Complete Destiny Review - N4G

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Complete Destiny Review - N4G
Scifi shooters are nothing new to the video game landscape, particularly for the team at Bungie. Having worked tirelessly on one of the most famous first-person shooter set before striking out to create something original for the first time in a decade, Bungie is no stranger to the open expanses of space, foreign landscapes, and heavily armored combatants effective at taking on throngs of enemies with little assistance. With Destiny, Bungie attempted to eschew the trappings of the first-person shooters of old, and instead hoped to fuse its battle-tested shooter skills with addictive quest- and raid-based nature of the MMO. There was plenty of potential in the mix, but Destiny doesn't quite fulfill all of it.

Many years in the future, our solar system is home to a battle of good and evil. A substantial being known as the Traveler arrives, with all the antagonistic Darkness trailing behind him. Battle ensues, and the Darkness is pushed away, but at a great cost to the Traveler. Now, after years of hovering dormant on Earth, the Traveler calls to you to help fight the forces of the Darkness once more. You are a Guardian, and you are the last hope. It's a tale as old as time, and at minutes, it certainly feels like Bungie is quite fine with relying on memetic consciousness to do all the heavy narrative lifting. Destiny's plot is around as concise and elaborate as the Cliff's Notes to a movie trailer. Your hero's journey would be more engaging had the entire lore of the universe not been locked away outside the core game itself. Bungie clearly went to great lengths in crafting the backstory of this alternate future, as well as the inhabitants therein, but to even begin to understand the essence of man and beast in Destiny, you've got to go to an outside source.

Is it woefully unfair to expect every last bit of exposition and story to be delivered entirely in this first entry in the Destiny set? Perhaps. We do already know there will be more games to come, and that's not even discussing the planned expansions due to arrive over the duration of the next year for the game as it stands today. Bungie has certainly crafted a vision of the future that is fascinating at first glance, what with Titans and Warlocks and odd new races populating the planetary system. But even tons of hours later, Destiny just dips beneath the surface on what any of it all means, and why it's all there. The great disappointment is that there's so many wonderful new things to be curious about, and there are not many explanations as to why they are so wondrous.

It's fortunate then that the combat of Destiny is quite enjoyable. If Bungie has proven one thing time and again, it's that it knows precisely what it's doing when it comes to shooting things with remarkable weaponry. While the imagination in armaments isn't necessarily inspired, Destiny's weapon system provides ample ballistic mayhem for lovers of more serious shooters. Above all, the feel of the weaponry is spot on. Assault rifles have a very true pull to their burst of fire, while handguns give a good kick between precise shots. Heavy machine guns have an indisputable weight to them, as well as the shotguns pack a wallop that both you as well as the man on the business end can feel immediately. The upgrade and progression system for weapons is intuitive, and offers a tiny bit of customization to tailor your loadout specific to your tastes. The lack of variety in base models is made up for by the varying degrees of simple statistics like range and precision, which gives each gun only a bit more flexibility and the fictional manufacturers a bit of style in design.


The guns themselves are a big element of combat in Destiny, but you'll rely on your own character's class just as much. All three possible classes (Hunter, Warlock and Titan) each offer distinct advantages and disadvantages over one another in the PvE sections of Destiny, though the Warlock still feels vastly underpowered comparatively in the PvP world. We'll get to that in a moment though. Whereas traditional MMOs feature various classes meant to balance one another in raids and quests, Destiny's classes don't really offer much in the way of teamwork compatibility in a familiar sense. All three contain a center powerset to start, with the the alternative of investigating another series of abilities once you reach level 15. For the most part, only the super special character abilities really offer any form of differentiation, but there are over a dozen different methods to make your Guardian your own, from the type of leap you have to focusing on stats like defense or agility. Still, the variation between the three isn't all that drastic, and you can feel confident in your first selection without worrying about whether or not you picked the right class to appreciate Destiny.

In the Crucible, Destiny's PvP arena, it's unfortunate that classes do matter, and despite the continued balance support, Hunters and Titans dominate play. That's not to say you can't have a good run with Warlock, or that you're automatically going to win because you're a Hunter or Titan. It's just a matter of those two groups having special abilities that are better tailored for the type of aggressive combat you'll partake in when fighting against real human opposition. Additionally, there's still a bit of a issue with higher-leveled characters having a bit of an edge due to loadouts and abilities that have been unlocked. Again, it's not that you've got no chance, it's just that characters that have leveled up a bit and wield Legendary or Exotic items have a bit of a leg up on the competition. This is in spite of Bungie's evening of the playing field in normal PvP. While the armor and strike damage might be evened out, the abilities are not, and at times it can be frustrating to get matched up with extremely high level players.

All those previously mentioned elements could have been found in any first-person shooter, but what really sets Destiny apart is the attempted meshing of more MMO sensibilities. Some mechanics translated quite well, like critical hits and strike damage, as well as certain weapons offering more damage if correctly tuned for a particular enemy sort. Additionally, the loot and work fairly well and crafting systems are both fully functional. It's true you'll have to grind a bit at points for materials at amounts that are higher, but right up until you reach level 20, everything is quite accessible, even if it's not explained very well at all. Just as Destiny's plot suffers from being under-described, so do many of the systems at the core of improving your character. There's a lot of experimentation and figuring things out on your own in Destiny, which is not necessarily a horrible thing, but it wouldn't have hurt to have a few hints or crafting pieces or tutorials available in regards to any of the customization.