[Video Game Review] Destiny (2014)
Game Summary:From the Creators of Halo and the company that brought you Call of Duty. In Destiny you are a Guardian of the last city on Earth, able to wield incredible power. Explore the ancient ruins of our solar system, from the red dunes of Mars to the lush jungles of Venus. Defeat Earth’s enemies. Reclaim all that we have lost. Become legend.
Developer: Bungie
Publisher: Activision
Platforms: Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Review: by Anthony
I've trusted Bungie when it comes to video games for the better part of a decade. All of the commercials for their latest game Destiny looked amazing, so of course, I had to check it out and become legendary.
If Bungie knows how to do one thing, that’s making a shooting game with some fun multiplayer aspects.
What I Liked:
Whether you’re playing alone or playing some missions with friends and dominating in matchmaking, it all relies on solid shooting mechanics. After years of making Halo games, Bungie has perfected the sniper rifle, shotgun, full auto assault rifle, and more. The Borderlands aspect of constantly switching out weapons and equipment for better loot really made it fun to try out all the different weapons and weapon combinations.
More than just figuring out which weapons best fit your playing style, there were the three different types of guardians: Hunter, Warlock, and Titan. At first glance, the different classes fill the fighting roles of close range (Titan), medium range (Hunter), and long range (Warlock). Due to the skill trees within each class build and the fact that each class has both a secondary super power and a secondary skill tree, the options of how to spec out your guardian could vastly differ from your friends.
Like most games, it’s always better with friends. Playing Destiny with friends is clearly how it’s meant to be played. You can revive a fallen comrade in the middle of a gunfight and take on wave after wave of enemies. When one teammate uses their superpower, they drop orbs that fills your super meter even faster so you can use yours! Taking down a super difficult boss solo is impressive, sure, but it’s tons more fun doing it with friends.
What I Didn’t Like:
While I did (and still do) have fun grinding it out in Destiny, there are a few things that I didn’t care for, things that could be easily improved, and things that almost made me turn off the game.
“Destiny really begins at level 20.” Bungie said this in a blog post just prior to the game’s release, and that phrase had me along with many others scratching our collective heads. If the game doesn’t really begin until I hit this soft level cap, then what the crap am I doing up until then? Once you do hit level 20, the real game of running patrol missions, farming material for equipment upgrades, and stalking the bounty board starts. It gets old quickly. If you don’t have a steady stable of friends to play Destiny with as you kill Sepkis Prime for the 215th time on a strike mission, the grind can be unbearable.
Destiny isn’t necessarily labeled as a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO), but it does share a lot of features, except for the good ones. The “Tower” has a shared area where you go to turn in missions and accept new ones. You’ll also run into other online players doing the same or participating in impromptu dance battles. The thing that’s lacking is proximity voice chat. Whether you’re at the Tower or on a planet, whenever you come across other players, it’d be awesome to be able to chat when cooperating at a public event or teaming up on a weekly strike mission.
As you collect loot, there are these encrypted items that you have to take to the Cryptarch to have decoded in hopes of getting an awesome item. The way most players anticipated these encrypted items to work would be if you found a legendary gem, you should then unlock an legendary item or rare item, but definitely not anything less than the loot level you found. Bungie has since patched and addressed this issue, but it was a thorn in many a player’s side for weeks after Destiny‘s launch.
Lastly, there really wasn’t much in the way of a story over the main missions. Or rather, it seems like only one-third of the story was told with bland expositional narration from Peter Dinklage. There were these Grimoire Cards that you could unlock while playing Destiny that offer some backstory to the events and missions, however, you had to go to Bungie’s website to read them, and that was just not going to happen. I believe Bungie has plans for Destiny that are still rolling out, but I feel like a complete story was just missing in the initial missions available.
Summary
While their years of making Halo games clearly influenced Destiny, Bungie was able to take a fun MMO with solid shooting controls that’s still growing and smoothing out the rough edges.
User Review
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