Played On: Ps4*
Platforms: Ps4, Ps3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC
Released On: September 9th, 2014
Developer: Bungie
Publisher: Activition
Genres: Action Role-Playing, Open World, First-Person Shooter
ESRB: T – Teen
Modes: Multiplayer
Distribution: Disc, Download

*Review copy was bought my the author*

After a long awaited arrival, one of the year’s most anticipated game is finally out for the masses to enjoy. The opinions are very mixed about this game but leave nobody indifferent. Here is my review of Destiny.

STORY

 

Through the rubble and rust a Ghost, a miniature robots with the light of the Traveler, finds you and brings you back to life to help the world as we know it from the Darkness. Completing many missions to understand what’s going on, you try to go to the core of things and destroy it once and for all.

Since it’s release, many people criticized this part of Destiny being confusing and hard to follow which it is. What I figured out is if you do the missions on each planet that are designated with a star and leafs, you seem to get the main storyline but is not fully coherent. The story is trimmed down from what it could but it is substituted by Grimoire Cards. These cards offers back stories for some aspects of the game. This is fun when you have a couple of minutes on the companion app.

VISUAL

Immediately when you see the art style and graphics you are blown away. With how much the servers are loaded, the game runs smooth and virtually no popping. There was only I occasion where I saw stretching of the cloak of my character but that’s it. The characters are well drawn and the landscape makes you want to explore further.

CONTROLS

Destiny gives instructions as you go when it comes to controls. The layout of the controls are intuitive and have a learning curve of about 15 minutes, not taking into consideration that the game gives you the layout throughout missions over a period of about 2 hours.

GAMEPLAY: RACE/CLASSES

Destiny offers 3 types of class: Titan, Hunter and Warlock. These classes have access to the same weapons but they differ with there special attacks and armour selection. Also you a choice of customizable races: Humans, Awokens and Exos. Each have there own look but changes nothing to the narrative.

GAMEPLAY:SUBCLASSES

Each classes offer 2 different subclasses and gives the players an extra boost and a chance to implement there own strategy to overcome opponents. These subclasses boost such things like melees, moving around and special class attack. Using these in combos and choosing the time correctly to use it can cause a great amount of damages to you opponents. Applying these skills to player versus player can be devastating and can make other players loose the mind. There is nothing more frustrating when you get surprised by the Titan’s Fist of Havoc: he does a powerful fist to the ground killing anything in its radius, or the Hunter’s Arc Blade: going into a frenzy and knifing everything in site. Still, very fun to work with and each special attack can have variation.

GAMEPLAY: LEVELLING

All classes have the same levelling ability which basically stops at level 20. Is that it you say? Destiny offers a light levelling system which is moved along by getting rare, legendary and exotic amours. At level 20, these types of amour gain a new attribute called light. By gaining more light points you gain light levels. These light levels go up to 30 and is done by also upgrading you armour. This is the more difficult part because you have to find resources throughout the planets. Some of them are also obtained only on drops and dismantling equipment. There is no hiding it, getting to level 20 is not too difficult but light level can be a long process of you are not a fan of grinding. Personally, I enjoy doing these thing because it refreshing compare to other games.

GAMEPLAY:VEHICLES

You have two types of vehicles: interplanetary spacecraft and Sparrows. The spacecraft don’t offer much except it’s looks. You can by different models but that’s where its stops. You get a nice range of designs which can be bought from the Shipwright Amanda.

The Sparrows is a bit more to offer. They can have a better durability and have different colors. These can be obtained in loots or bought in the shipyard. My hope for the sparrow is that it could in the future have firing ability. If we look at some of the enemies ships, which are also available to you in some location, they have either machine guns or rocket launchers.

GAMEPLAY:WEAPONS

The games has three weapon classes which unlock during the story mission: primary weapons, spacial weapons and heavy weapons. Primary class offer weapons like auto rifle, pulse rifle, scout rifle and hand cannon where the special class gives you weapons like shotgun, sniper and fusion. And for heavy class, some of your choose come down to rocket launcher and machine gun. All these weapons come common, uncommon , rare, legendary and exotic. Some of them offer different damage types which get very important at a higher level: arc, solar and void. Pro-tip: match the color of the damage type to your enemy’s shield color. This will inflict major damage and help you with the battle.

GAMEPLAY:PLANETS

When you end the story aspect of the game, you will have unlocked all the planets. You start off on Earth, Russia to be exact. Each planet offers its own colors, textures, designs, layouts and much more. They also offer there own feel meaning when you go to the moon, it didn’t feel like Earth or any other .

GAMEPLAY:ENEMIES

Each planet has it own type of enemy. I won’t spoil the other ones but the most frequent enemy are the Fallen. Each enemy type have different kind of infantry like Captain, Vadal and Dregg for the Fallen. Also, enemies have levels like your guardian so not to stagnate on one difficulty. One of the complaint I hear the most is when you go to a general location, not in a mission, enemies respawn to quickly. Let’s keep in mind that this game is always online and enemies respawn so if someone is not to far behind you, they will get some action to. This doesn’t happen in mission. In general the enemies are fun to kill and are also somewhat intelligent. They will hide or run away to meet up with there friends.

GAMEPLAY: STRIKES/RAIDS

Strikes and Raids are really the main feature of the game and they have a lot to offer. Strikes are available on each planet when completing story missions, but at level 18 you unlock strike playlist which will let you do random Strikes continuously. As you progress in levels, Strikes get modifiers to make them harder. There is also nightly, weekly, Queen’s Wrath and more types of Strikes which take story missions and normal Strikes and adds more modifiers to increase intensity. My biggest complaint is with the Queen’s Wrath mission, I did about 5 of them and got 3 Queen’s vest and 2 helmets. I found very frustrating because they are not all walks in the park. Still quite fun in team but there is no matchmaking for Queens Wrath. All other types of strikes offer matchmaking. You get loot, vanguard points and vanguard marks for complete strikes.

Raids are about the same but even more intense. They also require 6 friends because it doesn’t offer matchmaking as well. The selection of your team is also very important because you need each class of guardians and proper weapons and subclass. All these is essential to the success the a raid. These events also have riddle and problem to get thru and some time require your team to split up. I personally didn’t get a chance to do a raid but reading around the web, people are generally pleased.

GAMEPLAY:PATROLS

Destiny offers for you grinding pleasure what they call patrols. These are basically free roaming opportunity on planets you have unlocked. In patrols, you can explore the worlds and do small side quest that includes collecting items from enemies, kill a certain amount of enemies and getting your ghost to scan something on the other side of the map. Doing so will give you xp points and item drop. Be cautioned, these seem to rarely give out rare items.

Roaming around the planets, you can also find chest and golden chest. Chests offer basic loot like glimmer and uncommon equipment. Golden chests on the other hand offer a bigger amount of glimmer and better equipment. Each planet as 5 golden chest to collect and when they are all collected, you get a special item. The final prizes can be a bit basic but still a fun thing tom shoot for on your spare time.

GAMEPLAY: PUBLIC EVENTS

Public event happen randomly in the world of Destiny and occur in free roam and while on a mission. These can be done by approaching the site of the event and interacting with what’s there. They can be done solo or in groups of guardians. In a recent update, Bungie made them more frequent so everybody can be part of it. Public event, when completed with all three stars, give you Vanguard marks and glimmer for the most parts. These are a fun alternative to roaming the wastelands but could be more varied in the type of them. Only time will tell what they will do in further update.

CRUCIBLE

 

The crucible is another of Destiny’s main features and pits guardians in team or solo against rival guardians. There is 4 main match types: Control, Clash, Rumble and Skirmish. Control puts team against each in a fight to control 3 locations on map and the one with the most points wins. Clash is basically team death match, the team with the most points with. Rumble and Skirmish have the same end goal. The difference is Rumble is solo death match and Skirmish is 3 vs 3 team death match.

There is also special occasion match types like Salvage and Iron Banner. Salvage is team death match mixed with capture a specific point on a amp. Iron Banner is just Control but you collect points of the Iron Banner. All these type of matches of crucible marks and point to help you buy gear and weapons. The Crucible is very fun and can create memorable moments. You do feel at some point underpowered even if levels are disabled. When you get hit with a one hit kill but Shotgun, it feel a bit dumb. Beside this little tidbit, you still get loads of fun with it.

MUSIC
The music is there for tone only. You feel in the moment and hypes you up for bosses and big events. It’s not earth shattering but still present and creates a nice vibe.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The game as lots to give to the players willing to take the time and play game at its fullest. I’ve hear a lot of complaints by other that there isn’t much to offer but I have to say, much of the fun is when you reach level 18 and when you start light levelling. I admire the constant updates that Bungie offers us to keep the game interesting and fix the things that get players mad. The game is not for everybody and if you’re not interested in MMO-type games, this game won’t talk to you. I love this game and it’s that one game that will get you playing over and over. Even with its flaws, for some reason, the game pulls you in and leave nobody indifferent.

 

 
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