Destiny Review

I have been waiting for this game for over a year. Luckily, I got a chance to participate in the Beta and it was fantastic. It went above and beyond my expectations. Gameplay was tight and smooth, graphics were stunning, and the world was inviting, but more on all that later. This is the most anticipated game of the year is it not? Lets dive in.
*Please note I am reviewing this on a PS4.

I started playing at 6:00am Tuesday morning September 9th after going to the midnight release. There was already a day one patch being downloaded but soon enough I got to jump into this new world. I was really impressed with the character creation. You get the option to choose from three different classes and three different races. Your class options are Titan, Warlock, and Hunter. Titans are your tank characters, they can tank lots of damage and specialize in heavy weapons and machine guns. Warlock's are your mage type characters, they are lightly armored and have powers over the Void and gain their abilities from the Traveler. Hunter's are your outlaw long range specialists. They are lightly armored, good with sniper rifles, and very agile. Each class has two subclasses that you get to pick perks for as you level up. Each subclass has their own "Super" that is a special ability devoted to that subclass. The player can't unlock the second subclass until level 15, however. The three races are Human, Awoken, and Exo. I chose to play as a Human Hunter for my first play through. The nice thing is that weapons aren't exactly tailored to each class. Every class can use every weapon. Some people may not like this because then it doesn't make much difference which class you choose.

Destiny's character creation screen

What is Destiny? This is a complicated topic. People want to classify it as a first person shooter, or an MMO, or an RPG. It's true that Destiny has all those elements to it, but it isn't defined by one thing. Bungie calls it a "shared world shooter," which makes sense because it is a first person shooter with the online elements of an MMO. Yet it's also an RPG because you are creating a character and leveling it up through gaining experience and doing missions. I don't know what to classify Destiny as. I think we should leave that for the individual player to decide.  

After having now played for over a week and my Hunter is now level 21, I think I can be a fair judge on the game. I'll start with the overall storyline. I haven't yet completed it, as I just unlocked the final planet, Mars. But so far it has not lived up to my expectations. Bungie is well known for making the Halo games, so we should expect a grand story, right? Well in terms of storytelling, Destiny falls short of those standards Bungie previously set. The world is vast and magnificent. Bungie has done a fantastic job at creating a new universe set within our own solar system, 700 years into the future. Yet the storyline itself is confusing. The game does a poor job of explaining itself. In the beginning, your traveling companion, Ghost, throws a lot of "storyline" and terms at you that don't really make sense. It's hard to explain without giving spoilers but the missions go something like this: go from point A to point B and kill things along the way. Don't get me wrong, it's incredibly fun. But very repetitive. The cutscenes are kept to a minimum which means most of the story is told in dialogue from your Ghost in-game. I will say that I haven't gotten bored with it yet. And the story does get more interesting after your character makes it to Venus. But for now, I'm just a little frustrated because I expected more out of the story from Bungie.

The Tower is Destiny's social hub. It's known as the last safe city on Earth and the HQ of the Guardians. Here you can interact with merchants, the bounty tracker, the Cryptarch, and the Vanguard and Crucible Quartermasters. You'll see other players running around the Tower doing all sorts of things. 

The Tower

Gameplay is the best part of Destiny. The gun mechanics are extremely smooth and the controls feel great. Everything flows together seamlessly. From the moment you acquire your first gun you'll instantly be reminded of Halo. Destiny's gun mechanics are very similar to the Halo series, and that isn't a bad thing. As a first person shooter, Destiny shines. Headshots and precision kills feel extremely rewarding and using your Super ability to decimate multiple enemies at once makes you feel like a god. For example, Once I unlocked my second subclass, Bladedancer, my Super was called Arc Blade. Activating this pulls the perspective out to third person and my Hunter was able to sprint around and slash enemies to pieces in seconds. This is insanely fun when you're up against a horde of enemies.

Arc Blade is OP against the Hive

Destiny's loot system also surprised me. I didn't expect it to be as in depth as it is. Loot is rated by five colors: White(basic), Green(uncommon), Blue(rare), Purple(Legendary), and Gold(exotic). Chances are you won't find any legendary or exotic loot until you hit the soft level cap of 20. Yes, level 20 is the maximum cap for gaining experience points. However, leveling up is much more complicated than that. You have have two reputations, Vanguard and Crucible. Vanguard is your reputation outside of multiplayer mode. Leveling up your Vanguard rep by completing bounties and participating in Strike missions allows you to purchase legendary gear from the Vanguard Quartermasters. Leveling up your Crucible rep by winning matches in the competitive multiplayer mode allows you to buy legendary gear you can use in the Crucible. Once you reach the soft level of 20, you have to find rare, legendary, and exotic gear that has Light. Finding gear with Light allows you to level up past 20, this is called your Light Level. So right now I have a rare chest piece of armor that is +6 Light. If you find a pair of gauntlets that has 200 protection, and no light, but you find a pair of gauntlets with 180 protection and +8 Light, you want to pick the armor with Light. Loot drops happen by either enemies dropping weapons and gear, or by dropping special engrams. Engrams are rated the same way as gear is: white, green, blue, and purple. So far I have not seen a gold engram because picking up a purple one gives you the chance of decoding exotic gear anyway. Once you have an engram it is always a hidden random piece of gear until you take it to the Cryptarch in the Tower to have him decode it for you. Legendary engrams have the chance of being uncommon, rare, legendary, or exotic. Just because they are purple doesn't mean you'll get legendary gear. The other night I found my first legendary engram and when I went to decode it...I got an exotic(gold) pair of gauntlets that only a Titan can use, because they are always a random class. However, I just put it in my vault that any of my characters can access so that one day if I create a Titan, he can use them at level 20.

This is an example of the Light Level of my Hunter

Destiny's missions have a lot to offer. You can choose from Campaign, Strike, or Patrol missions. Destiny's raids are also open but it's best to not mess with those until you're at level 26. Strike missions are a blast. You get to band together with 2 other people in your fireteam online and play through a long mission with a big boss at the end and lots of loot along the way. Patrol missions are just exploring whichever planet you're on without having to be confined by actual mission objectives. These Patrol missions range from "Kill this many enemies" to "Go here and scan this," they're very simple and you get minimal XP from them. There is literally so much content that it's hard to cover it all in one review.

Now onto graphics. The graphics in Destiny are beautiful. The cutscenes are smooth and look fantastic. During gameplay everything flows together nicely. The game only runs at 30 frames per second, which upset people when it was first announced but honestly you can't even tell. Each planet is characterized by its terrain and colors. All the ground models look very real and the character detail is magnificent. There's nothing to complain about here.

The Traveler

Destiny's Multiplayer mode is called the Crucible. The Crucible has four game modes: Control, Clash, Rumble, and Skirmish. Control is Destiny's version of Domination, control the 3 flag zones to gain points for your team. Clash is Team Deathmatch. Rumble is Free-for-All, and Skirmish is small 3v3 Deathmatch. All of your gear that you've acquired in the game is transferred over to the Crucible. For each game mode, Level Advantages are disabled, to equal the playing field for everyone.

You can see my Hunter on the far left

Like I said earlier, it's hard to cover everything about this expansive game in just one review. You might as well go pick it up for yourself. I love this new universe that Bungie has made for us. Destiny won't satisfy everyone. There is very much a grind for getting new gear. The gamers looking for a new MMO should look somewhere else, because Destiny isn't an MMO despite having some of those elements. Same goes for someone looking for a new FPS. Destiny tries really hard to be all these different genres and it doesn't always mesh well. So far it's my favorite game of 2014, but there are a lot of games coming out soon. Thanks for reading, Guardians.

8.5

+Graphics

+Gameplay

+Loot system

-Story is lame

-Identity issues