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[REVIEWED] Destiny

Does Destiny live up to all the hype that was created before the game was released, or should it rather stay in orbit, never to return to Earth? It’s actually a bit of a tough question to answer, as there are so many views on the subject making it hard to keep track.

It also depends on who you ask, as the game incorporates so many aspects that appeal to both multiplayer and single player gamers. But that is possibly what Halo’s developer was going for: create a game that would appeal to both types of gamers, but make use of the reams of knowledge gained from having created the popular Halo franchise.

Destiny was a bit of a gamble in many aspects, as it had to live up to the standard and excitement that Halo players expect, yet still carve out its own path in what is said to be only the start of an epic, intergalactic saga.

But how does the game stack up? Can it hold its own, or should the franchise be nipped in the bud?

Destiny

Where to from here?

Destiny’s plot has been a favourite picking point of various reviews, and to be fair, it is a little bit lacking in substance and character. For the most part, it revolves around you taking on the role of a Guardian, tasked with protecting the universe from certain doom and destruction in a post-apocalypse setting by a race of aliens that has all but wiped out everything in its path. You have to reclaim the formerly populated colonies on various planets so that earth can flourish once again.

That is the major crux of the story, but naturally there are a number of plot twists and turns – well… not really, that is pretty much it. In that regard, the plot is incredibly flat and almost predictable, and it’s not like we haven’t saved mankind from aliens before.

To be brutally honest, as I started to approach the end of the overall story, I tried to recall how we got to the point of searching for the heart of something called the Black Garden – and I couldn’t.

It’s almost as if the plot had fallen by the wayside, interrupting the shooting and looting with unskippable and (sometimes) drawn-out cut-scenes. The cut-scenes are a necessary element of any video game to convey the urgency of the matter, but there were a number of occasions where the scene’s structure just didn’t make much sense.

The narrative, such that it is, is held together by your “Ghost”, a floating drone-type creation that serves as your helper, gate opener and way pointer, voiced by none other than Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage.

Some of the best dialogue (and probably the only pieces of comedy in the game) is provided by floating Dinklage, and he doesn’t even have a face – which will give you a rough idea of the acting talent involved, which isn’t much. Others roped in to do voice acting work include Gina Torres aka Jessica Pearson from Suits; Peter Stormare as a Dead Orbit Merchant, Lance Reddick as the Titan Vanguard and sometimes narrator; and Bill Nighy as The Speaker.

Destiny

Mount your steed

To be able to effectively take on the uglies, you will have to create a character. One of the most important decisions that you will make in the game is which class to play.

There are three to choose from: Warlock, Titan and Hunter, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The Titan is the tank of the battlefield, who goes in close and leaves only limbs behind. The Hunter is a versatile fighter with some really cool cloaking abilities, while the Warlock is a bit of combination of the previous two. Once that is settled, you have to choose your race and gender, which is purely cosmetic. Then it is off to that battlefield.

All characters’ abilities and traits follow the same path of progression, which is unlocked through gaining experience by completing missions and putting bad guys out of their misery. Starting off, you have no grenades or double jump abilities, but luckily it doesn’t take very long to unlock those. But the ability that all gamers should look forward to is unlocking each class’s super power – a devastating power that can only be used when fully charged, usually involving a lot of flashing lights, balls of sparks or flames and bodies hitting a lunar surface in spectacular fashion. There are some passive abilities as well, but nothing beats a fresh ball of plasma to the face.

In terms of controls, the game is pretty simple to get the hang of, although you can change some of the key bindings if you wish. The regular settings for most first person shooter games apply here: left trigger for down-sights, right trigger to shoot and so on.

In that sense, there is nothing imaginative in the way the game plays, even as far as the type of missions that are available. The controls are stock-standard, so why should the missions be? The majority of them will involve going through a particular area, fighting off everything in the way, which ultimately culminates in battling some form of boss creature. The abilities of said boss will differ depending on the stage of the plot.

And it’s like Bungie knew there would be a lot of grinding involved, as each of the four planets with their limited areas can be entered into through a Patrol option. This option is pretty much the “mess around” stage, as anything goes.

But within the “free roam” of each planet, there are a number of smaller missions that can be collected by triggering bright green beacons. The missions dished out by these beacons will – nine time out of ten – involve killing a certain percentage of enemies, or killing enemies and collecting a certain percentage of dropped items.

Since the entire fate of your planet, your sanity and progression hinges on your ability to accumulate experience, the fastest way to level up is by doing bounty missions. These missions are collected in The Tower, your home base which also serves as trading post.

The bounties come in various flavours, but to explain them properly, they are like individual tasks with a huge wad of experience and some loot as a reward. Most are hit-list type tasks, like you are some kind of intergalactic assassin (OMG, a bounty hunter! Get it? A bounty… oh never mind).

This is also where Bungie kind of forces you into the multiplayer matches, accessible through the Crucible option on the interstellar map. Some bounties (which are all abandonable) will task you with completing five Control, Skirmish, Rumble or Clash matches (which are the easiest), while others will be skill-based.

Destiny

How bright are your stars?

With a huge studio like Bungie at the reins, it’s really no surprise that Destiny’s graphics are really good. Slightly more effort could have been put into creating those cut-scenes, but you can’t have your cake and eat it too, apparently.

As previously alluded to, the game takes place across four distinct planets: Earth, Mars, Venus and the Moon. To say that it takes place on the planets is a bit of a reach, as the areas aren’t as vast as Bungie first made them out to be. Sure there is a lot of ground to cover in your speed racer, but the areas are relatively linear with only so many options at your disposal.

But, it would be remiss not to mention that the areas have been beautifully crafted, each with its own character, feel and aesthetics. There is a distinct difference between all four, and Bungie has somewhat stuck to the conventional thinking and NASA images as to what the planets look like.

Mars is represented as the red planet we all know and love, but it could also double up as a far-flung corner somewhere in the Sahara. It’s dusty, it’s red and has a network of canyons and caves to explore.

Earth juxtaposes that with greenery everywhere, flowing water and traces of the previous humans that lived there, complete with broken cars, houses and industrial complexes. It lives up to the post-apocalypse vibe, with evidence of some catastrophic event that left the planet in ruin.

Everything on the respective planets is highly detailed, but the biggest ‘wow’ factor comes much later in the game when you cross into the Black Garden. The vista isn’t in a playable area, but you would be hard-pressed to find a player who didn’t stop to take in the expansive and detailed view.

It’s rather ironic, as minutes later you will be locked into one of the biggest battles in the game, with chaos strewn all over the place.

Destiny is no The Last of Us in terms of graphics capabilities, but on current-generation consoles – this review was done on an Xbox One – it does take advantage of the extra computing power offered by the Xbox One and PS4. While there are some graphical glitches here and there, they’re very minor and don’t detract from the overall aesthetic.

Destiny

To infinity and be…. Okay, maybe not

Longevity of any video game is only a relative thing, and Destiny is no different. From the start you might be under the illusion that it could possibly go on for years, but as soon as you dig a little bit deeper after reaching the top echelons a scant 15 hours later, it starts showing its cracks.

Don’t get us wrong – there is a plethora of things to do once you hit the magical Level 20, but the real question is how long gamers will be able to sustain their enthusiasm once fighting the higher level enemies becomes more of a chore than actual progression while they wait for the first DLC pack to drop.

There have been two confirmed DLC packs, the first scheduled to release three months from now, the second sometime next year. But three months is a long time to keep gamers occupied with grinding through well-trodden levels.

For a little explanation, once you reach level 20 (which is the current softcap), you can no longer buy any gear or weapons that would suit your purpose. Sure it’s available from the various merchants, but its stats are so low that buying it makes no sense.

A complex system of using Light and a combination of Crucible and Vanguard reputation and marks come into play, which also isn’t sufficiently explained during the game (I’m still a tad unclear about it even now). Light adds overall increases to the effectiveness of gear and weapons used by players, and you can only add Light by equipping weapons with higher Light than what you already have.

In order to buy the Crucible or Vanguard equipment, you need to have the correct rank (or reputation) to unlock specific items, which is then purchased with the respective marks. These marks are slowly collected by doing missions, bounties and strikes.

So the grinding cycle continues: buy better gear to fight bigger enemies, so that you get rewarded to buy better gear to fight even bigger enemies, so that you can buy better gear… you get the point. Granted, there are enough game modes to do the grinding in, but how long before it becomes stale? Once you have completed the story and realise what it takes to raise your level by only one after 20, it almost doesn’t seem worth it to continue.

Unless you have friends who really enjoy the title, and you just want to tag along because you have nothing better to do…

But with that said, that is actually where Destiny’s strength lies – in its multiplayer. While it semi-forces you into doing competitive matches, a major appeal for most will be to go looting and killing with friends in their fireteam.

Destiny

Make no mistake, Destiny is a really beautiful world with numerous exciting points, but is it worth the $500 million it cost, including marketing and publicity? Well, that is still up for debate, as publisher Activision has already recouped their costs with week-one sales, but is the game itself really that good?

There was no doubt Destiny would be a huge success given that marketing, publicity and – dare I say it – hype, but one can’t help but wonder just how much the hype machine played a role. People want the things they can’t have the most, and online reviews were incredibly scarce for a few days after release – which almost created a mystery as to Destiny’s potential.

The beta attracted a great number of players, but a lot of elements have been added since the days of internal testing and tweaking, so you can’t really compare the two to each other. While the beta performed well, one of the biggest issues of “retail Destiny” is the constant collapse and erratic behaviour of Bungie’s servers that I experienced over the past week.

Since the game is always online, if you have been booted from the server for whatever reason, indicated by a “humorous” error code (a Bungie favourite is Elk, Pineapple or Centipede), you lose all of your progress – and it will happen often. It’s amazing that gaming companies haven’t learned by now that online demand will almost always be double what they are expecting, but to Bungie’s credit the problems were at least not on a Sim City scale.

Parting thoughts

Destiny is a hugely enjoyable game that will appeal to anyone who has played Halo, Mass Effect or Borderlands, but it comes at a price. Progress through the story too quickly, and you will end up grinding through repeat levels to hit the sweet spot. But once you do, you may have to grind a bit more to get the loot that you want, and how long that sort of thing will hold its appeal remains to be seen.

Ultimately, however long the Destiny ride lasts is up to you, something that hinges heavily on how much mileage you can squeeze from its multiplayer bits and your tolerance for the grind.

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