But unfortunately the storytelling is pathetic. Somehow 'Bungie' managed to throw away that good idea by making a very dull and disappointing campaign. It seems to rely on this 'tell your own story' attitude, which might have worked if it wasn't for the game not explaining a damn thing to you. Even one of the main characters, known only as 'The Speaker', tells you he could explain things to you, but he's not going to. What's the point in that? A great chance to engage with the player, and yet they just throw it away. I ended getting more out of the intro than the actual story, which might signal to the developers that something is fundamentally wrong with plot. There just simply isn't any context. I never once got the sense that I had any purpose, I just felt like I was doing things because the game told me to, and fuck any decisions to make, this campaign is as linear as they come. Whilst playing the game I realized that maybe the campaign was actually a hindrance, there wasn't any good storytelling, and there sure as hell wasn't anything memorable, so what was the point?
I could tell you something that would make you care, but fuck it, you've already given me that 40 quid.
I do, however, have to praise the enemies the player is faced with. They are on the most part very interesting, and the wide variety means that each engagement requires the player to use a slightly different strategy. There are 4 different types in total. There's 'The Fallen', who are just giant angry insects that can be picked off with ease. Then there's 'The Hive', who sound like a shitty backstreet nightclub, but are actual just some noisy zombies. Thirdly there's 'The Vex', robots that just teleport a lot, and I mean a lot. And finally 'The Cabal', who unfortunately are not from Mortal Kombat, and instead resemble jumping teddybears, how menacing is that? But that list does provide a nice little variety to make even the most boring missions a little bearable. You are also accompanied as a player by 'Ghost', a helpful little robot that just sort of does everything for you. He's voiced by the amazing Peter Dinklage, who when he's not killing his own father is a very fine actor. I really liked his performance, I thought he fitted that helpful AI role very well, and so it pains me to see him be criticized all over the internet for what is apparently a 'monotone' performance. I don't know what they were expecting, after all he is a fucking robot. I wasn't expecting an Oscar winning Shakespearean epic from him, because at the end of the day he's playing something that isn't living. But then you never can please some people.
It's quite hard to care about mobs that the game doesn't even bother telling you about. What distinguishes this from another?
My favorite part of the game though is the combat system, it really is in a class of its own when you compare it to other MMOs. There is a wide choice of weaponry from various different categories, and they also have basic customization, although not as much as I would like. The various missions are well designed and allow the player to use the various combat mechanics to their advantage. I really would like to congratulate Bungie on an excellent melee and jumping system, which really come together nicely in what are two very polished mechanics. Multiplayer is also good, it isn't anything new or revolutionary, but it is a solid mode that performs its function to good effect. Its only flaw seems to be the reward system. You see you sometimes get rewarded with loot at the end of each game, however what determines who gets this loot is completely random, and so the player with the worst score could end up getting the best reward. And to be honest it's a fucking joke, I want to find the person that thought that was a good idea, as he must be one of the stupidest people alive.
An example of that random loot drop. The purple reward denotes a 'legendary' item, the blue is only a 'rare'.
The next problem comes from the game world, a world that Bungie said would be "alive", which turns out to be a massive lie. To my surprise the quite small world was full of the same things over and over again. I also felt the world wasn't alive, and actually quite bland, and player sightings are so few and far between that any social aspect of the game were rendered pointless, even on a map as small as this one. You always got the sense that nothing was different, there were some nice looking features, but it all looked the same. It wasn't a living world like you would find in a title such as 'Skyrim', instead it was as dead as the North Korean economy. There is some functionality as an MMO, you can start 'fireteams' with fellow players to roam the maps, and that works well. But for the RPG part it's just a total failure. It may be a very polished game, but behind the nice visuals it's a game with no soul or backbone, which is not what I paid 50 quid for.
This looks very nice, but haven't I just been here?
Overall 'Destiny' is quite a lackluster game, my original positive impressions have been overshadowed by these unfortunate glaring flaws. The repetitive missions and boring storyline emphasizes this, and the game can't escape from feeling like a massive grind. It just doesn't feel like a game that costs 500 million dollars to make, that budget must have been wasted on superficial things like combat and graphics, which are very nice, but where are those other core elements that make a great game? There is potential, it does come with a 10 year lifespan, and I really do hope it's much more of a game then. But for now it just feels like a game made by amateurs. Yours sincerely, a bitterly disappointed gamer.
Final Score: 61/100 ***
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