The creators of Halo give it another go.
Bungie is one of those developers that break barriers. They created the Halo series, and have just attempted to show that they can dominate the Sci-Fi genre with their new game, Destiny. Destiny is a beautiful game, with great mechanics and many “wow” moments. GameLuster will answer that burning question for those of you who haven’t tried it – “is it worth it?” At the time of this article the game currently sits at a 75 on metaritic, and that may be well deserved as Destiny is both good and bad for a new IP.
The story of Destiny is very subtle, but in a good way. It starts off just like the Beta did. You are woken up by a “ghost” in Old Russia. You eventually figure out that something called the Darkness is taking over the earth and surrounding planets. The last city on earth is protected by a giant death-star-esque entity called “The Traveller.” The Traveller is greatly affected by the darkness and is dormant. Your job as a guardian is to stop the darkness and find out vital information on why the traveller is dormant. The story starts out slow, but picks up once you are able to do the moon missions. You meet many people and enemies that help you piece together the story. Much like the halo series there is a great amount of lore surrounding it, and therefore just doing the main missions does not answer all of your questions.
The gameplay is also very unique. The best way to describe it is that it is fun. I honestly can’t really explain why, but it is fun. The gameplay is clean and crisp and everything works. Kills and melees are satisfying, and easy. As someone who loved the Halo series, this really takes me back to the days when melee was RB. The one issue I had about the gameplay is that none of the missions that are essential to the story (side missions) are basically just fighting off hoards of enemies while your ghost hacks something. This is quite frustrating, especially when you are doing a mission by yourself on the hardest difficulty.
That being said, the missions that involve the story are very entertaining, and take around half an hour to complete. They feature all different sorts of enemies and usually have a vital ending that feed the story. The Strike missions are equally as fun, and include unique boss fights that have you and your teammates strategizing to find the weak points and the golden loot. All missions have a “normal” mode and a “hard” mode that usually comes with a modifier (such as more enemies spawning). This makes it okay to be over levelled. Since the online mode adds experience to your player, you may be a level 15 but doing a level 10 mission. The “Hard” game mode makes the enemies around 4-5 levels higher, which makes the story challenging and fresh.
Each planet is also very unique, as there are different enemies. The moon has the hive, the earth has the fallen, venus has the vex, and so on. There are different species that get increasingly hard, and I really don’t understand why reviewers criticized this. There weren’t really any recycled enemies, unless you played through a mission more than once. The enemy AI is also very well made as they hide behind cover and give you a run for your money. The firefights also feature a great soundtrack, as what was inspected from Bungie. Even though Marty O’Donnell is not with Bungie anymore, they still managed to succeed (they did have Paul McCartney on their team!).
The online mode is called “crucible” and is very well done. It is hard to do well at the beginning, but it is very much like Halo. The PvP programming equalizes all of the stats to some extent so it comes down to skill. A level 20 player will most likely be better than a level 3, but it gives the lower levels a chance. The weapon progression isn’t balanced though, and the weapons with less recoil/ higher fire rate will be better at getting consistent kills. There are four game modes as of now, which is a smart move on Bungie’s behalf. Too little and it becomes boring, and too many and it spreads out your gaming population by too much. The four modes satisfy everyone as they include things like free for all and domination.
The game is very fun to play, and there is a lot to do after the you beat it. The main story is not as good as other Bungie games, but the lore itself can have some gamers hooked. The gameplay and soundtrack make the game what it is – unique. Bungie has succeeded again, and the game suffers virtually no problems. The issue with Destiny is that its not a bad game, but its also not a good game. Unlike Watchdogs it barely squeezes pass the dreaded 7/10 score because Destiny is legitimately fun. Just like in Halo Reach, this game feels like Bungie could have done much more. Destiny is fun and totally worth the purchase, but if we want a great game I guess we will have to wait for Destiny 2.
Positives: Fun Gameplay, Great Soundtrack, Perfect Online
Negatives: Subtle Story, Hoards of Enemies, Hard To Meet People
What do you think? Do you agree with this review? Let us know in the comments below!
