I've taken my time to gather my thoughts about Destiny, read plenty of official, more or less professional reviews about Destiny and finally, after a hard time figuring out how to really rate my experience with Destiny, came to a conclusion. This is going to be quite a writeup again, so if you're afraid of loads of text, better head to twitter now
Let me start at the beginning. The incredible hype of the game. The alpha I participated in, the beta, the release. Destiny was everywhere. In all media I could think of. I was hyped for the game as everyone else, only I might have had more realistic expectations. I never thought It'd be totally open world, or a full MMO. I never ever thought it would have some kind of world-chat. I just thought Nice, this seems to be a new and interesting universe that looks like Guardians of the Galaxy and plays like Halo with the mechanics of Diablo." That's what I got actually. This whole thing was just another proof that generally people are well stupid. The next hype has already started for Sunset Overdrive (I don't get it though) and a few other high profile releases. But oh my, the internet
So I played the alpha and the beta, both leaving a positive impression with me, even tough I already suspected the limitations in environments and actual places to visit, I was still stoked for the full game. I just hoped that maybe in the character creation I'd have to choose from a few more choices, particulary beards I like beards. Since there are none, I ended up with creating an Exo, because you know, I like robots too.
I guess everyone who played the beta and then fired up the game immediately felt a dull stroke in the guts as the first few hours of the game where exactly the same like in the beta. I was still hoping for that moment where something awesome" is going to change the way the game works. That moment never came. This might sound rather negative, but in the end I came away impressed by Destiny and here is why:
Is Destiny more fun than The Last of Us? Yes. It is. By far. But is it a better game? Hell no.
Read that paragraph again, you'll start to understand what I think is the biggest problem with Destiny and many official reviews. I think that each and every game should be reviewed in its own genre by a person who actually likes the genre (and know how to do their job).
I've read so many wrong" and poor" reviews about Destiny it made my gut hurt. The review here on PushSquare pretty much is spot on with my own experience. Well done folks! But things like the review on Polygon makes me wonder if those people even know how to do their job. There are so many invalid arguments. You can argue that Destiny is repetitive (it is) or that the story is presented in a very poor way (it is true) but saying stuff like you cannot interact with other players in any way" is just wrong (pressing R3 when targeting another player brings up some options like inspect and invite to fireteam, in which you can then freely voice-chat to your liking) or that the environments are bland, generic and have been done before. Seriously, the art direction alone is better than the lousy 6.0 Destiny has been given by Polygon. I can't remember a game where I was walking representations of our planets in the solar system, yet alone such stunning set-pieces.
There are many things wrong with Destiny but there are a few that are extraordinarily well done. Namely the gun mechanics, art direction, environments, enemy AI (even though many reviewers think its dumb, well then, go play on level 22 and beyond ) the soundtrack (the best stuff I've heard in an action game, ever) and last but surely not least: the fun. Ultimately that's the one criteria that makes or breaks a game for me.
Take Minecraft. If you'd judge that game by art direction, graphics quality and sound and then give it an average rating based on that, it would be abysmal. But Minecraft is fun (for most of us anyways) and all stuff making up the actual game is just a vehicle for the fun.
It's the same with Destiny. For me at least. I come from an era of video games where we were used to making our own fun. We'd make up our own rules for moves on Streetfighter (like making the opponent drop on a certain area of the background is like a fatality lol) or we had abnormal fun in Battlefield 1942, which actually lends quite well to a comparison with Destiny. No singleplayer campaign at all (basicly just offline multiplayer with bots, which was a BLAST) and all you do is play all the same maps over and over again. But we had Kübelwagen races, did stunts in airplanes and generally just fooled around. It's one of the best gaming experiences I've had in my life and to this day remember fondly.
Destiny is very similar. If you need a guided narrative, intriguing story (I love that kind of things, but they work awesomely well for something like The Last of Us and for me are not a necessity for stupid fun action game) and something like a guided tour through the game, you won't find that in Destiny. If you enjoy - in my opinion - the best console shooter mechanics paired with mad challenges and fun when you have a few friends with a headset and are not afraid of lengthy grinds, then this game is for you.
Don't get me wrong. There are many things I don't like about Destiny, which I will touch up in a second, but generally, when something is fun, it's fun. Simple as that. Destiny is fun. To a point.
Games like Diablo or Monster Hunter are incredible grinds, sometimes incredibly dull and difficult, yet they are wildly popular (I love both fyi). If you see Destiny more like Monster Hunter and less like Star Wars Galaxies" or Star Trek Online" you'll be mind-set to the experience Destiny has to offer.
The mulitplayer/pvp component (the crucible) is often in the critic for not having enough maps, being repetitive and dull and badly layouted. Well I cannot, at all, understand that argumentation, for me it's the best competetive multiplayer I've ever played on any console. Killzone Shadowfall (highly underrated) comes close though. But I think the pvp is highly balanced, mostly plays out in really fair, close matches and works really nice. Sure, all you do is shoot other people in the face and I can feel some shooter fatigue" already after playing them for 15 years+ but that's not a problem of the mechanics at hand in Destiny but due to my own personal experience.
I read a lot of comments, especially on the dreaded metacritic, that the multiplayer is so much better in lets say CoD. Well I won't even further comment on that, you know repetition and all.
I already outlined the kind of experience you're going to have and will now show you the not so bright" things in Destiny's universe. Firstly, the biggest and most justified gripe people have with Destiny is it's Story. It's confusing, uninteresting and only presented in tiny bits. Don't get me wrong. I find the world of Destiny intriguing and I want to learn more about it, it's only so hard to get engaged in it, reading those grimoire cards online instead of having a way ingame to really delve into this new world. When I finished the story yesterday, me and my friend came out unimpressed and confused. There are so many lose ends (for example Rasputin) that point to new content that might or might not come.
I know, they sad they'll support Destiny for a long while with new content and honestly, they better hurry. There are so many places and situations in the game that feel incomplete or bound for an expansion. For example, at the tower, when you go to the north tower (where the speaker is) you'll find something that looks like really huge door, sometimes that cthulhu-style trader appears in front of it. It looks to me like it is meant to be opened by a DLC or expansion at one point and if you view a map of the tower you see that there is plenty of room behind that door and it looks like living quarters. Also that area above the basement where all your class trainers are, you can see through the barrier into something that looks like a courtyard or an open-roof shopping mall...
There is so much promise, so much potential, I really hope they fulfill on those promises, because as it stands, Destiny is a very, very fun game with little substance. When you've done the story and reached the soft-level-cap of 20 and went beyond that with light"-gear, there is not much you can do anymore, except grind grind grind the same missions over and over again, play PVP and hopefully collect more glimmer (for which there is hardly any use) and legendary and exotic weapons and gear. And here is my biggest complaint. I'm no stranger to grinding games, I'm not afraid of it I even enjoy it a lot, and while the same strikes and missions over and over again are still, after the 10th time, LOTS of fun with your friends, there is not much motivation behind it all because the story is done and the droprate of good items is ABYSMAL. It's horrible. If you find blue engrams its like 50:50 for it to be a green or blue item. Never ever in 30+ hours of gameplay turned a blue engram out to be something more substantial like a legendary or even exotic item. I only twice got a legendary item, directly as a reward, which seem to be completely random and not bound on your performance, in a crucible match. Also, there is no trading between players. What the heck? I hardly ever found useful stuff and sometimes it was for another class. I know it's meant to go into my vault and be used by an alternate character of myself, but I'd rather give it the fellow chaps I'm regularily playing with, if they can use it. There is no way to do it and this is a huge complaint in the community of players, so I have a slight hope that Bungie will eventually patch it in at one point.
The only things that will lure you back into Destiny is the exquisite quality with which the world as been carefully crafted, the mad fun you can have with your friends and grinding for better gear, the latter being flawed as it is. It's tiresome slow and not satisfactional.
Again, Destiny is one of the most fun games I've played recently and it's really hard to put it all under one hat and judge or rate the gamet that Destiny is.
I'm a sucker for scifi and I love the world, the controls and the gunplay and sincerely hope that they will expand wildly on the partly strong and partly shaky foundation they provided. Destiny in it's current state, for me tastes" like a teaser for something bigger. I enjoy the long and tedious Strikes, I enjoy the repetitive grinding, I just want to be better rewarded for my efforts. Bring some friends, enjoy it together, try to delve into the world, take the environments in and you'll have a great time. If you come thinking you'll be guided through an epic tale, even if it (literally) sounds like it, you won't find this here. Criticism where critic is due, Im fine with that, but Destiny is such a good game it deserves an honest evaluation and that you take your time and look beyond the first impression (which many reviewers failed to do). I personally decided to trust in Bungie and got the season pass, waiting for content to come. I love the universe and the music and I hope that they will flesh it out even more!
It compliments my sessions of Diablo awesomely well and for me it's money well spent, even though it leaves me wanting more, hopefully soon. Considering the fun I had and still have with the game, I'd personally rate it 8.5/10 as it is more than the sum of its parts.
Quick overview:
silly fun with friends
awesome worlds and environments
epic, perfect soundtrack
wonderfully crafted art
balanced and engaging competitive multiplayer
extremely well crafted gunplay, best in class
many promises of things to come
lackluster story leaving many questions, poorly presented
no trading between players
abysmal droprate of interesting loot
long loading times
no team-chat in competitive multiplayer
many promises of things to come
I hope this was an informative read for you and thanks to everyone who read the whole thing!
I think both sides (the high numbered vs the low numbered) of reviews made very valid points regarding Destiny and the reason for it is simply because Bungie oversold their product.
"They played us like a damn fiddle!" - MGS5
"Finish your mission, prove your loyalty." - MGS3
"We could take a s*** on you from such a height, you'd think God himself has crapped on you!" - GTA: SA
Currently Playing: The Phantom Pain.
I disagree. I think that they probably "overexposed" it, as in "too much advertising everywhere to the point where its tiresome" but I never had the feeling that Bungie promised something I didn't get. It's just the ideas in people's heads. I got a Halo-Diablo and that's pretty much what I expected in the first place! But yeah in the end its a fun game and I just hope they can feed content fast enough to keep it interesting for those that invested in the game!
#supportindies
Top 5 Indies I'd recommend you try: #1 Lovecraft's Untold Stories, #2 Moonlighter, #3 Hotline Miami, #4 Inside, #5 Into the Breach.
Completely disagree with Destiny multiplayer, its horribly unbalanced if you dont use Shotgun/Fusion and melee, and let me try to explain you why
Destiny PvP its pretty much Halo with a new coat of paint and some powers, but the core gameplay (guns, health, melee, etc...) it pretty much the same, which is the reason that this game doesnt work that well as a competitive multiplayer game than it is a co-op game (which frankly, is the big thing for this game).
Halo games has been know for that combo since Halo 1, Shotgun+Melee can beat almost everything (except maybe a well placed sniper shot or the rocket launcher, etc...). In the Halo games, you have you initial loadouts (AR, BR, etc...) with other guns being on the map for you to take, getting the shotgun (or any of the other guns in the map) made you have an advantage, a fair advantage because it was a battle itself getting the gun.
Destiny (gameplay wise) plays pretty much the same as Halo, which means most of the rifles arent exactly a powerhouse, in fact, between them the game its amazingly well balanced (so it is Halo), the problem is the other weapons (Shotgun/Fusion), and contrary to Halo, in this game YOU START WITH THEM, and we already made the point that the Shotgun is much better than the rifles, so that makes the point... Why use other weapons ? Which ends up creating a 1-2 guns game (not to mention, even if it uses special ammo, its almost impossible to run out of it), if you are not using the shotgun or the fusion you are playing at a disvantage, considering the maps arent exactly bigs, there are little times using the AR its the better decision.
Does that makes it boring ? No, while its not my favorite ever its fun and can be fun, but its nowhere near being balanced.
TLDR ? Destiny is pretty much Halo, so shotguns are much much better than almost every other weapon (besides the "purple ammo" ones), in halo its not a problem because you dont start with them, its a war itself getting the good weapons, in Destiny you do, which makes the game a shotgun/melee fest unless you like to play at a disvantage.
I love the Co-op its the real part of the game, the multiplayer ? not so much.
Agree to disagree but you should have heard what they said about Destiny's story.
"They played us like a damn fiddle!" - MGS5
"Finish your mission, prove your loyalty." - MGS3
"We could take a s*** on you from such a height, you'd think God himself has crapped on you!" - GTA: SA
Currently Playing: The Phantom Pain.
Agree to disagree but you should have heard what they said about Destiny's story.
I've heard something like it's going to be an epic tale. Well if you read the writeup of the story (all grimoire info included) that can be found somewhere on eurogamer.net I believe, it IS an epic tale, it's only poorly presented. Not defending Bungie here as I really think the Story that actually ended up in the game as cutscenes etc... is really ... thin. But if you read into their whole universe (but honestly, who does that - besides me and a handful of others) it appears to be really nothing substantial. But technically they didn't lie.
And from a business standpoint it makes sense not to unveil all the secrets just now. Rasputin, the traveller, etc... When they really want to support this franchise for a decade, they will need lots of lore to play with and as I see Destiny, it's like a stage that is set for things to unfold in the coming months and years, I just hope they have a good pacing or people will lose interest in Destiny quite fast. They'd need some bombshell no one saw coming, like a complete new planet or a space expansion... but to be honest, I doubt we will see things like that too soon.
#supportindies
Top 5 Indies I'd recommend you try: #1 Lovecraft's Untold Stories, #2 Moonlighter, #3 Hotline Miami, #4 Inside, #5 Into the Breach.
Completely disagree with Destiny multiplayer, its horribly unbalanced if you dont use Shotgun/Fusion and melee, and let me try to explain you why
Destiny PvP its pretty much Halo with a new coat of paint and some powers, but the core gameplay (guns, health, melee, etc...) it pretty much the same, which is the reason that this game doesnt work that well as a competitive multiplayer game than it is a co-op game (which frankly, is the big thing for this game).
Halo games has been know for that combo since Halo 1, Shotgun+Melee can beat almost everything (except maybe a well placed sniper shot or the rocket launcher, etc...). In the Halo games, you have you initial loadouts (AR, BR, etc...) with other guns being on the map for you to take, getting the shotgun (or any of the other guns in the map) made you have an advantage, a fair advantage because it was a battle itself getting the gun.
Destiny (gameplay wise) plays pretty much the same as Halo, which means most of the rifles arent exactly a powerhouse, in fact, between them the game its amazingly well balanced (so it is Halo), the problem is the other weapons (Shotgun/Fusion), and contrary to Halo, in this game YOU START WITH THEM, and we already made the point that the Shotgun is much better than the rifles, so that makes the point... Why use other weapons ? Which ends up creating a 1-2 guns game (not to mention, even if it uses special ammo, its almost impossible to run out of it), if you are not using the shotgun or the fusion you are playing at a disvantage, considering the maps arent exactly bigs, there are little times using the AR its the better decision.
Does that makes it boring ? No, while its not my favorite ever its fun and can be fun, but its nowhere near being balanced.
TLDR ? Destiny is pretty much Halo, so shotguns are much much better than almost every other weapon (besides the "purple ammo" ones), in halo its not a problem because you dont start with them, its a war itself getting the good weapons, in Destiny you do, which makes the game a shotgun/melee fest unless you like to play at a disvantage.
I love the Co-op its the real part of the game, the multiplayer ? not so much.
Thanks for your input and actually reading my post. But I don't see your point. Obviously a Fusion Rifle or a Shotgun and a melee attack will be strong, but only at a certain range. I also use a Fusion Rifle or a Shotgun in close quarters, but enjoy my Auto Rifle as my all-purpose weapon, I ocassionally snipe and I also enjoy using a scout rifle on long ranges and repeatedly get good kills with all of my weapons. Even the Revolver. I think the balance is there, because in the maps themselves, they are nicely split between maps that favor long range combat and maps that favor close quarter combat. And the weapons, they all have a tradeoff for their benefits. Also you can't rate a primary weapon VS secondary VS heavy weapon directly, as their uses is automatically limited by available ammo, especially true for the heavy weapons.
Pulse Rifle= good allround weapon, medium accuracy, medium firerate BUT just nothing special for neither purpose, best used in midrange Shotgun = deadly in close range, IF you hit first time BUT long reload times, small clip size Auto Rifle = high rate of fire, multipurpose BUT wide bullet spread on wider ranges Scout Rifle = high damage, long range and precision BUT useless in close combat, slow fire rate Revolver = high damage, mid to long range and good precision BUT obviously slow rate of fire, limited clipsize Sniper Rifle = high damage, best long range and best precision, BUT useless in close range, small clip size, slow handling Machine Gun = high damage, deadly at close range, BUT useless at longer ranges, high recoil, unstable Rocket Launcher = highest damage, splash damage, BUT slow velocity, slow handling, useless in close range
To me, thats quite balanced. I got my ass handed by all sorts of weapons and also dealt some hell with all sorts of weapons. It's the situation, placement on the battlefield, height-advantage, running around in packs rather than alone and careful timing and trying to spot the enemy first that mostly decides if I get a kill or not, I never had a chance against someone with a pulse or scout rifle at mid to long range with a shotgun or fusion... But thats just my experience.
But I agree with you that the multiplayer is not boring Punishing at times, but thats - like in every other competitive FPS - mostly due to a superior enemy team or a lousy own-team.
#supportindies
Top 5 Indies I'd recommend you try: #1 Lovecraft's Untold Stories, #2 Moonlighter, #3 Hotline Miami, #4 Inside, #5 Into the Breach.
Hey guys this is a great post but, let's try to keep all the Destiny talk in one area please. Those are some nice points you made and but I don't see as to why this can't be included in the main thread.
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