     By far my favorite part of Destiny was the audio and score. From the soundtrack to Peter Dinklage's voice reverberating off of my eardrums, there was no shortage of enjoyable moments as far as the audio is concerned. Dinklage's amusing sarcasm and pin point accuracy of humor show off as the ghost as you travel from planet to planet. From the first moment you "awake" after your ghost rises you from the dead, there seems to be that "what's coming next?" feeling. This is good. What is bad is that whatever is coming never actually comes. Winter has been coming in Game of Thrones for years now and it's still not here. That's the feeling you get. This is bad.

     A vast world open to exploration on many different planets and locations is what we were promised by Bungie but this never shows. The storyline attempts to achieve this feeling by speaking of multiple different locations on different planets and having you visit four of them for gameplay during the story campaign. It seems like it's big because of all the dialogue of traveling to the edge of the darkness and the where the light no longer touches, but it's all wordplay. When you do go to another planet, it's simply the previous planet rehashed. Each planet has its own enemy types in the Hive, Fallen, Kabal and Vex. There is a variety in their actions as some rush at you while others float, but each faction functions the same as the next. Each one has its enemies that rush and float so there is no real variety other than what they are called. Of course, you don't have to fight any enemies at all if you don't want to and just run right past all of them to the final boss. Be sure you have enough time though as the boss battles all violated my 15 minute rule: If it takes longer than 15 minutes it's too long. Every boss battle took me upwards of 20 minutes and that's with a full fireteam. Although the respawn system is frustrating at times, I found it added to Destiny's strategy element. No matter how far you are into a boss battle, if you died you had the option of waiting a few seconds for a teammate to revive. If they run out of time or you hit X/square you can respawn at a slightly earlier point and just run back to catch up in the fight. Should all your fireteam members die, you start all over again with the boss at full health.

    On each planet, as in every MMO, you have the option to temporarily abandon the main mission in exchange for exploration. There are 5 golden chests on each planet to find with the final one containing an item of rare or higher quality. Right off the bat in the game I was having a blast. After ghost Dinklage revived me, I was running around killing enemies and trying to find all the hidden stuff I could before doing the main mission. It was fun until I realized how short and small the world was. All the prerelease hype had me thinking about such a vast world but once I played the game I realized it was just wordplay. The missions start with describing them as taking place in locations as the edge of the darkness and where the light doesn't shine to make it seem bigger, but it's not. I understand that when games come out there is a certain emotional connection to them. We waited for them for so long that we WANT them to be good so we tend to overlook the flaws no matter how obvious they are. The frustrating thing with Destiny is that you don't have to really look for the problems with Destiny as they are all just....there.

     One of MMO's biggest and most fun things to do is upgrade weapons and crafting items in order to gain that extra advantage. Destiny's weapon leveling system is one of the worst I've seen next to Defiance. Each weapon requires you be at a certain level prior to equipping it and has its own attack power. The bad part is none of this matters whatsoever at all. At one point, I had three auto rifles for level 5, 9 and 14 with attack power of 48, 72 and 112. You would think that the level 14 112 attack power rifle would be the best, but it's exactly the same. The stats for the weapons, i.e. fire rate, impact(damage) etc were all the same. Your only option in this case is to dismantle all the upgraded weapons to get more glimmer and keep the lower level weapons. The crucible multiplayer maps see this have a totally adverse affect as lower level players have no disadvantage over higher level players. At level 13, I used a sniper rifle to hit another player dead in the chest as he had just over half health with no shield. I had both full health and shield. My shot did not kill him but yet one round from his shotgun took me out along with both my health AND shield?? In no way is that reasonable. I'm not the best FPS player in the world, I'm ok, but you have to give the appropriate advantages to higher levels weapons. Why do you even have them if you don't? As far as crafting goes, there isn't any. With such an MMO type integration Bungie would be wise to add some sort of system in.  

     The storyline was one of its better spots. Although it was short with about 15 hours of gameplay, it tied in well with the overall feel of the game. Dinklage's one liners were funny and it felt as if he was an actual sidekick other than just this floating light in the background. His actions were limited though, often being just holding X/square at a certain point and waiting for him to hack something while you fend off the enemies. If Bungie could have upgraded the ghost's integration into gameplay with a mission of controlling the ghost itself per se, it definitely would have added to the overall feeling that emotionally connects you to the game. The cut scenes and cinematics are the perfect length and Bungie doesn't add any unnecessary filler scenes that take away from the gameplay. Graphically the scenes are a marvel of technology that carries over into the gameplay slightly. The foreground of the environment is active and reacts to your presence. In certain fallen caves, you'll notice that black algae type creatures react to you stepping on and shooting them and it adds to the "interactive" feel. The background looks more painted on and created than part of the actual environment. 

     There is a lot to do in Destiny but it doesn't take long to see what doesn't make sense as I've indicated. The whole game including both story and strike missions will take you a max of 20 hours. The Crucible multiplayer is a separate feature with the maps being just the right size for a 6 V 6 match. I do have to say that the melee attack in Destiny is probably my favorite attack to date. It's a fun, slap type attack and can kill most enemies with two hits if they don't have a shield. Different to most games, your melee can also be upgraded with different abilities like energy drain which can use enemie's energy to increase your own.  What I disliked most about the game is that leveling advantage is removed in the Crucible multiplayer. This makes all players the same depending on what weapons they use but your class choice puts you at a HUGE disadvantage right off the bat.  Your guardian's powers seem like they were made more for co-op than multiplayer. As a Warlock, I go into third person mode and throw a Roger Clemens like fastball right into the heart of the enemy but it comes with a big windup and you are vulnerable as you do it. The Titan class super move is a joke and will make you want to throw your controller. He jumps and pounds the ground with a fist strike that decimates everything within its range. And it's a big range. 

     The level "soft cap" is at 20. Once you hit 20, you can still level up if you haven't seen this already. In order to do so, you join the "strike playlist" missions and earn drops for legendary grade armor. The playlist places you at random into one of the strike missions in the game. A lot of games, especially MMO type games force you to play the same things over and over in order to upgrade. Destiny lacks here however because there is so little content on the MMO side. It also tries to be  a shooter but the combat is too repetitive.

Overall Verdict and Replay Value

     I'M TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT HALO!!! I don't care that Bungie made Halo. It doesn't matter at this point. Destiny is not Halo. Destiny is not WoW. Destiny is Destiny. Bungie had to have known that with all the marketing it put out in its $500 million effort that there was going to be some scrutiny. Don't get me wrong, Destiny is not a bad game. It's an average game that is fun at points. It just has a lot of visibly bad parts that stand out. I loved the soundtrack and Dinklage had me laughing a lot. The story line I actually did like despite what many of my colleagues from other sites had to say. Although it wasn't incredibly detailed, it was detailed enough to give you an idea of what you had to do as well as what was to come in future installments.  The controls from the sparrow maneuverability and weapon firing/aiming were precise and didn't compromise the game at all. I mentioned the kid in school above. You know, that kid with all the potential? Destiny feels like that kid that never quite lives up to its potential.  Between the stand out errors that seem to be integrated in every part of the game along with the lack of content, the overall quality of the game is affected on every level. I'm going to continue to play Destiny and pick up some achievements as well as try the new raid that opens on September 26th. I'll update this review if it changes anything but Bungie has to learn something and learn it fast: Don't make us do a raid for 4-6 hours only to get an "upgraded" weapon with the same stats as my low level weapon. THAT will get on A LOT of people's nerves. Plus the grimoire cards' lore is amazing if you are into that but it's no where in game. Only on Bungie.net. That is the sort of thing that needs to be in game.