The first release is arguably the biggest too (or at least most marketed) in Destiny. Bungie split off from Microsoft and the Halo franchise that made them famous to do their own thing, which turned out to be a sci-fi FPS. Wait, what? Yes, they broke free of their Halo shackles and decided to stick on that same route, I suppose you could argue stick to what you do best but after having just had a long running franchise they have signed up to a 10 year deal with Activision to make Destiny in to a video game behemoth and to me it seems like they're retreading old ground.
The marketing has been through the roof, you certainly can't fault Activision on that side because you can't turn your head without seeing and/or hearing something about Destiny (At least I can't seem to). They already have Call of Duty remember, one of the most successful video game series of all time (financially, game wise...) so they must want to take the FPS market over and corner it themselves. Of course COD won't require much marketing, just put an advert for the new game in the old one and people will get that, but Destiny is a new beast, Halo wasn't like COD where everyone and their dog plays, it was more of a gamers game series rather than the more casual style of COD. Maybe then they're trying to catch both sets of game buyers in 2 games then?
Anyway, enough of this random speculation, let's get to the meat and potatoes of it, the game. So, as well as being an FPS it's also supposed to have RPG and MMO (look these up yourselves if you don't know what they mean) elements but for me this turned out to be a disappointment. I'd be the last player to get in to an MMO, but coming in knowing there were light elements of it was cool, but they turned out to be so light that I have to question if it's worth having it in there at all. Basically, while you're strolling around the maps doing missions or whatever you'll see a handful of other players going around doing their own thing. But that's it really, it's not like people are just going to start randomly teaming up with others and leaving whatever they were doing, people (gamers especially) aren't like that, everyone secretly hates each other and hidden behind the mask of a controller and screen you can bring this to your forefront (or is that just me?). To assume that people would do this seems crazy to me, you're not going to be getting people who played WoW or such to jump over to this, it's just going to be console gamers and Halo fans. The MMO factor also means that you can't pause the game, even if you're playing a story mission alone and for someone who drinks literally dozens of cups of tea a day (really literally) this is extremely annoying as I have to wait to finish a mission before I can make another (or y'know, if you need the loo/ get an important phone call/ someones at the door/ a million other better reasons to pause a game over wanting cups of tea).
As for the RPG elements I'm pretty disappointed there too. Don't get me wrong I wasn't expecting Oblivion or Fallout levels of RPG-ish-ness but I was expecting something along the lines of Borderlands, and this is a long way off that. So, in Borderlands it's all about crazy loot drops, if you have had the same anything equipped for more than 1 mission you'd be insane, enemies drop loot, there's loot chests everywhere and sellers everywhere. In Destiny though, about 1 in 100 enemies drop something, and normally this stuff isn't even good enough for when you're level 15 (the level cap is 30 BTW), there are just a handful of loot chests around, all trading is done in 1 area and the main way to get better weapons and armour are to even pull off difficult co-op missions or strikes (or go them alone if you're nuts (I wouldn't recommend that)) as well a going to the Crucible and doing some PvP (we have to call it 'PvP as it's an MMO rather than just 'online multiplayer' or 'shoot the scum').
So, the crucible is pretty disappointing too with only 4 game modes and a handful of maps, I'm sure more will come on the future as Bungie are heavily supporting this game post release but right now it's frustrating. There also seems to be a huge advantage to the people playing with better weapons as they'll kill you in seconds where you seem to need considerably longer to do so. Now, I remember this argument happening about COD long ago (probably still does) but personally I never found that. Not that I wish to toot my own horn but I'm pretty good at FPS' and I managed to do better than most very highly rated players on COD on line due to stealth tactics and smart thinking as the knife kills and mines, grenades etc. would be one shot kills, but they're not on Destiny and furthermore all enemies show up on the radar at all time so it's not like you can be stealthy, it's either snipe or charge in.
The story as well, oh dear. They have set up a good lore here but the game never does more than scratch the surface of this and if you want to know more you have to collect Grimoire cards, go to the Bungie website, sign up and read dozens of small paragraphs on cards to get the story. They barely tell you any of this plot backstory throughout the course of the game and they've got Peter Dinklage, Lance Reddick, Bill Nighy, Gina Torres and more doing voice overs for this game! If they wanted it to be more of a multiplayer, non-story experience why bother having more than a 1 minute start cut scene and just a couple of small time charlies in the voice recording booth.? With a cast like this though they have got to do more with them.
With all this criticism why play it at all then? I'll tell you. The game play is damn well phenomenal. Bungie knocks this one out of the park, using the experience from years of Halo and adding a bit of that iron sights current day style that's popular these days they have created something really special. Killing enemies is just so much fun. There's plenty of different types of weapons to choose from and you can carry dozens at a time so you're prepared for anything and they're all great. Whether you're pulling off a head shot with a sniper rifle from miles away on a high powered enemy to put them down, flying over an enemy and gunning him down from above his head or just shotgunning (is that a word? probably not) some smegger who has just leaped out in front of you I really can't explain how great the gun play is without you playing it. It's like Halo meets COD meets Bulletstorm. Not just the guns though, there's a vehicle ready to spawn between your legs (oo-er missus) whenever you want, you have a jet pack that can give you the ability to make some serious distance off the floor and you're chocked full of different specials. Now, I only played through as the Titan class, and as I have said many times before, I don't do games twice, so that's all I'll ever be, but speaking from this experience you can get a ground thump that blows away anything near, a huge running punch that makes you feel like a bad ass when it connects (especially if you're running head on in to a guy shooting at you, you're about to die but just before he can fire that last bullet you punch him 10 feet in to the air and you can just stand there and be all like 'yeah' *nod to yourself*) and multiple types of rechargeable grenades. There's plenty of motivation to get levelled up to level 20 as well (I know I said that 30 was the level cap before but between 20-30 you level up in a non-traditional way where better armour gives you more 'light' and this levels you up somehow) as you unlock abilities that makes these special moves even better (note, after you get past level 20, you still seem to gain xp to level these things up independently of what it says your level is, so the way I see it, after level 20 doesn't really tell you who has the best character, just who has been committed/lucky enough to get the good loot drops).
This game is supposed to be here to stay, and there certainly seems to be a fan base committed to doing this and fair play to them. I'm not saying I won't play it again, I might jump on line with some friends and do a co=op strike or some PvP again but I'm not going to spend 100 hours playing it in attempt to complete the raid of glass (look it up).
So a score? lets go 7/10. It may have been higher had it not been made out to be the most anticipated thing in the history of anything and maybe it's unfair to lower the score of a game based on hype and not just it's merits. However I disagree. This one was supposed to be one for the ages but turned out to be merely good. Still, there's life signs here and if they really want to build a new franchise out of this game they could have done a lot worse than this to have started it, it's definitely got a chance to 'do an assassins creed' (news that Alberto Del Rio is sure to appreciate). Good luck to them and I'll see Bungie for Destiny 2.
Toot Toot.
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