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Destiny
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Graphics & Sound:
It’s been the talk of the gaming world ever since it was introduced. Some say it was overhyped, others say the hype was justified. Now it’s finally here and everyone has had the chance to get some hours logged. Welcome to Destiny Guardian, the first big game from Bungie ever since the Halo series and this time around, they’ve partnered with Activision for publishing.
Let me just start out by saying this game is ridiculously gorgeous. The landscapes and layout are beautiful. I hope you don’t need me to tell you that everything is 3D because who hasn’t seen a trailer or some gameplay by this point? Just to give an idea of the amount of care Bungie put into designing the world, your footprints appear on the moon. That might seem insignificant, but I’ve only seen them on the Xbox One and Playstation 4 versions of the game. Either way, again, let me say that everything is beautiful. You could probably spend a good hour just exploring and looking around at the landscapes.
The landscapes are beautiful, but the music and sounds only enhance the overall atmosphere of the game. Much of the soundtrack is very orchestral and melodic, but it is also very subtle. When you’re just walking around exploring, the landscape will probably draw you in more than the soundtrack, but when enemies appear and a battle breaks out? Oh boy. I’ve heard some insane tracks playing whenever I’m surrounded by enemies and trying to survive, and it’s a nice feeling, to say the least. The soundtrack isn’t the only gameplay enhancement. All the different sounds, from the enemies in the background, to the sound of fellow players zipping along on their sparrows in the background give a level of immersion I rarely see in FPS games. Add in the realistic shooting of the gunfire and even the whooshing of Fusion Rifles, and I really feel the sound of Destiny is a beauty all its own.
Bungie decided to change the voice acting between the beta and the full game and overall, I’d say the change is pretty nice. Your character in the beta sounded a bit monotonous and dull, but now there’s a bit of extra oomph in the few times that you do hear yourself say something. Your ghost companion (Peter Dinklage) does the majority of the talking, along with the other characters you interact with, and it is interesting from time to time. Unfortunately, many of the miscellaneous characters lack any sort of personality and your ghost falls victim to this as well. Some major plot characters do slightly make up for it, but not very much. The voice acting is nice, but I feel there could have been more effort put into it to tell a more convincing story.
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Gameplay:
b>Destiny's gameplay has been described as a combination of the Borderlands series, the Halo series and other FPS games, and whatever it is, it works very well. Destiny is hella fun and there’s a reason why so many people are invested in it, but there’s also a reason why many people are turned off by it. The gameplay is pretty much traditional FPS style, so most players will probably be familiar with the layout when it comes to the HUD and the like. The radar is shown to the top right of the screen, but only shows general locations of where an enemy may be instead of precisely pointing them out with a dot. Weapon information such as current ammo is shown to the bottom right, along with your grenade bar and class special. Destiny's FPS gameplay also features many RPG elements intertwined with it. Mostly, players will be completing missions or doing open world patrols, alone or with other players. Strike missions force the player to partner with others and players will be found via matchmaking. Oh, and do keep in mind that Destiny requires you to have an internet connection along with a Playstation Plus subscription (or whatever service you’re using) to actually play.
Some of the core gameplay of Destiny revolves around the three different classes in the game. Players are able to choose between a Titan class, a Warlock class and a Hunter class. Each class has its own strengths and unique play style which will cater to the player’s own personal taste. Warlock specializes in spell casting, Hunter is more of an assassin role, and the Titan is a… well, a Titan. Destiny would probably get rather dull rather quickly from the get go if it was only a standard FPS. Bungie decided to incorporate a bunch of RPG elements into the game and that really helps to up the appeal of gameplay, notably with that class system. Each class has its own upgrade tree with varying skills that relate to the class of choice. You usually unlock an upgrade as you level up and the upgrades follow a set pattern. It’s always good to kill those random enemies you see, even if you only get a small portion of experience. Something’s better than nothing, right?
Destiny tells a story by having the player complete missions. Once in orbit, players may select a mission to do from the Director which is shown by the "Set Destination" option which is easily noticeable. Simply select a world and pick your mission of choice. The main hub is known as The Tower, where players can group with other players and also buy weapons and armor. Players may also check their mail and receive new bounties to complete. You can’t do every mission off the bat in a new area though and completing missions will unlock new missions for you to do. The mission rewards can be seen once you hover over the mission and rewards can range from weapon upgrades to armor upgrades along with a nice amount of bonus experience. You can get even more bonus experience from selecting a higher difficulty of the mission you planned on doing, and who doesn’t love bonus experience?
Destiny's customization is interesting indeed. Upon starting out, players are told to create their character. Players may select a male or female version of one of three races and then choose their facial features. After that, you’re thrown into the game! In game, players are able to customize their armor and weapons. Naturally, armor pieces have defense values which add up to give the player a total defense rating found on the character screen. There are five different types of armor players can equip and those are Helmets, Gauntlets, Chest, Legs and a Class Item. Weapons have an attack value, but they don’t add up to give an overall attack rating. Each weapon simply deals its own independent amount of damage. Players carry three types of weapons: A Primary, a Special and a Heavy. Players may select from among four main Primary Weapons and those are the Scout Rifle, the Auto Rifle, the Pulse Rifle and the Hand Cannon. As the title states, primary weapons are the player’s main weapon of choice. Primary weapons hold the most ammo and can be used more frequently, so it’s always good to have a good primary. Special Weapons are the player’s next weapon of choice when dealing with some of the tougher enemies and the special weapon types are Sniper Rifles, Fusion Rifles, and Shotguns. The Special Weapons are very strong and if an enemy is giving you trouble, you can usually down him with a few shots of a Special Weapon. There are some enemies that will give you even more trouble than that and that’s where your Heavy Weapons come into play. It’s usually pretty rare to get Heavy Weapon ammo, but when you do, you’ll decimate your opponents. There are two Heavy Weapons: the Rocket Launcher and the Machine Gun. Either of these will greatly tip the odds in your favor, but Rocket Launchers are more area of effect damage while Machine Guns concentrate on single targets. Just pick your favorite items and give 'em hell! |
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Difficulty:
Destiny has an interesting design when it comes to difficulty. Each mission has a level requirement attached to it. For missions which require one or two more levels above the player’s current level, the mission will be labeled as Hard. Missions with a level requirement that matches the player’s level will be listed as Normal. While the main enemies you encounter during certain missions will be scaled to the level recommended, if you venture too far off the beaten path, you’ll likely encounter insanely high leveled enemies who will kill you quickly. Despite what the missions say, the difficulty of them isn’t too bad. Skilled players will probably find them to be somewhat easy if they’ve kept up with their gear and aren’t too far behind. The thing I found funny was how some missions would have a set requirement so high it’d tell you "Impossible" and that there was no hope. Always gave me a chuckle.
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Game Mechanics:
While the player primarily plays as one of three classes, each class is broken up into two subclasses. For example, the Hunter class is divided into the Gunslinger and Bladedancer subclasses. A subclass is always unlocked for the player at level 1, while the second one may be unlocked once the player reaches level 15. The second subclass of a class provides the player with another aspect of play and allows for new strategies in-game. The Gunslinger subclass is well-suited for missions and strikes while Bladedancer might be more viable in PvP multiplayer. It’s all up to what you would prefer, though.
Players will probably spend quite a bit of time looking at the character screen. By pressing Options, a screen will open which has four tabs: Roster, Character, Inventory and Settings. The Roster tab simply shows your online friends so you collaborate to play. The Character tab allows players to customize their weapons and armor along with their ghost, vehicle, ship and emblem. Players may also switch between subclasses and upgrade their subclasses on this screen. Out of all the tabs, this is probably the most important one and is where players will do much of their customization. The Inventory screen shows four different groupings of items: Materials, Consumables, Missions and Bounties. As you level up and progress further in the game, you’ll spend more and more time in this tab. Settings allows you to either switch characters or change the game settings. Keep track of what you’ve got and use it as best you can!
Destiny handles loot drops in a very fair way. Despite who gets a kill, every player has a chance of getting a loot drop and the drop will be specific to the player so that there won’t be a big fight over one little cube. Of course, monster drops will usually be either ammunition for one of your three weapons (white for Primary Weapons, green for Special Weapons and purple for Heavy Weapons) or an item drop, which will be in a brightly glowing octagonal shape. Item drops will be either white, green, blue, purple or gold, and all drops except white must be taken to the Cryptarch for decrypting. Green, blue, purple and gold drops range from least rare to very rare respectively and will usually reward the player with a nice item once decrypted. In addition, coded items can be bought from the Cryptarch and will be a specific color in his store. Once bought, they are automatically decrypted for player use. Players will be required to have a certain Crypto-Archeology rank to buy the rare coded items, however, so make sure you get that up either by finding rare loot or buying random things from the Cryptarch.
Destiny is a beautiful game and a very fun experience for anyone waiting on games later in the year. If you and your friends are bored, I’d definitely recommend you all pick up a copy of Destiny, but solo players may want to wait. Destiny is loads of fun alone or with friends, but it definitely seems to be a game geared toward gaming experiences with friends instead of solo play and the grind for gear will probably get tedious quickly. Either way, Destiny is a game I think you should experience at least once and see what you think. You’ll either love it and be addicted or just move on to the next thing. |
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-SS-54, GameVortex Communications AKA Ren Plummer |
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