How is a $500 mil game?
It plays like most FPS', but being from Bungie it does have an uncanny resemblance to Halo, the first one from over a decade ago. That's a good thing, because there's nostalgia that let's you make yourself right at home withDestiny.
The great teaser videos released prior to launch promised a riveting storyline and social gameplay mechanics. Bungie did a great job with Halo's gameplay and brought it to Destiny much improved. It's understandable that the emphasis on story brings RPG elements, like leveling up and customizing your character and character classes. The RPG elements feel balanced and the characters have Masterchief-like durability, strength, and firepower. The game is always online, so you can always interact with other players. So you have a promising MMO-RPG-FPS.
The multiplayer aspect is evident at the start. The game requires you to be online even for single-player missions. You immediately go to the Tower, basically a hub, after your first mission. Even while playing solo, you respawn rather than restart at checkpoints, although that will happen in “restricted spawning” areas – the game will warn you when you enter one of these.
It's easy to add people to your fireteam and talk to them. You can also alter the privacy settings to friends only or public. Unfortunately, Destiny players are limited by their console, i.e., there is no cross-play. That would have truly made the multiplayer experience massive, but that limitation is probably out of Bungie's hands.
Being a revived chosen Guardian you wield the power of the Light against the forces of Darkness – a Good vs. Evil thing going here. The controls for your Guardian are easy and responsive. Moving, firing and using abilities are a button tap away. Some weapons have different fire settings that come in handy for enemies vulnerable to a particular type of weapon fire. The ammunition dropped by enemies can be primary, special, or heavy weapon type and is universal – no need to scour for specific weapon ammo. Unfortunately, the enemies don't drop their weapons, but they do drop armor and other guns. You get experience killing enemies, which levels you and your weapons up. After level 20, however, level enchancement will depend on the light factor of your armor.
The elements of controlling a vehicle (just the one-seater Sparrow for now), the zooming out to third-person view, and flipping vehicles upright are Halo-esque. You can't run over enemies with the Sparrow – I miss having a dangerously-driven Warthog. You will be doing a bit of inventory management in the game and you can change your weapons and armor loadout on the fly.
Your benefactor, the Traveler, a large alien orb in the sky, is the source of your abilities and, well, is dead. Humankind is having a hard time with its expansion across the galaxy reduced to just a single city on Earth by rival alien races coming to get a piece of the Traveler. While they do fight among each other, they all train their guns on you when you appear before them. This is reminiscent of the last stages of the first Halo game, where the Convenant and the Flood fight each other.
The enemies don't seem to be very different in behavior from the Halo 1's enemies. Vandals behave like Elites; Dregs like Jackals; Thralls like infected Elites; Knights/Captains like Hunters. Enemy races don't seem to attack and defend cohesively like an organized unit and they don't apply tactics to defeat you. They also respawn, sometimes when you move away or with a dropship. Well, this is a video game, so you are a one-man army (or a three/six-member Fireteam depending on mission requirements). An upgrade in AI would have been preferable to pitting hordes against you.
Playing any mission reuses the same maps with some slight variations depending on your storyline progression. The maps are limited to a specific area on each planet/celestial body. So, there is not much open-world roaming here. Some choices are odd - like sure, we're down to the last city on Earth, but can't we go beyond a patch on Old Russia? I even tried going into the water and my character died. It's not a dealbreaker, but a game of this magnitude should offer expansive worlds.
The storyline follows the regular theme of Good vs. Evil, but it is scarce for a big budget game. Shadow of Mordor is chalk-full of lore in comparison. Granted, it's got Tolkien's literature backing it, but Destiny is a half-billion dollar production that could appeal to more gamers with the lure of an epic story. My attempt at Destiny raised questions like:
Why were you chosen and why have you been dead for a long time? What is the enigmatic Traveler? What makes it tick? Why did the Traveler choose mankind? What is the past of the enemies? The Fallen are intriguing, because the game tells us they had a glorious past. How about a little insight into the other Guardian races?
It is probably the multiplayer/social aspect of Destiny that makes it alluring. I have not played the whole game, but I hope the DLCs address these issues. Nevertheless, I intend to play moreDestiny.
