(Obviously potential spoilers ahead)
You know that feeling you get right before a storm's gonna hit? that feeling in your stomach that tells you "this isn't good"? Well that's what I was experiencing the last months before destiny's launch. the disappointment that people were sharing about the beta, the lack of response from Bungie about the real questions people wanted answered, and the all-around "avoid telling them anything" attitude that Bungie had were all signs that something was wrong. And they were right. For the sake of making this simple, I'll break this review down into each element.
Mechanics: I'm going to start off on a high-note with this review. The mechanics of Destiny's combat system are solid. Everything feels fun to do, be it punching, shooting, blowing up a horde of enemies with a well placed grenade, etc. The AI is smart, it knows to stay behind cover when there's a sniper aiming at them most the time, it tries to flank the players, the stronger characters know they can take a few hits, but try to hide when their shields are down. So for mechanics it does very well. but that's about the only place.
Story: There isn't one. A story has a definite beginning, middle, and end. This game feels like we start in the middle and never reach a definitive ending. I understand the game is supposed to "have a 10 year lifespan" or whatever, but there is little to no content to really base that off of. Every story mission is the same thing - go to X and activate Y, fight off (usually 3) waves of enemies, mission complete. There is very little exposition to really explain the story or what the character is doing... you basically get resurrected and just become an automaton, going to places for no really explained or defined reason, and killing things to get to something. you're only going because "the glowy circle on the map told me to press it". Dialog is horendous, no amount of emotion is given to any character except for that awoken hunter dude who's the queen's brother or something. He's the only one I found interesting in any way, everyone else is just monotone. The characters don't have the same variety or chemistry that characters in previous bungie games had, and it's really sad to see from the perspective of someone who really valued that sort of thing in video games.
exploration (patrol): Beyond getting the golden chests on each zone, there's really no point in going into patrol mode other than to complete bounties and farm. I was hoping to actually do some exploring and discovering places. Nope, there's nothing. just a set path to zones and invisible death walls all around. Oh, and to the people that were saying "there well be more areas after beta, just watch!" well guess what? Every area is still blocked off just like it was in beta. Which tells me these "expansions" aren't going to give us new zones to explore, they are just going to open the doors of places we couldn't previously go. which means it's disc-locked content. So they pulled a Capcom.
PvP: the competitive aspect of Destiny is one of my favorite things to do currently... when I have a full team of friends to co-ordinate with. If you go in alone, unless you are really skilled don't expect to win. Really any aspect of destiny becomes more enjoyable when you are doing it with friends, but competitive especially so. The only thing I've noticed is I tend to hate maps that have vehicles - not for the vehicles themselves, but because the maps are just too big. they seem like that are designed for at minimum 8v8, when you can only do a 6v6 max game. But aside from the size, I find it a fun and somewhat refreshing spin on multiplayer shooters, since you still use your powers and perks you use in PvE. Now the thing that is both good and bad is that the end-match rewards system is entirely random. you could have instances where the guy who did the best gets nothing and the guy who does the worst gets a legendary item. I feel it would make more sense to have rewards be based on skill, to encourage people to play better in PvP rather than just hide and wait for the match to end (which I've seen happen several times).
Skills and leveling up: After you unlock all your base abilities and the first buffs for them, I have not found a reason to change... The the secondary and tertiary skills just aren't as useful as the first sets you unlock. For example, the titan, I have found no use for the "aimed strike" attack, whereas the aftershocks ability is extremely useful for keeping enemies off points in PvP or for blocking doorways in PvE. So the skills beyond the original set of perks just seem pointless.
Weapon Variety (this is more of personal gripe, that's why it's at the end): All of the weapons except exotics are only mildly different from one another in looks. they all are built from "modular" design, which seems very lazy to me from an artist's standpoint. Rather than getting cool, unique looking guns, you have to farm to try and get one of the exotic weapons if you want to "stand out" because otherwise every weapon looks the same. it's really boring, and I'm never really excited to look at a new weapon because I already have some idea of what it looks like. We need more weapons like the Khvostov 7G-02, it's the most unique looking auto rifle you can get that isn't exotic - and it's the starting rifle.
I didn't discuss size of the world because a game should not be judged on that. I was disappointed by the size of the zones, but it is not valued in a review. just know that the zones are extremely small.
There's no score for it, because I don't think a review should be based on a number. it should be based on the information that was given. so sorry if you were hoping for a score at the end, but there isn't one. However I will say that I think this game needs a lot more meat on it's bones. right now it feels like a skeleton of what was promised.
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