Plot: What’s it about?
As Destiny opens, you are revived from death by a small robotic Ghost, who quickly gets you armed and tells you the world is in great peril. A powerful relic known as The Traveler led to mankind’s golden age, but it also attracted dangerous forces who seek to control its powers. This is the crux of Destiny’s story, you have to fend off a number of alien armies and find ways to protect the Tower, mankind’s last bastion of survival. To be honest, the story here is paper thin and unless you go to Bungie’s site to research the grimoire elements, not much makes a lot of sense. But what does make sense is that Destiny is a fun, addictive FPS experience. The campaign is short, with a handful of missions on a handful of planets, but the campaign is just part of the journey. You also unlock three man missions called Strikes, where you face down powerful bosses, with ridiculous health bars. While all the boss fights in Strikes revolve around whittling down the massive boss and killing endless waves of trash for ammo, they’re short enough and fun enough to overlook that. In between bosses, you do the same scenario as you do in campaign mode, which is activate Ghost, then eliminate a few waves of enemies. Not much variance in either Strikes or campaign, but again, the shooting mechanics and progression systems are enough to compensate. A six man raid system is also in place, with more unique mechanics and encounters that will remind players of more traditional MMO boss clashes.
If you are more motivated by competitive encounters, the Crucible offers some ways to kill off your fellow Guardians. The Crucible offers modes that include teams of six, teams of three, and free for all, where everyone is fair game to vanquish. I found the competitive modes to be a load of fun, with crisp and responsive mechanics. The game types are rather limited, with a capture point mode called Control, a standard team death match, and a free for all death match type. Bungie also offers other game modes from time to time, on a limited basis. So if you see a limited time competitive mode, make sure you jump in while you can, as they seem to last for only a weekend at a time. While most Crucible matches level the field between players (to ensure fair battles between players of varied progression), a special mode called the Iron Banner lets you put your hard earned gear to work. This is also a limited time session, however. As you complete both Crucible matches and Strikes, you accrue marks that when you collect enough of, you can cash in for high end armor, weapons, vehicles, or cosmetic items. There are also other currency options, which are tougher to find and unlock some cool stuff, including items from rare, limited availability vendors. Once you hit the level cap of 20, you depend on finding better items to increase your stats even more, so the plethora of avenues is appreciated. The loot drops have been quite poor for me to this point, so more predictable ways to gear up are a great inclusion.
As fun as Destiny is, I feel like so much potential is wasted. This is supposed to be a social game, but no chat options are offered and matchmaking isn’t available for a lot of the content. You also need to be in a clan to access some of the content, but the clan system operates outside of the game itself, which makes no sense. If players could chat in game and access clan options in game, I think the experience would improve ten fold. Even if you’re in a clan, you might not always have people to run with, which makes the limited matchmaking a frustrating experience. I also wish there was more diversity within the classes, but the system seems to have been streamlined and that eliminates a lot of the cool, subtle differences that were possible. You also never get that “I am way more powerful now” feeling that similar games provide, as even low level enemies can knock down your health. It seems like no matter which difficulty you choose, enemies do the same level of damage and take the same level of damage. This is dynamic difficulty I’m sure, but it removes the grand feeling of dominance when you make huge progression strides. The worlds are also quite small, with very few real missions to run, so you’ll see the same areas over and over. Once you finish the campaign, it is just repetition and there’s not enough content here to make that repetition worthwhile at times. I have had a lot of fun with Destiny, but some minor quality of life improvements could really enhance the experience. Even as it stands however, Destiny is solid fun and the opportunity to make an epic game is still very much possible.
Video: How’s it look?
Destiny is a good looking game, but it doesn’t reach the lofty visual levels of some of its peers. This could be because the game was developed with last generation’s consoles in mind, but I’m not sure. The visuals have good detail and depth, but just doesn’t pop off the screen like some other games. In Ryse for example, you can tell you are looking at a game that pushes the console envelope, but Destiny never gives that impression. This PS4 version certainly outpaces the last generation, with a much more refined and crisp looking experience. So overall, the game has a very good visual design, but it isn’t in the same league as the best looking games on consoles right now.
Audio: How’s it sound?
The sound design is rock solid, with no real issues to report. The guns sound great and the music, while it sounds like a Halo soundtrack, is fine as well. Not quite as inspiring as some of Halo’s best music, but still good. One issue with the audio is the miserable voice work performance by Peter Dinklage, which really sinks the character. And fans begged Bungie for a different performance after the beta, but it was to no avail. Since Ghost is always talking, the lifeless performance really lessens the campaign and story experience, without question. Bungie did however remove the “That wizard came from the Moon.” line, which was at least memorable, unlike the rest of Dinklage’s voice work here. That horrible voice performance aside, Destiny boasts a more than solid sound design.
